GETTING REAL An Easter Sermon
16 April 2006
James Ishmael Ford

Today I want to talk about Easter. I want to talk about how hard it is for many of us to unpack and find meaning within that story. Because of that difficulty, and at the same time because I think there is so much for us pointed to by the Easter story, I’m going to draw upon that lovely children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit to help. I’ll use it in a little slight of hand, which I hope will allow us, all of us, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, pagans, humanists, whatever, and whomever have chosen to be here today, to perhaps find a pointer or two within the story of Easter, that can guide us to wisdom, to healing, to love, to the “Real.” Because time is short, I’ll really only explore one point, one aspect of becoming real. But, I hope, you’ll find it a true Easter reflection, an authentic entry point, and an assist on your own path.

Many years ago, when I was in seminary in Berkeley, California, I found myself at a cocktail party. Those who know me may suspect I’m not at my happiest at such events. It was a party related to Jan’s work and quickly she was caught up with people who wanted to discuss some mater related to the work. So I was pretty much on my own for a while. I really hate small talk with strangers. I’m not particularly good at it. Sadly, I am, as everyone who knows me says, basically a boring person. I’m fanatically interested in religion. I’m also interested in how spirituality connects to social engagement. It seems for many of my friends I’m barely aware of much else.

In my defense, I’m not completely oblivious to other things. I did notice the woman wearing an evening dress where her entire back right down to where those little dimples right above her bottom, was all exposed. Then in some weird confluence of meandering, and admittedly, to my surprise and small delight, she and another person (interestingly, I recall nothing about him) and I were standing together holding onto our drinks. The woman smiled brightly at us, and then asked me, “So, what do you do?”

I replied how I was currently attending seminary as a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry. In such events this can be a conversation stopper. Oh, how interesting, and a quick move away. But not this time. She said, “Oh. I visited a UU church. But, it was too religious, too Christian for my taste.” This was California, not by any reasonable construction a hotbed of UU Christianity, so my theological ears perked up. “Where did you go?” I asked. She replied, “To the congregation in San Rafael.” I was then doubly confused. In those days that congregation in Marin County was perhaps the most humanist-oriented, that is aggressively non-religious community in a pretty humanist-oriented part of the UU world.

Then a small, perhaps a fifteen watt bulb, went on above my head. “When did you attend?” I asked. She replied “On Christmas.” She paused, “And just to make sure, I went back on Easter.”

So, there we are. Here we are, on Easter Sunday. Even our most non-traditionally religious UU communities, such as that Marin congregation, which possibly interestingly, I attended twenty and more years ago, intuit how we need to observe our ancient western traditions, such as Easter. Even the non-religious, people who never otherwise go to church - show up for services then, now. While somewhere along the line we Unitarian Universalists shifted from being a liberal Christian community to a liberal religious community that includes Christians; Christian stories and traditions remain very much part of our heritage. Acknowledging this bit of background certainly opens more questions. For instance how do UUs celebrate Easter, someone once asked? Perhaps, of course, the only appropriate reply is “Very, very carefully.”

Ours is a lively and complicated tradition. Our contemporary spiritual sensibility, by which in our radically non-creedal way I don’t mean necessarily for any given individual, but of the tradition within which we stand - is profoundly shaped by the Renaissance, the European enlightenment and through the last century the modern humanist movement. We cherish the individual and we cherish reason as a cardinal good. All that, plus. Our contemporary spirituality includes seriously investigating the world’s various spiritualities, a move that has allowed me personally as well as many others I care deeply for to find a real spiritual home. All that is necessarily acknowledged, and in other venues as appropriate, celebrated. That said, I believe we owe most to the Christian tradition, importantly and wisely, washed through a distinctly Jewish perspective (which deserves its own exploration, but at another time). This re-visioned Christianity is, I think, our Unitarian Universalist taproot into wisdom. Taken as one thing, all this, that whole list, I believe, is our treasured way into healing the hurt of human hearts and to find joy and perspective in our ordinary lives.

Today, as we do every year, we consider Easter. I confess this isn’t easy. But I believe with open hearts and open minds, we can also throw open gates to meaning and purpose, find guidance for our lives, and help for those who we touch on our journey. The real question as we hold up a story like Easter is what is meaningful for us, people who are drawn to the stories in varying degree, but also who for the most part deeply doubt; people who for the most part embrace a rational and this-worldly perspective, as well as constantly being open to many different spiritual directions?

Last week in our reflection on Passover we discussed how powerful and important memory is. I certainly believe memory is something amazing, possibly the great, maybe even the unique mark of our human condition. At the same time in the most profound spiritual stories, such as Passover and its child, Easter; our invitation is not simply to remember, as powerful and true and compelling as that might be; but to find the truth of the story as our living possibility. For me this is the deal. What in any spiritual story is a pointer to the healing of hurt, and the opening of possibility? Here story, spirituality and metaphor find common ground. And this is to what I wish to point today. Here I hope we find our “take away” for the week, maybe even for our lives.

Jan Nielsen, minister at the Universalist Church of West Hartford wrote of Easter, “This is the day for stories, and it is our souls, our winter weary, hurried up, stressed out, living with uncertainty, worried, and self-doubting souls that so need a story or two.” I sure understand this need. However, before we go on, maybe we need just a little more set up, some ground rules for investigating the meaning of Easter for a religious liberal. My own motto for this investigation is, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truth.” That is, at this point, for today, at least; don’t worry so much about the history, and such questions as did Jesus really rise from the dead in a physical historical sense, or whether there’s much history in the story at all? Not the point.

Not the point. Here we’re talking about metaphor, a, if you will “cross-mapping” of concepts, and here, of possibility. In this case, in the story of Easter, we find the story of Jesus, his death and resurrection pointing to the deepest possibility of our own lives, yours and mine. That said, I’m sure it’s still difficult for many of us. So, perhaps for us it might be easiest to get a handle on at least some of the deeper points of Easter if we compare it with a less weighted story. That’s, I hope obviously, the point of our children’s story today. Margery Williams’ novel, The Velveteen Rabbit has real power to it; it’s certainly not your ordinary bedtime story. In a sermon I found online Methodist minister Maggie McNaught asks, perhaps not rhetorically, “Am I allowed as an adult to confess that the Velveteen Rabbit still whispers in my ear?” She then goes on to support of her thesis that this small book can be particularly valuable on our spiritual quest for what in the Velveteen Rabbit is called the “Real.”

This path to the real is difficult for many of us, maybe all of us. It touches upon hurt within an authentic spiritual way. As such perhaps for some of us it resonates with aspects of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, which many here, including me, found excessive in its minute devotion to an assertion of salvation, of healing through suffering. But, even if Gibson overstated the point, which I think he did with gory and unnecessary attention to minute detail; there still is a truth to confront.

Judith Meyer, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica observed “The rabbit learns that to become real is to have your hair loved off, your eyes drop out and your joints get shabby. It can’t happen unless you let yourself be held and handled by a child; until having expended all your charm and cuteness, who you are is what those who love you actually see.” Here’s the Easter mystery, Judith adds, most mysteriously, most curiously for many of us. “And then you not only become real for now, you become real forever.”

What are we to make of this assertion?

That Methodist minister I quoted a bit earlier, Maggie McNaught cited one of Paul’s letters, in this case to the Romans. Not, I have to admit, one of my favorite spiritual documents. But here, and in this context, so compelling, even for me, a post-modern rationalist existential humanist. “For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God…” She goes on with her quote, but for us, here, today, I find this sufficient. Only those who become as little children can approach the kingdom of God, the republic of heaven, the way of joy and peace and healing. There is something, complicated as it is, in our surrender to what is, to our acknowledging we are not in charge, and instead, in our finding joy in what presents.

Possibly the most important passage in Margery Williams novel, is, at least for me, found in that conversation between the Rabbit and the Skin Horse. It speaks, I think, of the Easter mystery, and of our own possibility, if we’re willing:

“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I really think this is the heart of the story. I also have a small caveat. We do get real in an instant, in the beat of a heart, in our intimate encounter with what genuinely is – whether that be a child’s laugh, a pebble bouncing off bamboo, or possibly walking in the woods and coming out into a glen where everything, absolutely everything presents itself in a single bright moment. That caveat acknowledged then the story continues, all of it. The living of love is hurtful, at least in the sense of our sharp edges being worn down, our bumptiousness made calm, our cherished opinions turned into questions, into curiosity.

Here is the Easter story. It’s about surrender into real life. It’s about being willing for the world to work its wonder, and turning away from nothing, absolutely nothing. And, if we’re honest, that hurts. But, if we let ourselves go into it, and not turn away; something joyous happens.

We become Real.

Here is the Easter mystery.

Strange beyond strange. And yet, so true.

And worthy of endless exploration. But here, for today, just a start.

Amen.