LO, THE EARTH AWAKES AGAIN
April 16, 2006The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
Reflections on Passover
“When the spirit struck us free we could scarcely believe it…” writes the activist priest Daniel Berrigan, in his re-write of Psalm 126. I imagine this was felt by the ancient Israelites as they found themselves free from the bondage of the Pharoah of Egypt. Their mouths must have been “filled with laughter,” and their “tongues with pure joy.”
The story of the exodus from Egypt is re-told every year at Passover by Jews around the world, be they religious or secular.
Each year, we are reminded of the terrible oppression that afflicted the Israelites – how they were forced into slavery, and how even when Moses went to Pharoah and begged him to free his people, the Pharoah refused.
And each year, we are reminded of the miracles their God provided for them – the ten plagues on the land of Egypt to try to convince the Pharoah to free the slaves, the “passing over” the Israelites’ homes to save them from the final plague, and the parting of the Red Sea to let them escape the Pharoah’s army.
And finally, we are reminded that as the Israelites departed from Egypt, leaving everything they knew behind, the sprit of Yahweh accompanied them throughout, giving them the courage they needed to continue this long and frightening journey to freedom.
In the Seders I’ve attended in the past, the story doesn’t end with the liberation of the ancient Israelites. Instead, we are asked to remember others who have faced oppression, and have struggled to liberate themselves: Native Americans, African slaves, women, the working poor, people with AIDS, immigrants, Jews, African Americans, sexual minorities, there are many needing to be honored.
And we are invited to remember those individual men and women who, like Moses, answered the call to lead their people to freedom: Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, and so many more who worked for freedom in small, quiet ways, but without whom those more famous leaders could not have won. It reminds us of the power that one individual can have, and invites us to consider ourselves as holding such possibilities.
And finally, as we remember the story of Passover, and of all the subsequent liberation movements right up to our own time, let us not forget the role that religion has played. The Israelites were a community of faith; and it was that faith that allowed them to move forward in the face of great challenge and fear.
It was people of faith who often challenged Hitler in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and who risked their lives to save the victims of Nazism.
It was the Black church that led the civil rights movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s in this country; and it was white clergy who Martin Luther King, Jr. called on to join him in Selma, Alabama one weekend to march for justice. Unitarian minister James Reeb answered the call, and lost his life doing so.
The movement for economic justice for the poor of this country – particularly the working poor – is supported and led by many in the faith community.
And now, as a new movement for justice among young immigrants is beginning to blossom, we see Cardinal Mahoney stepping forth as one of its spokespeople, and people of all faiths standing in solidarity with them.
Passover invites us to celebrate the courage of the ancient Israelites in their journey toward freedom. But it also invites us to celebrate the courage of freedom fighters throughout history, and to make their struggle our own.
Reflections on Easter
There were too many deaths this past week – deaths of people I loved like my friend Elizabeth; deaths of people I admired and missed, like Katharina Smith & of course before her, Stan Challis; deaths of loved ones of people I care about, like Bonnie Norwood’s mother; and finally deaths of people who had become heroes to me, like William Sloan Coffin. It felt a bit like Good Friday all week long.
I had just finished reading Coffin’s last book, Letters to a Young Doubter. In one of the letters, he writes, “By all appearances, it is a Good Friday world. But by the light of Easter,…we can dimly discern a ‘Yes, but’ kind of message. Yes, fear and self-righteousness, indifference and sentimentality kill; but love never dies….The Easter message says that all the tenderness and strength that on Good Friday we saw…stretched out on a cross – all that beauty and goodness is again alive and with us now….”
The story of Easter is, like that of Passover, a story of liberation – only in this story, it’s not the liberation of a whole community of people from oppression, but the liberation of new life from the tomb of death. And as our Responsive Reading suggests, it is we who are invited by this story to roll away the stone from our soul, and move from the grief and sorrow of Good Friday, into the joy and possibilities of Easter.
But it takes strength and courage to move out of that Good Friday darkness. It may be hurt and anger at the ending of a relationship, or fear from the loss of a job, or grief at the death of someone we loved; it could be any number of sorrows that are burdening our soul, and locking us into a life of solitude and hopelessness.
Joan Chittister, a writer and activist for peace and justice, suggests that “Our struggles begin at those junctures of life where the past disappears and the future seems unclear or unacceptable; there is irreparable interruption.” She says that these junctures often hit us just when everything seems to be going well; suddenly the rug gets pulled out from under us, and we’re left feeling betrayed by God or life – defeated and hopeless.
Removing the stone that has blocked out the light means we must engage the struggle that has confronted us. We never heal our sorrow or despair by ignoring it’s power, or by rushing the process.
I once knew a woman – a college professor – whose husband died very suddenly. But rather than taking some time to grieve, she immediately returned to work, and for two years insisted that she was doing just fine. And then, all of a sudden she came unraveled, and we had to begin the process of engaging her grief and allowing it its time.
But the purpose of engaging our struggle – whatever it happens to be – isn’t to remain there with it, but to allow it to teach us and transform us. That’s what Holy Saturday is for – a time in the Christian world to keep vigil – to meditate and engage the struggles of our soul. “If we decide to endure to the end,” writes Chittister, “we come out of it changed by the doing of it. We dare the development of the Self.”
The story of Good Friday and Easter is one of death and resurrection – not necessarily of the body, but rather the soul. It speaks to us of our yearning for light in the midst of darkness, and for hope in the midst of deep despair. And it assures us that no matter how bleak our world may appear, that courage and love will be our companions – sometimes in the form of people who love us, sometimes in the form of our inner wisdom, and sometimes in the form of whatever it is that we might call God. But that courage and love is always within our reach, rising like a green blade of newly-born grass.
The Hope of Spring
It is no coincidence that Passover and Easter occur near the onset of Spring, for they both speak of the building of new life, of new possibilities, of freedom and wholeness and transformation.
And that is why so many Unitarian Universalist churches in America choose this time of year to honor one of our Unitarian “saints” with our Flower Communion.
The story is told that Norbert Capek, a Unitarian minister in Poland during the reign of Hitler, was an outspoken critic of the Fuhrer, speaking boldly from his pulpit and elsewhere. He was also a well-loved pastor to his people.
On his birthday one year, his parishioners surprised him by bringing flowers to adorn the Chancel – just as many of you have done this morning. He in turn surprised them by blessing the flowers, and then inviting everyone forward to take a flower home with them.
Eventually Rev. Capek was arrested by the Gestapo and put in prison, where he eventually died. But the story of his courage and his love of justice could never die. It is told year after year, as the Flower Communion he began is re-enacted in our churches in memory of him. He reminds us of the power of love, and of the hope that we hold out for the future every time we speak for justice, and act in faith.
When we are wrestling with despair, we often see no end in sight. We may be feeling hopeless these days about the state of the world, and particularly our country’s role in it; we suspect our small efforts are having little or no effect. We need the model of the Israelites and all the other justice-seekers throughout history to give us courage to persevere.
We may be caught in the downward spiral of personal sorrow or fear and cannot believe that hope and joy will ever return. We need the image of the empty tomb to remind us that we can face our personal spiritual struggles, and in so doing, find new life.
Joan Chittister writes: “Proofs of eternal rebirth are everywhere: Spring comes every year. Dawn comes every morning. Love happens out of hate. Birth absorbs the pain of death….
“We hope because we have no reason not to hope. We sit by the window and wait for one more dawn, though there’s not an ounce of proof in the night’s black, black sky that it can come.”
And yet we know in our bones that it will.
So let us sing “Alleluia!”
© 2006 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
