by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given April 20, 2003

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

Let us come this morning

With thanksgiving for

The life that begins anew each spring;

Let us stretch our spirits, and

Open the windows of our hearts.

Come, let us worship together.

Let me begin this morning with a true story—a story in which the protagonist is jilted. The protagonist—that would be me. The story goes like this. In a far away land, in a long ago time—it was the ‘70’s, so you know something already about my experience, if you lived through that era. It was an era of love freely and foolishly exchanged, that era when promises were temporary, and relationships were of an interim nature. I was keeping company with a man of whom I was very fond—we’ll call him Bob, to protect the guilty.

Bob was close with one of my very best friends, Karen, whose name has also been changed to protect her guilty soul. In fact, Bob was so close to Karen, and the electricity between them so obvious, that I wondered why he was not seeing her instead of me. Perhaps it was because she was involved with—well, two other men at the time. (I told you it was the ‘70’s.) Anyway, Bob and Karen both assured me repeatedly that they were "just friends," and nothing more. I elected to deny my own eyes, and began a relationship with Bob.

Well, you know the end of the story already, but let me tell you how it actually happened. One Friday afternoon I called Bob’s office to talk with him, and his secretary told me, "Oh, he’s not available. He’s gone on a trip to Boston." And then I called Karen’s office, and her secretary told me, "Oh, she’s not available. She’s gone on a trip to Boston." Right.

Yes, I had been jilted. Cast aside, rejected, and yes, betrayed. No promises had been made, certainly no declaration of lasting love. But even a kiss is a kind of promise. Even the touch of a hand. It was then, and it is now. I was hurt and angry. And I stayed hurt and angry for several years. Forgiveness I know is a good thing—theoretically—but forgiveness is not a strong suite of mine. Practically speaking, I find that anger is pretty satisfying. Finally I just got tired of being mad at them, and let it go. So we’re all friends again.

Now it’s one thing to be jilted by your boyfriend, your earthly lover, and quite another thing to be jilted by God. But sometimes we feel that way. Sometimes it’s just a generalized notion that God’s management plan is a little off kilter. For one thing, take aging. As we age, we grow a bit wiser—with a little luck, we become more compassionate. We come to understand that we are both unique and yet so like others. But by the time we collect a little wisdom in our spiritual bank account, we find ourselves traveling toward the end of our lives, at an alarming speed. So what are we supposed to do with all this wisdom we’ve so carefully accumulated, often by way of pain and suffering and loss? We try giving this wisdom to our children—but they don’t want it. They have to go through the same process we did; they have to suffer, they have to internalize the terrifying fact of their own death. They in turn will try to pass down their wisdom to their children, who will in turn scoff at them and go off to learn the same lessons on their own. This doesn’t seem like a good plan to me. Can’t I just have the vigor and beauty of my youth, and my wisdom? I feel jilted, betrayed by God.

And then there is the question of the absolute indifference of the universe. We didn’t ask to be born, after all. And yet here we are, at the mercy of illness, the mercy of nature. Avalanches take precious lives. The treachery of mountains, so careless of our fate. And then there are just dumb accidents. I’m thinking of the elderly couple that I read about in the Oregonian a year or so ago. They were high school sweethearts, were separated by the vagaries of life, then found each other again, in their 90’s. They fell madly in love and were married. But in a few months’ time, the husband was killed in an automobile accident. The wife died—some say of a broken heart—a few months later. Why, God did you let this happen? Again, not a good plan. Couldn’t they have had each other for just a few short years, after waiting a lifetime? God, you are not a dependable lover. You’re erratic in your affection, and not to be trusted.

And let’s don’t even get into the question of evil. The question of war. The deaths and maiming of civilians, children. Let’s don’t even go there. It’s too much for Easter morning. But why, God, do you allow—not just a touch of evil, but horrendous, unbelievable acts by human beings, one to the other? When you reached down into that mud and created that first man, couldn’t you have made him a little more compassionate? Couldn’t you have given him the quality of mercy in equal measure to the quality of judgment? Couldn’t you have made him—and me—a little more forgiving?

I am sometimes so angry with my God that I can hardly begin a prayer. I start "Holy One." Holy One? Why do we call you that? Why do we call you the Fount of Love, the Good Shepherd? I call you Beloved in my prayers; I have been faithful in my fashion, as I was able. I have without a doubt put you first in my life. You know that. But the desires of my heart you have kept from me. You have not been faithful to me, O God. I feel like your jilted lover.

Let’s go to the Jesus story for a moment. Can you even imagine the depths of sorrow and disappointment Jesus must have felt? He was God’s prophet, God’s chosen one, and he knew it from his earliest days. He said yes, yes, I am your own, my Father. Do with me as you will. But give me friends who are faithful, followers who understand. Give me a woman to love and comfort me. Let me make a lasting impression on this world—and by the way, please don’t let this—this plan you have for me—please don’t let it be too painful.

But the Father gave the Son none of this—except the lasting impression. Jesus had a true and tender love for Mary Magdelene—Peter became jealous of their closeness, in fact. But Jesus was called to a way that did not include a domestic life. He was called to wander—even the foxes have burrows, even the birds have nests, he said, but I have no place to lay my head. And then the disciples, his dearest friends. James and John squabbled like children over who would sit on Jesus’s right hand and who on his left, in the kingdom to come. The disciples didn’t get it—they thought that Jesus would establish a kingdom on this earth, would overthrow the wicked Roman oppressors. Their plan included Palm Sunday, but not Good Friday.

When Jesus tells them at the Last Supper that he will be betrayed by one of them, and that they will all forsake him in the end, they are incredulous. They look around at one another, in surprise. "Is it I?" each one says, "Is it I?" Peter, Jesus’s right-hand man, the most devoted of all, the passionate Peter, says to Jesus, "Not me. Even if everyone turns away from you, I’ll be there." But Jesus says to him, "Peter, even this night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times." "No!" says Peter, even more vehemently. "Even if I have to die, I will never desert you." And all of the disciples chime in and say the same. But they couldn’t even stay awake to pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and so Jesus, in his agony, prayed alone, "Abba, Father, all things are possible with you; please, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will."

You know the story. One of Jesus’s best friends sells him to the Romans for a trivial little bag of gold. And when the Romans come for Jesus, the disciples scatter like flies. One of the maids of the high priest sees Peter warming his hands and says to him, "You were with that Jesus of Nazareth, weren’t you." And Peter answers, "I don’t know what you’re talking about." And the cock crows. And she says to those around her, "He is one of them." And Peter denies it again. And then others standing by say, "Surely you are one of them—your speech is Galilaean." And Peter begins to curse, saying, "I don’t even know this man." And the cock crows the second time. And Peter remembers, and he weeps.

None of the disciples stood beneath the cross as Jesus suffered and died. Only the women were there: Mary Magdalene, Mary his Mother, and Salome, who ministered to him in Galilee. Jesus was beaten, a crown of thorns pressed into his head; he was mocked, given vinegar instead of water when he asked only that his thirst be quenched. He tried to remember that all this suffering was to some good purpose, but he must have felt so completely alone, betrayed by his friends, deserted even by the God who called him to this difficult death: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Couldn’t it, oh Father, couldn’t it have been easier?

We ask the same question of our God. Couldn’t it be easier? We are profoundly disappointed. At times we feel betrayed by life itself. When we get to that point—and we all will get to that point—we have two ways to go: we either fall into despair and cynicism, or we venture into depths we have never before known—into the hard and demanding territory of a grown-up faith. Our God, we discover, has been too small. As one writer put it, we have to accept a bloodier God, or a truer silence.

As we move into this deeper place of knowing, we must discard the false questions and the easy answers. Questions like, "Why me?" or "Is God punishing me for something I did, or didn’t, do?" Or just the plain question, "Why?" Let me just answer those questions now, and let’s be done with them. "Why me?" Because we are subject to the laws of nature, all of us are. No one is special. No one gets to escape accidents, illness, death. "Is God punishing me?" No. God is a spirit, God is love. God is not a judge sitting on a heavenly throne, waiting to catch you, like some sort of heavenly meter maid. Now we may bring punishment on ourselves by our own choices, but we shouldn’t blame God for this. And then the simple, classic question, "Why?" This is the one that pushes us deepest. We don’t know why, and we will never know. So stop wasting time trying to figure out the answer. Realize that this is a bad question. Asking "why" puts God on the defensive, puts you, not God, at the center of the universe. From this perspective, your ego will war against your spirit.

Now, could we for a moment dismiss the easy answers. Answers like "It is God’s will," a sentiment too often offered at funerals. Who knows God’s will? Talk about ego! Another answer. "This bad thing happened to teach you a lesson." Do you really think God has time to strategize, to make celestial lesson plans, so that we can grow? No. There are plenty of opportunities without interventions from God. And one final answer that some give: "There is no God. Otherwise, God would see to it that this bad thing would never have happened to me. My football team should triumph. My army should win. After all, my team is special. My country is special. I am special." Really now.

Where do we get these ideas, anyway? Well, as we are growing up, our parents and others try to protect our fragile little selves, our innocence, until we are mature enough to assimilate the complexities of living. We don’t want to prematurely introduce our children to the inevitable contradictions of existence. I remember when my son Kash lost his first tooth. I told him about the Tooth Fairy, told him to put the tooth under his pillow, and the next morning in its place would be a shiny new quarter. Well, I went to bed exhausted that night, and woke up the next morning to hear him exclaim from the next room: "Oh, boy, the Tooth Fairy!" I stumbled through the door just as he picked up the pillow, looked underneath, and said, "Well, that didn’t work." No, generally Santa Claus brings us presents, even if we are naughty. Cinderella finds her prince—the shoe fits. When the princess kisses the frog, he turns into a prince. Right.

So if these common questions and answers are dismissed, where do we go? We are pushed into that truer silence. We are humbled. We stop projecting our own wishes upon God, and we begin to look the world squarely in the eye. Our conversation with life becomes fierce and profitable, rather than romantic and escapist.

Hear the words of the poet Rilke: "Winning does not tempt that man/ This is how he grows—/By being defeated decisively/ By greater and greater beings." There are three days and three nights each month when the moon disappears, and we are left in darkness—metaphorically we experience what Heidegger calls "the darkening of the world." This is where we meet the only God that’s worth meeting. When we know we are lost, that is when we know beyond a doubt that we need one another, that we can never be separate, the one from the other. It is in this lostness that we find the numinous, the timeless. It is here that we find our true selves, find the wholeness that escaped us when we skated over the surface of things. It is here where we learn to live with courage, to live with fears, yes, but not with fear. To live with faith—not the empty belief that things will turn out fine in the end—they may not. But rather to live with the deep knowledge that however things turn out, it will be all right.

In that place of lostness, we are carried forward into an unknown future—but a future that seems strangely fecund, full, rich with possibility. We are no longer the fitful servant of a God who is removed, remote; rather we have become partnered with the God who is nearer to us than our own heart.

In Anne Tyler’s novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, an old woman, Pearl Tull, asks her son to read from her diary. It seems that before she dies, Pearl wants to remember an early experience recorded years before: "Early this morning," she wrote, "I went out behind the house to weed. Was kneeling in the dirt by the stable with my pinafore a mess and perspiration rolling down my back, wiped my face on my sleeve, reached for the trowel, and all at once thought, ‘Why I believe that at just this moment I am absolutely happy. The [neighbor] girl’s piano scales were floating out her window . . . and a bottle fly was buzzing in the grass, and I saw that I was kneeling on such a beautiful green little planet. I don’t care what else might come about, I have had this moment. It belongs to me."

I have had such experiences. Have you not had them? This is God communi-cating with us. This is our foreshadowing of eternity, not eternity as we usually think of it, as endless time, but as a moment outside time, when we are no longer boxed in by duties and worries, no longer constrained by fears that hold us back, keep us small, keep our God small. At these moments, we experience ourselves at peace with the world, at peace with ourselves and with others. We no longer wish that anything were different from the way it is. We are able to say, with an honest heart, "It is well, it is well with my soul."

Feeling like God’s jilted lover? It is not God who has jilted us, it is we who have jilted God—through our desire to be immortal, through our denial of our dependence, through our repression of feeling, dangerous feeling that would challenge us to change, to be resurrected from our sorrow and false hope. Know this: God is your true lover. God is always knocking at your door. But God is no bully, there will be no forced entry. We are burning with desire. Admit it. It is our part to open that door, in faith, and step into the new life that waits for us. So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

God of our hearts, on this Easter day, we confess that we find it so tempting to stay in the easy patterns that mark our days. We want new life—but we fear resurrection.. Help us to break through our fears and to open to the new beginnings that call to us. As you have been faithful to us, may we, in turn, be faithful to you and to the highest and best that is within us. Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now, and practice resurrection. Go in love and go in peace.

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Copyrights 2003, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All right reserved.