Psalm 27: 1-6,
13-14
April 12, 2009
Luke 24: 1-9
EASTER: FROM AN EMPTY
TOMB
TO AN INTERIOR CASTLE
There's a memorable line from the movie version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" where the hero of the story, Edmond Dantes, after being betrayed by his best friend, and after finally escaping after years in a dark, dank prison, offers words of wisdom to a young man, saying,
Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" Then the fates will know you as you (are…)
It seems to me that these might very well have been God's word to our all too human humanity. In the story of Holy Week, the crucifixion, the betrayals, the cruelty epitomize the worst, the very worst of our humanity, and we do ourselves and the story of Easter a real disservice if we try somehow to ignore or bracket out the violence, for Easter really makes sense only if we are able to see it – the glory of that first Easter morning – as God's response to the very worst of our humanity.
Jesus, not the only, but for me the purest human representation of God's love that I can think of, Jesus the embodiment of God's Grace, Jesus who refused to compromise on his moral and ethical principles, Jesus who championed those on the margins of society, Jesus who refused to engage in violence, Jesus who was forever trying to bring more and more broken and belittled people into the circumference of God's love is crucified… I don't know how it could get any worse than that, and it is as if someone pushes the pause button as if all of Creation is now waiting to see what God will do next. What will be God's response to this tragedy?
And thankfully, indeed, Thank God we are here this morning because Easter is that Divine response to the very worst of our Humanity; we are here to celebrate our conviction that the Love of God is greater even than the power of death. "Do your worst", it is as if God says, and this is what I will give you in return, I will give you not the worst but rather I will give you the very best – I will give you the victory of life over death; I will give you forgiveness, and I will give you Grace. I will give you Love that is absolutely invincible.
But also, I hasten to say, we do ourselves a disservice if we see Easter as only a story about the Nature of Divinity, for if it is a story about the Nature of Divinity, by implication it is also a story about the Nature of Humanity, our true humanity, the best of our humanity for if the Spirit of God is present within each one of us, if we were each one of us created in the Image of God, then Easter is also the archetype of our own spiritual capacity. If Easter is the story of God's invincible love, then it is also a story, a reminder that there is something wonderfully invincible, something indestructible in each one of us.
Consider for a moment the wisdom of a few of our poets. This is what the poet John Donne had to say on this:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so.
I love this emphatic declaration with not even a hint of equivocation. Softer and perhaps without quite so much bravado are the words of William Wordsworth who though acquainted with grief testifies to a certain kind of faith that is able to "look through death." We marvel at those comic book figures who have "x-ray" eyes, but that is nothing compared to one who has sufficient faith to "look through death."
We will grieve not, rather
find
strength in what remains behind,
in the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Likewise, I've always loved how the French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus said, "In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there is in me an invincible summer."
Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know that place where the lilacs and the daffodils are always in bloom? Do you know that place where the grass is always green, and the birds are always singing? And obviously, I'm not talking about someplace down in Florida or the Caribbean. Rather, I'm talking about a place that cannot be found on a Rand McNally map or a Lonely Planet guide; rather, I'm talking about a place deep within ourselves, a place, a sacred place to which we all need to repair from time to time in order to be repaired, in order to be spiritually restored.
As we struggle through these tough economic times, as we try to come to terms with how unfair life sometimes seems to be, when our older members see their savings go up in smoke, when our younger members lose their jobs, when we wonder whether – not having health insurance -- we can afford to be sick or injured, when we are anxious, wondering how all the bills are going to be paid, now more than ever we need that Easter reminder of that "invincible summer."
So how is it with you? Have you found that place within yourself? Have you discovered that place, that place that is a reservoir of spiritual strength, the spiritual fortitude sufficient to overcome what yet another poet, William Shakespeare called, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?" Do you frequent that place from time to time?
Recently, in our congregation, we've gone through a period in which we've had far too many funerals and memorial services. Each one of these is a reminder of our mortality, a painful reminder of how fragile and how precious life is, and when we lose a member of our family or a close friend, what are the inward resources on which we can draw and how are they related to the mystery of that first Easter morning?
On such matters it's probably best not to speak in generalities about everyone in general, but rather to speak more autobiographically, and for me, there is a direct line of causality between the empty tomb and what the mystic, St. Teresa called, "The Interior Castle." And that's what I want to talk about today. The connection between the Empty Tomb and the Interior Castle.
While Easter has many very important things to say about exterior matters – how we live our lives out there in the world, the actions, the behavior necessitated by our faith, the causes of justice that need our attention, the world so badly fractured by nationalism so much in need of a new and different vision. Peacemaking activities to provide an antidote to war. Ministries of compassion, deeds of mercy. All of these things are of vital importance – at least as important, maybe even more important than what I want to say today -- but they are for naught unless our inwardness, our interiority is as it should be, and by interiority, I am speaking of that place within ourselves that is deeper down than our thoughts and our emotions, that place sometimes called the Soul, sometimes called a variety of other things – St. Teresa referred to it as the "interior castle", "A Mighty Fortress is our God" – these being the words of Martin Luther, or an "Invincible Summer" to use the words of Albert Camus, but for me, regardless of what word or metaphor we may use, there is a direct connection between the glory and the joy of that Empty Tomb and that sacred place within ourselves.
And so this morning, I would ask you to be a Secretary of your own Interior, if you will. How is it within your self? Do you also have what it takes to say to the world, "Go ahead; do your worst, but my love and my life will be victorious, for the empty tomb of Easter has given me a mighty fortress, an interior castle that cannot be defeated even if I experience the very worst that this world can give."
I'm thinking of how 70 years ago on Easter Sunday the great, great singer Marion Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln memorial. She was supposed to have sung at Constitution Hall, but "the Daughters of the American Revolution had refused to let her appear at that great concert hall." Why? Because of the color of her skin.
(from an article by Alex Ross, "Voice of the Century" in The New Yorker, April 13, 2009)
This of course was not the first indignity from which she suffered. Numerous times she was rejected with the words, "We don't take colored people here." In Princeton, New Jersey, for example, she was not allowed a room at the Nassau Inn, and so she spent the night instead at the home of Albert Einstein.
And during World War II in a train station down in Birmingham, Alabama because she was an African American she could not go into a restaurant, but in that very same restaurant, there were German prisoners of war. Think of it. They were welcome but she was not!
She grew up poor in Philadelphia. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother put food on the table by scrubbing floors, and so surely she knew the worst that life could dish out, and we might very well have understood if the title of her autobiography was taken from one of the songs that she used to sing, "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." But surely Marion Anderson was familiar with that sacred place, that Interior Castle within herself, for the title of her autobiography was taken from yet another of her songs, "My Lord, What A Morning!"
And on that Easter morning in 1939, try to imagine what she must have felt. Scorned and rejected, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her to sing.
Throughout my ministry, I've had to do a fair amount of public speaking (it's sort of an occupational hazard), but when I read about Marion Anderson's rejection, I thought about how I might react if I experienced that sort of rejection, and I thought about how hard it would be to stand up and say anything at all intelligible. But there on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, she sang and she sang to the glory of God and she sang, "Ave Maria" as a testament to her faith, and she sang "My Country tis of thee" as if to say, "this is my country too, and I am proud of my heritage" and she sang African-American spirituals, one of which was the title of her autobiography, "My Lord What A Morning!"
That spirit is the Easter Spirit, and it cannot be defeated by bigotry or injustice.
My hypothesis is this. There is a direct connection between the Empty Tomb and that Interior Castle that makes it possible for one to live with that sort of glorious affirmation of life despite being victimized, despite suffering from the very worst of human behavior.
I have seen that spirit in such great public figures as Marion Anderson, but also I have seen that same spirit in so many of you. I have seen how faith in the empty tomb, faith in the indomitable love of God, faith in the enormous circumference of God's grace has sustained so many of you in your own time of peril.
I know some of our older members who stood in bread lines during the time of the Great Depression. I have known those who saw their loved ones go marching off to war, wondering whether they would ever return. I have known those who through no fault of their own have lost all their worldly possessions, and I have known those who through their own faults, their own terrible misdeeds and addictions have also lost everything they had. I have known those who have suffered seemingly unimaginable loss, and yet in so many of these, I have also seen the amazing strength that comes from faith; I have seen those who have responded to the very worst that life can give with the most amazing strength and courage.
Life is a storm, my young
friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the
next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must
look into that storm and shout.."Do your worst, for I will do mine!" … Only, as
God has taught
me, I will do my very best.
What is the source of that strength? Any honest student of the human condition has to ask that question. And for me the answer to that question can be found in that empty tomb and the mystery of Easter. Faith in that Empty Tomb becomes in us an Interior Castle that cannot be defeated by the storms and vicissitudes of life.
So this morning, I invite you to find that place, that sacred place within yourself. The wonderful thing is: it is wherever you are. It is a portable sanctuary. It doesn't belong to any one particular church or denomination or even religious identity. All the religions of the world have spoken of such a place. It is a wonderful part of the spirit that God has given us, but sadly, for far too many of us that Interior Castle is like a room in the house that we never use.
My hope and prayer is that on this Easter Sunday we all might walk through the open door of the Empty Tomb, and if we did, I'm confident that we'll find that place. St. Teresa said, "I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond."
Walk through that door and suddenly you see the world in a radically different way, light refracted in a multiplicity of ways. Walk through that door and you will see all the colors of the rainbow in that single diamond. The ramparts of your soul are as hard as a diamond, the sky is always blue and the lilacs are always in bloom, and you will find yourself in that place where it is always an "invincible summer" and the Song of your life will be changed from "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" to "My Lord, What a Morning!"
All your negativity and despair will be taken away and if you repair to that place from time to time, you will find yourself repaired and restored, sufficient so that you too will be able to say to the principalities and the powers, the forces of injustice, the ugliness of cruelty and hate, "go ahead, do your worst, but as for me, I am here to bring forth into the world as much love and hope as I can, and I will not be defeated."
Amen.
David W. Good
Old Lyme, Connecticut