When Life Calls Us Back
Sermon by Steve Edington
April 16, 2006
Two Sundays ago, in the sermon I gave to wrap up our social justice workshop weekend I noted that one of the ministers I admired and looked up to when I was a seminarian was Rev. William Sloan Coffin, who was then the Chaplain at Yale University. Rev. Coffin combined a real feel for people and their personal and spiritual needs with the strongly prophetic stances he took in the civil rights and peace movements of the late 60s and early 70s. I recounted, in that sermon, some of the things he'd said to us young and aspiring ministers about the need to combine the pastoral and the social justice aspects of ministry when he paid a call at the seminary I attended nearly 40 years ago. So I had to catch my breath this past Thursday morning when I picked up the New York Times and read that Bill Coffin had died at age 81. His obituary filled nearly a whole page of that paper as it told of his full and often controversial life.
William Sloane Coffin was born into a New York City family of wealth and prestige with all the social and political connections that go with that station in life. He was too young for service in the Second World War, but served in the CIA for a time in the years immediately following that conflict before pursuing the liberal Protestant ministry. He knew how to operate in the circles of power and privilege while also ministering to and speaking out for those whom Jesus termed "the least of these." He could handle himself with grace and conviction and humor equally well in the Halls of Congress, or in speaking at a rally for peace or racial justice. Bill Coffin's ability to speak truth to power landed him in both the White House and the jail house on differing occasions. He knew how to minister well in both places.
I found it a little eerie that a person I saw as embodying some of the very best aspects of Protestant Christianity and of the liberal ministry died during the Christian Holy Week when the themes of death and resurrection come most strongly to the fore. I found myself wondering how Bill Coffin felt as he took the measure of his life, and of the times in which his life came to an end. The man who strove so hard to bring a religious and moral voice of opposition to the Vietnam War lived to see the country he loved so much, and served so well, succumb yet again to the folly of another senseless war. The man who worked so diligently for racial justice did live to see some of the gains for which he fought, while also living to see some of the racial tensions and conflicts that still bedevil us. A man who strove so diligently to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots lived to see that gap actually widen. Did he feel, I wondered, despair at the close of his life; did he feel it was all for naught? In the admittedly little bit of personal contact I had with this gentleman he always came across as a hopeful, cheerful, good-hearted, and good humored guy. He loved it when Gary Trudeau used him as a partial prototype for his Rev. Scot Sloane character in the Doonesbury comic strip. I doubt he gave in to despair.
So I spent part of this past Maundy Thursday reflecting and meditating on Rev. Coffin's remarkable life; and I even tried to divine what kind of message he might have left for persons like myself who have been influenced by him. I even got something back. I got words from Bill Coffin to this effect: "OK friends, I gave this my best shot. You're going to have to take it from here. My life is done, but you still have yours; so keep the faith and keep the message." In the few moments that these thoughts went through my head I found myself going from feeling rather sad over how far we still are from some of the ideals that had inspired me, through people like Mr. Coffin, as I prepared for the ministry; to getting a sense of renewal and hope that such ideals are still worth striving after. It was like re-calling, or being called back to some of the reasons that I chose this career and calling in the first place.
I wonder - we can never really know but I still wonder - if that was the same kind of process that Jesus' followers went through after his death. You read those Jesus stories in the New Testament and you can see how they had every good reason to feel that their lives had come up terribly short. Jesus' vision and the wisdom behind it that they were trying to help him spread ended up with their leader being executed in a most horrific way - leaving the disciples scared and running away and hiding out. Who could blame them? They probably figured they were next on Rome's hit list.
Whatever came next is shrouded in legend and myth. But at some point the disciples came to believe that the Spirit of their leader was still amongst them, that his message of hope and liberation had not died, and that they had been given yet another chance to carry that message forth. What Jesus' life had been about - as I spoke to it last Sunday - called them back to who they were and to what they could still be and do. Eventually they got over their fear and uncertainty and despair and chose life again. They felt defeated and frightened, but then found a reason to meaningfully live again. They experienced, that is, a resurrection in their own lives - which later came to be told as the resurrection of the One whom they had been following.
This, in fact, is the human dynamic or the human experience behind the Easter legend; that death occurs and then new life emerges out of it. This is a very ancient promise actually. It was celebrated at this time of year well before either the Passover or Easter stories ever came to be told and observed. The earliest human beings who lived in this hemisphere celebrated the return of life to a seemingly dead earth as winter gave way to spring. The very date of Easter itself comes from those earliest of earth-based or pagan, celebrations. It is observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. I'm sure I had to learn this sometime back when I studied early Church history, but I've long forgotten why the early Church leaders chose a nature and pagan based way for setting the date for Easter, instead of just designating a date for Jesus' death and resurrection in the way that they did for his birth. Even the very name "Easter" comes from a pagan fertility goddess.
Then you've got these rabbits and eggs. When I was a kid being raised in a very traditional Christian family and church I could never quite put all that together on Easter Sunday. I'd go to church in the morning and hear about Jesus' death and resurrection and then go home and eat chocolate rabbits and hunt for colored eggs. When I ask about it my question always got shunted aside since nobody wanted to talk to me about pagan fertility symbols.
I offer this not to belittle Easter or Passover, or any other such observance; but rather to point out that whatever particular names and practices are involved, what happens at this time of year is a universal, human, and earthly event. For our earliest human ancestors it was a time when the earth itself called them back to life and hope. And I think we still get some sense of what they felt as we see the earthly resurrection of spring coming again. So while I continue to find metaphorical meaning in the Christian story for this season, becoming a Unitarian Unversalist has actually allowed me to find a wider appreciation for the holiday - or holy day - itself.
One of my colleagues in the UU ministry, the Rev. Mark Harris, puts it very well when he noted: "We Unitarian Universals its celebrate the many resurrections of this season. We celebrate the glories of the earth when birds take to wing and crocuses force their way through the crust of snow to announce the arrival of spring. We celebrate the untold number of courageous individuals and groups who sacrificed their lives to liberate others from oppression and create a more just and loving world. We celebrate the ability of the human heart to overcome terrible personal tragedy or handicap and affirm once more the ability to love or excel when many others would have given up hope. Easter celebrates the times of witnessing, experiencing, and creating the resurrections of human life." Very well put, I feel.
An Easter moment, then, is a time when life calls us back - back from a time of loss or defeat or from the deaths-in-life that inevitably come our way. The Easter challenge is this: Are we ready to respond when that call comes? It is true that you cannot rush a resurrection. If your life has been broken in some way it doesn't quite work to pretend that all is well and healed if it hasn't really happened. Just as we have to wait for the earth to come back to life; there are times when we have to wait for life in its fullness to come back to us. But when it does, when life calls us back, we have to be ready to respond.
This gets me to my favorite Easter story, which does not come from any Biblical account; and is not even about a reawakening earth, and it has no eggs or rabbits in it. But it does have a bear as its central character. The name of the story is The Nine By Nine Foot Cage.
Once upon a time - when and where is not important - there was a bear who traveled with a circus. He wasn't trained to do anything in the way that the performing bears were. His only role was to sit, or pace around, in a nine by nine foot cage that would be placed beside the road near the entrance to the circus itself. He was like a living billboard or broadside. People would see him and then they'd know that the circus was in town. Because he was more or less expendable the bear was not especially well kept, his cage was seldom cleaned, and he was fed whatever was left over once the performing animals had been taken care of. All he ever did, day in and day out, was walk around in a square - nine feet in each direction.
As things turned out, this was not a very well run circus and eventually it went bankrupt. All the equipment was sold off, the performers had to find new jobs, and the animals were either sold to other circuses or sent off to zoos. Since our bear had no value as a performer he was shipped off to a zoo. And by a great stroke of fortune it was one of these zoos that are built in such a way that allows animals a lot of freedom of movement in areas that resemble their natural habitat while also being protected from the visitors to the zoo. There were no cages. So there the bear was - free to wander as he would within the overall confines of his surroundings. And yet, so this story goes, for the remainder of his life the bear never ventured beyond an area of a nine by nine foot square. He was afraid to break out of his old pattern.
The story, of course, does not require a great deal of interpretation. The bars were gone. The stone - to use another metaphor - had been rolled away. But the bear still had to choose life again. The only bars left were the ones in his mind and spirit, which proved to be as real as the ones that had been around him. It was those bars of the mind and spirit that he had to get rid of in order to truly know a resurrection. Of course he didn't have unlimited freedom, but then, none of us do either. And yet within the confines of our time bound lives we, like our bear, are given opportunities to know rebirth and renewal after those times when life has deeply wounded or diminished us. That is the promise of this Easter season.
While a personal God is not a part of my personal theology, I do believe in a Creative Power that is at work or can be at work, both in our lives and beyond our lives. I've even been known to call this Creative Power "God" on occasion. It is this Creative Power we each and all possess, I believe, that allows and enables us to keep saying "yes" in the face of the many "no's" we encounter. It is this Creative Power that calls us from our times of retreat and hiding, back into re-engagement. When it comes to our earth we do have to wait for a resurrection; we have to wait for the Creative Power to bring us the blessings of spring. But when it comes to the rhythms of our lives, in all their great glory and in all their deep tragedy, we are the ones who must be agents of resurrection. We are the ones
who still have to respond when our bars of the spirit are lifted. We are the ones who have to do the shaping in order that we may fulfill the promises of our own lives.
I cited a reading by Rev. Mark Harris a little earlier. I'd like to return to it now as a way of closing these thoughts. He writes: "If we believe in a creative power which shatters the icy tomb of winter with the life-giving miracle of spring, we have seen a resurrection. If we believe in a creative power which moves tens and then tens of thousands of people to cry out against injustice, enabling the downfall of hatred, then we have created a resurrection. If we believe in a creative power within each human breast which enables us to break the bonds of personal pain and know the hope of new tomorrows, then we have experienced a resurrection."
Such is the challenge and promise of living in this season of the year and in all the seasons of our lives: That we can create and discover meaning until the end of our days.
The theologian Sam Keen, author of To A Dancing God, made an observation about the life of his father shortly after his father had passed away. Of him Dr. Keen wrote, "he died only at the end of his life." I cannot think of a more a worthy life goal. To die only at the end of one's life is to not be defeated by the various deaths-in-life that will come our way. It is to create and discover meaning with all of the life that we are given.
To return to where I began today, the last public appearance that Rev. William Sloan Coffin made was at his former pulpit at New York City's Riverside Church in the fall of 2003. By then he had suffered a series of strokes. But he still had usable speech and still had his old fire and wit as he spoke on the subject of patriotism and nationalism in the face of the Iraq war. Here's some of what he said: "Patriotism at the expense of another country is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race. Let us resolve to be patriots always; nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and the flora and fauna and human life that it supports - one planet with clean air, soil, and water; and with liberty and justice for all."
Bill Coffin held up his vision for humanity, and his hope and his love of life, for as long as his life allowed him to do so. With the lives that we are given may we also be bearers of hope and life and life abundant for as long as we are permitted to do so and thereby live until the end of our lives. A blessed and happy Easter to all of you.
Stephen D. Edington
April 16, 2006
