Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10; Psalm 23
Back in those days long ago—I’m referring now not to the times of Jesus but to those times before the airwaves were pretty much filled up with the economic troubles of our country and the political troubles of the Obama campaign—back in those days long ago before Bear Stearns and Jeremiah Wright, which seems like a very long time ago, but I guess was probably just a few weeks ago, it happened that in the space of a few days I came across a series of stories on radio shows or in the print media on the subject of…happiness. Ah, for the good old days! I’m pretty sure it was just a few weeks ago though, because I was already beginning to think at the time of what I might preach about on Easter. And when I heard these stories, I made a mental note that this might be something I would want to say something about on Easter. And so it is.
My ears perked up when I heard these stories, because actually happiness is something that has bothered me for quite some time. That is to say, the concept of happiness has bothered me; it’s not that the reality of happiness is so bothersome, although…certainly one of the thoughts I have had about happiness is that the reality of it is pretty elusive for many people, or at least it always seems to come in such a diluted form, that it’s almost unrecognizable, and it may not be quite all that it’s cracked up to be. I am not really a true believer in happiness.
And that’s actually sort of what the people being featured in these news spots were saying, I think, in one way or another. I don’t know whether you may have heard some of the same things I did, but it seems there have been several books published recently which question the place of honor happiness has come to occupy in our culture, question whether the pursuit of happiness is really such a basic part of human life as Thomas Jefferson thought it was and as Americans seem to have believed ever since.
Personally, I have always had trouble with that phrase that Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence, “that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I have always had trouble believing that part of our national creed. And too often I have felt that we live out that part of our national creed all too well, that it is all too true that the pursuit of happiness lies at the heart of what it means to be an American.
I haven’t read the books that were being discussed on the radio, couldn’t even tell you their titles, don’t have any interest in doing book reviews in an Easter Sunday sermon. But I am grateful that someone, several folks apparently, from whatever their perspective, are challenging the notion that happiness is such an obviously, unquestionably good thing. It is an assumption that I believe needs to be challenged. And the first thing that I want to say on this Easter Sunday is that whether or not the pursuit of happiness lies at the heart of what it means to be an American, it does not lie at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
I think the reason I thought when I heard these radio spots that I might want to say something about the subject of happiness on Easter is because too often Christians have treated Easter as a kind of a happy holiday. Easter is an important time to me. Its message does go to the heart of what it means for me to be a Christian. But that message is not adequately expressed by spirited songs and words proclaiming victory over sorrow and death.
That’s all good. We wouldn’t want to do without those songs or those words. But to pretend that we don’t still live in a Good Friday world, to engage in kind of oblivious celebrations in the midst of this Good Friday world that we live in, is to be in violation of what I believe Easter is really all about. Oblivious celebrations are not in fact a celebration of life. They are ways of cooperating with the powers of death.
One of the things that made my ears perk up at those radio spots I mentioned, was the idea, the flip side of happiness not being the be-all and end-all of human striving, the idea going along with that that maybe unhappiness, sadness, sorrow, grief, depression, that maybe these are not things that are to be avoided at all costs and when encountered gotten over or gotten rid of as quickly as possible.
I heard people saying that sorrow is not a sign of failure in our pursuit of happiness and therefore a sign of a person’s failure as a human being. I heard people saying that grief is not something that is ok but only so long as it doesn’t last very long and it doesn’t interfere very much with the pursuit of happiness, that sadness and depression are not necessarily things to be treated with pills, that it is not the case that wherever and whenever they occur, they should be medicated away.
Sometimes, of course, all those things can be problems and need to be somehow addressed and perhaps treated. Sometimes medication is called for and necessary. Sometimes sorrow can be a destructive force in our lives, a power of death. Sometimes grief can be as well, can be a power of death interfering with our ability to live and to love. But not always, not always by any means.
When I heard this kind of discussion on the radio my ears perked up, as I said, but also my spirit perked up. Depression is something I have struggled with myself. It is something that has affected many people in my life, people I care about. I find it hard to wish something other than happiness for people I care about. I have known my own sometimes desperate need for more happiness in my life.
But I also know in my heart that happiness in any simple sense, in any ordinary sense of the word, is not really the goal of my life or anyone else’s, that it is an illusory and misguided goal, that it is at best a by-product of pursuing other things. And I know in my heart that if my soul or anyone else’s is to reach out for life’s fullness, that sorrow and grief will need to be embraced, not just avoided or treated. Single-minded pursuit of happiness represents not the fulfillment of our humanity but a shrinking and a shallowing of our humanity, if you’ll allow me the term. And if we approach Easter in a similar spirit, shutting out the shadows of our living in favor of proclaiming the victory of Christ, then we will be shrinking and shallowing our faith.
It is Easter, and I will gladly join in the songs of celebration and the words of triumph. I will gladly join in singing “Jesus Christ is risen today. Alleluia.” And “Soar we now where Christ has led, following our exalted head. Made like Christ, like Christ we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia.” I will gladly join in the singing. But not without also acknowledging that it is most of the time difficult for my spirit to soar or to feel triumphant in the way the hymn would like me to feel, not without acknowledging that I live in the shadows cast by the realities of the world we live in.
I will not pretend today that the war in Iraq has not entered its sixth year. The shadow cast by that war over my spirit is a dense one. The fact that today is Easter Sunday does not make it go away. I am in a constant state of mourning because of that war. I frankly don’t understand how anyone can not be in a state of mourning because of that war. I do understand that some people sincerely believe it was and is the right thing to do. So I understand that while I mourn because of a war I hold to be unjustified and unnecessary, others may mourn the necessity of the same war. But I don’t understand how one can let that war, and the larger violence of which it is a part, into our consciousness, how we can think about that for one minute without mourning.
Of course life goes on, and to some degree we put the mourning aside or try to, try to keep it safely locked up in some corner of our spirit. But if we were really successful at this, really successful at mourning just a little bit or not at all, would it be a source of pride? Would our humanity be larger for doing so? Would we be somehow closer to fulfilling God’s promise for our lives? I don’t think I need to tell you what my answer to those questions would be.
Along these lines, I have something I feel like I need to say with regard to the whole controversy around Jeremiah Wright. Not that you need to hear one more person weigh in on the subject, but I may have a perspective you haven’t heard in all the hysteria we’ve been immersed in; it’s certainly a perspective I haven’t heard. And in any case, I need to say something, not just to get my opinion in there but because Jeremiah Wright is a fellow UCC clergy whom I have respected and admired for forty years and whose words have seldom failed to both inspire and challenge me. And Trinity Church is a congregation where I have spent time in worship, where I have attended meetings and broken bread in the church basement, where I have taken confirmation classes to have their ideas of what the Christian church can be expanded, a congregation that at any given time may have upwards of 50 people actively preparing for the ministry, some of whom have been my friends, a congregation that has done enormous good for people inside and outside of the congregation. Sojourners does not need to be like Trinity and almost certainly never will be, but if by some miracle we did become like Trinity, we would have reason to be proud of ourselves. It would not seem right for me to go through this Easter sermon and pretend that nothing is going on regarding Trinity Church and Jeremiah Wright.
So here’s one of my thoughts, the one I want to share with you today. I can certainly understand how people would be disturbed and even outraged when the clips were played of a few of the things Jeremiah Wright said. When I heard him say the words “God damn America”, I was disturbed. I wanted to give him every benefit of the doubt because of all the reasons I just said a moment ago. But it did seem like it would be hard to dream up a context where those words would sound acceptable, where people would say, “Oh, well in that case, ok.”
As I have heard a little more about that sermon, I think maybe hearing the whole sermon would make a difference to at least some people. But let’s put that aside. Let’s assume that these words are going to seem, no matter what the context, immoderate and intemperate and downright objectionable. I had to ask myself whether I could ever imagine myself saying something like that, and my answer was no, I could not. I could not ever imagine myself saying such a thing. But as I thought about that answer a little bit, I gradually realized that I wasn’t so sure I was proud of that answer, proud that I could be so clear about that answer.
Let’s assume that Jeremiah Wright went way too far in his statements. Actually the one in question was more about race and poverty and actually about not making nations into gods as I understand it, but I would be surprised if he hasn’t also used immoderate, intemperate, unreasonable, totally offensive language with regard to the war in Iraq. Let’s assume that he has. And then let’s ask: What about those of us who have gone not far enough, way not far enough in raising voices of protest? Are we in a position to criticize? What about those of us who have made sure that our words are measured and moderate and not too offensive to most people? Are we on some higher moral ground? Am I as a minister more faithful for having said too little rather than too much? The answer is no, no, and again no.
And that answer only increases my sense of living in the shadows, not in full resurrection light. I stand in need, the whole Christian church, stands in need of resurrection, not because we have gone too far, but because we have not gone far enough, not only with regard to the war in Iraq, but also with regard to race and racism, and poverty, and a whole array of other matters where our lack of urgency, our lack of immoderate passion is not particularly anything to be proud of. I’m not trying to beat up on myself here, or on anyone else. I don’t expect any of us to change who we are, go out and try to imitate Jeremiah Wright or anyone else. I am asking though for a bit of humility. And I am suggesting that voices such as Jeremiah Wright’s, no matter how outrageous they may sound to some, may be voices of conscience that we need to hear, not merely condemn.
I am suggesting that I don’t feel very triumphant today. We live and move in some shadows that sometimes seem pretty dense. Sometimes it’s because of public matters that affect all of us. Sometimes it’s because of more private or personal matters, because of an abiding grief or loss or loneliness, because of worry about our own health or well being, or likely even more, the health and well being of people we love. Sometimes the combination of such things makes it hard to celebrate Easter with quite the joyful heart or the unrestrained voice that we may feel the occasion deserves.
Nevertheless, I hear the Easter message: Christ is risen. I don’t hear it so much today as the expansive kind of message it can sometimes be, that proclaims a victory of cosmic proportions, that sends a ringing message through the heavens and across the earth that in the end, whatever the present reality may be, that in the end all will be well. That at the end of my life and your life, all will be well. That at the end of human life on this planet all will be well, for death will be swallowed up by life. That the powers of death in the end will not prevail, that God will prevail and love will prevail. In the end. That is the grand vision of Easter.
But there is another kind of Easter message as well. A more modest one, to be sure, but sometimes a more real one. We who live in shadows of many kinds know that we are still waiting and praying for resurrections, in the lives of people who are dear to us, in the life of this fragile, threatened world we live in. We live on this side of resurrection, not the other side. We live on this side, where the powers of death are still very real.
But there is an Easter message for us too. It is why I chose the 23rd Psalm as a reading this morning. I know it’s the Old Testament, has nothing to do with Christ or his resurrection. But it says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadows, even the shadows of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me.” Easter doesn’t have to be about Christ reigning in the heavens, about the opening of paradise, about the promise of victory at the end of time. Easter doesn’t even have to be about soaring spirits. It is about the promise: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me.” It is not about Christ taking his place at the right hand of God but taking his place alongside us, like the gardener talking to Mary in her sorrow, like the stranger on the road to Emmaus talking to the disciples in their grief and lostness, like one who breaks bread with us while we are waiting and praying for future resurrections. The Easter message is that Christ is not dead. He is not a distant memory or a marker in the ground, but a living presence, a living presence no matter how deep or dense the shadows of our living may be. The Easter message is in the 23rd Psalm and in the very last words of the gospel of Matthew: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” “For lo, I am with you always, until the end of time.” May it be so. Blessings to everyone on this Easter Sunday. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 23, 2008