First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Rev. Kendyl Gibbons
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
April 11, 2004

Okay, let's be real about this; when was the last time anyone here actually saw a stalk of ripe barley? We do not live our lives all that close to nature any more, do we? Maybe some of you grew up on a farm, and would know wheat from barley from oats; in their natural forms, I'm not very sure I would. Perhaps, then, it is not really surprising that the story of Jesus, with its political, military and urban flavor, should have superceded the older, agricultural fertility myths when it comes to thinking about the implications of spring. Some would say, and they have a point, that it is not entirely surprising that a story written by men, about men's doings and male divinities, would find a readier audience in the increasingly patriarchal western culture of two thousand years ago, whereas the rituals and wisdom of the goddesses would begin to drop out of sight. I expect it was pretty much all part of the same process of cultural evolution.

At the same time, however urban and intellectual our lives may have become, something in us still responds to the raw pulse of the seasons - who does not notice the lengthening light, and sigh with pleasure when the heavy coat gives way to the light jacket? Spring is in our veins, whether we acknowledge it or not, and I want to suggest this morning that there is both value and struggle in that acknowledgement, if we will go all the way, and do it deeply enough. It is not an accident that the story of the crucifixion has become our vernal myth; spring without suffering is just silly sentimentality, and certainly the ancients knew that. The poets of our own age know it too; the sharpness of contrast between our rational, moderated suburban lives and the wildness of the natural world. What separates us from that raw edge of nature's inherent cruelty is the thinnest of veneers; often it is nothing more than the willingness to look at what is around us, and truly see. The poet Mary Oliver is such a seer, and I believe that she has some guidance to offer us, in language that is modern enough, but with a vision that would have been perfectly comprehensible to the worshippers at Elusis, as we give ourselves for a few moments to the contemplation of the possible meaning of Easter.

It begins with simple awareness; the sense that we are grasped in the reality of an earthly process that we too seldom attend to; that something is going on, all around us all the time, that we would do well not only to watch, but to be a little awed by. Oliver describes this emergent awareness in a poem entitled simply, "Spring":

Somewhere / a black bear / has just risen from sleep / and is staring

Down the mountain. / All night / in the brisk and shallow restlessness / of early spring

I think of her, / her four black fists / flicking the gravel, / her tongue

Like a red fire / touching the grass, / the cold water. / There is only one question:

How to love this world. / I think of her / rising / like a black and leafy ledge

To sharpen her claws against / the silence / of the trees. / Whatever else

My life is / with its poems / and its music / and its glass cities,

It is also this dazzling darkness / coming / down the mountain, / breathing and tasting;

All day I think of her - / her white teeth, / her wordlessness, / her perfect love.

The bear, of course, is dangerous, but not evil in intent. The whole paradox of spring is that it does not require evil intent for suffering to happen; all that is required is that someone care about the way that life feeds on life; about the way that creatures, in their own wordless and perfect love, can only survive by the death of other creatures. Mating and birth are costly processes; so much can go wrong - one extra fillip of adrenaline or testosterone, and the showy competition between males becomes accidentally fatal; one kit in the wrong position and the mother dies of exhaustion instead of rearing her brood. Only sentimental people who never look her in the face believe that nature is an exquisitely ordered system; the truth is that she bumbles and squanders, counting on sheer volume to make up the difference. Terror and survival are so inextricably woven that to seek the one is to court the other, and it is arbitrary to take sides.

Mary Oliver writes:

Knee-deep / in the ferns / springing up / at the edge of the whistling swamp,

I watch the owl / with its satisfied, / heart-shaped face / as it flies over the water -

Back and forth - / as it flutters down / like a hellish moth / wherever the reeds twitch -

Whenever, in the muddy cover, / some little life sighs / before it slides into moonlight /

and becomes a shadow.

In the distance, / awful and infallible, / the old swamp belches. / Of course

It stabs my heart / whenever something cries out / like a teardrop. / But isn't it wonderful

What is happening / in the branches of the pines; / the owl's young, / dressed in snowflakes,

Are starting to fatten - / they beat their muscular wings, /

they dream of flying / for another million years

Over the water, / over the ferns, / over the world's roughage / as it bleeds and deepens.

Who is not charmed by the downy white feathers of the baby owls, the innocent awkwardness of their growth, and yet are not the ancient instincts waiting to click into place in their maturing brains? Will not their silent shadows be one day the last heart-stopping terror for some field mouse, who asked only to find a mouthful of seed and scamper back to safety beneath a tree root? Who rejoices in springtime? Spring is shot through with these urgencies, with the demand of life for life; it is no wonder that the dead need a queen for their underworld.

You see, this is why the rabbits and eggs are sacred - and the lambs. I have friends who live on a farm in Australia; a huge farm, by any standards I know, and one of the things they raise sometimes is sheep. They are partners in the endless labor of that agricultural routine, he and she, but after a while, she refused to go out to the fields in the mornings at lambing time, because she couldn't stand to see what the crows and sometimes the dogs and god knows what other animals, had done to the new-born lambs. Do you enjoy a nice omelet? Do you know how many other creatures, starved for protein after the long frozen months, will devour eggs? It's amazing; other birds eat them, and snakes, and raccoons, and just about anything that can figure out how to get into them, and some you wouldn't think could manage it. Eggs are, as they say, "incredibly edible"; they are terribly vulnerable. Precious vessels of new life, they are hallowed not just by their potential to succeed in the miracle to which they are assigned, but also by the harrowing statistical likelihood that all the instinctive energy that created them will come to nothing in the chain of relentless need that is life, and nature, in the spring.

Nor yet can we entirely reconcile ourselves to a mere passive acceptance of the hand that nature deals out; if we ourselves live, we cannot help but intervene. This is why every ancient culture has a myth for the origin of agriculture as a gift from the gods. "Some divine power told us to do this," they all say, for otherwise how would we justify our greedy interference in the order of things? If we live, we change the equation; we intervene. But are we entitled to be as arbitrarily cruel as nature herself? Probably not; mercy has no meaning, does not exist in the cycle of necessity that drives life and death through the world of creatures, yet it is part of our mental mechanism - god knows why. There are moments when we must intervene on behalf of some elemental compassion, however dimly understood, and yet we never know the fullness of what we do, even then. Mary Oliver writes about a turtle:

Now I see it—

It nudges with its bulldog head

The slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;

And now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal

Who is leading her soft children

From one side of the pond to the other; she keeps

Close to the edge

And they follow closely, like good children -

The tender children,

The sweet children, dangling their pretty feet

Into the darkness.

And now it will come - I can count on it - the murky splash,

The certain victory

Of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic

Circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks

Flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

Will be most mournful

On their account. But, listen,

What's important?

Nothing's important

Except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,

Of which this is a part,

Not be denied. Once,

I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

A dusty, fouled turtle plodding along - a snapper -

Broken out I suppose from some backyard cage -

And I knew what I had to do -

I looked it right in the eyes, and caught it -

I put it, like a small mountain range,

Into a knapsack, and I took it out

Of the city, and I let it

Down into the dark pond, into

The cool water

And the light of the lilies,

To live.

What is compassion, in such a world? What is sacred? Somehow, not easily, life is; the reconstituted, resurrected, life that maketh all things new. Not the sweet sentimentality of softness, not because the bunnies are adorable, although they are; but nature has no partiality for the cute. All it takes is the flash of an eagle's talon, a fox's sudden pounce, the soundless glide of a snake, and the rabbit is doomed, gone to nourish the next creature. And yet there are always rabbits; it's a horrible system, and yet, it's the system we are in, and we have no choice about it. The goddess of the eastern light knows this, has always known it. We can do the bloody work ourselves, if we insist, and nail men to wooden crosses that once were living trees, but for this purpose we are superfluous; it doesn't need us to make April the cruelest month. Easter - the ancient Easter, that comes before the cross was thought of - deals with a resurrection that has no justice in it, and no mercy. The rabbit and the egg are sacred not only by beauty, but also by terror, and the awful, implacable urgency of need - the owl's need, the turtle's need, our own. The doings of any swamp or patch of woodland are bloodier than Mel Gibson's most excruciating nightmare.

The ancient Egyptians had another myth about resurrection, and the return of spring; it centered around the Nile river, of course, for it was the flooding of the Nile that renewed the fertility of the earth for them. In their story, the goddess Isis searches for the body of her murdered brother and husband, Osiris, which has been floated out on the river in an elegant wooden coffin. Mary Oliver writes:

Every day

On my way to the pond

I pass the lightning-felled,

Chesty,

Hundred-fingered, black oak

Which, summers ago,

Swam forward when the storm

Laid one lean yellow wand against it, smoking it open

To its rosy heart.

It dropped down

In a veil of rain,

In a cloud of sap and fire,

And became what it has been ever since -

A black boat floating in the tossing leaves of summer,

Like the coffin of Osiris

Descending

Upon the cloudy Nile.

But, listen, I'm tired of that brazen promise:

Death and resurrection.

I'm tired of hearing how the nitrogens will return

To the earth again,

Through the hinterland of patience -

How the mushrooms and the yeasts

Will arrive in the wind -

How they'll anchor the pearls of their bodies and begin

To gnaw through the darkness

Like wolves at bones -

What I loved, I mean, was that tree -

Tree of the moment - tree of my own sad, mortal heart -

And I don't want to sing anymore of the way

Osiris came home at last, on a clean

And powerful ship, over

The dangerous sea, as a tall

And beautiful stranger.

What we love is always that tree - tree of the moment, tree of our own sad, mortal hearts. And that is what the life that maketh all things new will never, can never, give us back. Is it resurrection, if the one we loved returns as a tall and beautiful stranger? Somewhere, deep in the mythic spaces, my heart says emphatically, No, and my spirit answers, out of the same necessity that drives the springtime, Yes; oh, yes. If we are to celebrate Easter rightly, both the answer of the heart and the answer of the spirit must be heard, and honored.

What is required of us is to live in the tense paradox between outrage and acceptance of things as they are, to practice mercy even though the world of nature is demonstrably not merciful, and in the end to find a voice for praise. That is Easter, that final assent, that reply that says, in spite of all our grief and outrage, and all our reservations, to the tide of new life that floods the earth in spring, singing brazenly, "Risen! Risen, risen, we are risen; the earth is risen; she is risen!" to reply to that heedless, heartless and infinitely precious chorus, the spirit's answer; "Risen indeed!"

Hymn 12

Closing Words:

In this season of steady rebirth,

Let us awaken to the power, so abundant, so holy,

That returns each year through earth and sky.

Let us love, and believe, and give, and wonder,

And feel again the eternal powers.

The flow of life moves ever onward,

Through one faithful spring, and another,

And now another.

May we be forever grateful.

Opening Words:

Spring in Minnesota is an act of faith.

Easter comes, whether or not the climate around us has noticed,

Whether or not the sun has fully struck through the last of the winter's chill.

Every year it varies; the first Sunday after the first Monday

After the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

You have to know that this is a pagan holiday,

With a little bit of Christianity grafted on;

Who would celebrate an historical anniversary

According to such an esoteric lunar calculation?

The very name of the day is pagan;

Derived from the same stem as the direction east,

And the hormone estrogen -

do you think there might be a goddess in the background somewhere?

Bringer of new light, at dawn and springtime,

Call to our awareness the eastern sky,

Promise of beginnings and the renewal of life.

Giver of brightness, at noon and summer,

Call to our awareness the southern sunshine,

Energy for the work of justice and compassion.

Lengthening shadows of sunset and autumn,

Call to our awareness the western horizon,

Hope for the beauty of completion and fulfillment.

Gracious darkness of night time and winter,

Call to our awareness the northern lights and the stars,

Reflections of stillness, patience, and peaceful rest.

Chalice of our faith as we come together in community,

Be kindled for freedom, reason, and diversity,

That our lives may be measured not by our fears, but by our aspirations.

Let your light illuminate the awakening earth,

And our hearts rejoice in the promise of life made new.

Story and Centering:

Centuries before the execution of Jesus, thousands of years before the cinematic pieties of Mel Gibson, there was a different resurrection story. Its details are strange to our modern ears; no longer woven into the fabric of our cultural memory. But once upon a time, it was as central to the spiritual understanding of western civilization as the passion is today. Just as the ancient Hebrew YHWH cult absorbed and co-opted even as it sought to obliterate the indigenous goddess worship native to the area where its followers settled, so the emergent Christianity of the early centuries of the common era strove to erase the older mysteries of Greek and Roman paganism, and was only partially successful. As we have seen together with the children, the symbols of the goddess persist; the fertile rabbit, the life-enclosing egg. Stripped of their deeper mythology, they co-exist uneasily with the celebration of the newer story, but our collective unconscious will not let them go. Such seemingly inexplicable images are clues, hints of a hidden treasure long abandoned but still precious, glowing like a dyed egg hidden in a tangle of last year's weeds. Easter has not even lost its ancient name - that is another tantalizing clue. Let us go back, then, to the all but forgotten wisdom of the older story. The most authoritative text we have is from a poet who lived at the time of Homer, around 700 years before the beginning of the common era. It, too, is the story of a passion, of grief and suffering and the demands of the gods. You probably heard it as a curious folk-tale when you were a child; it goes like this.

The earth goddess Demeter had a daughter named Persephone - they are almost always pictured together; the mature mother, image of the ripe barley, and the maiden daughter, as the newly sprouted plant. Two aspects of the life-giving grain, humanity's dependable nourishment. The poet has it that the daughter was playing in the meadows of spring, among the fields of blooming flowers, when the lord of the underworld erupted through a crack in the earth and seized her, carrying her away in his chariot over the river of death, to be his queen and consort in the land of shadows.

Demeter did not witness this event, but she soon became aware that her daughter had disappeared, and she was beside herself with worry and loneliness. You must understand that if there is no young plant, there can be no ripe grain. For nine days Demeter searched every corner of the earth by day and by night, with great torches blazing in both hands. Finally her own mother, the cosmic creator Rea, joined her in the search, and suggested that they ask Helios, the all-seeing god of the sun, what he had observed of Persephone's fate. Helios reported that the maiden had been abducted by Pluto, divine ruler of the realm of the dead, with the permission of Zeus, king of Olympus, and Persephone's own father. Then Demeter, recognizing that this was beyond her own powers to undo, was filled with terrible grief and rage. She turned away from Mount Olympus and all the other gods, tore her cloak, and began wandering in heedless despair across the earth. Finally, bedraggled and distraught, she came on the island of Elusis to a place called the Maiden's Well, and sank down there to rest.

Soon she was discovered, by the daughters of the human lord Celeus, girls who had come to draw water from the well, and who greeted her kindly and honorably in spite of her wretchedness. They persuaded here to go home with them, and Demeter, having made up a name and a story to disguise herself, agreed to meet their mother and infant brother. When she came into the house, Demeter refused the offer of wine, and to sit on the brightly colored couch where her hostess had been reclining, although these offers were marks of respect. Instead she chose a folding chair covered with sheepskin, and accepted a cup of barley and mint in water. She remained silent in her sorrow, however, until the youngest daughter of Celeus began to tease her and tell a few off-color jokes, and finally drew a reluctant smile from Demeter at her silliness. Then the disguised goddess agreed to become nursemaid to her hostess's beloved little son, assuring the anxious mother that she knew how to prevent all spells and witchcraft from harming him. There is something necessarily ironic in the bereaved mother who could not save her own daughter from the will of the gods, promising another child's mother that he will be safe with her. But the actual gifts of the gods are always different from the ones we seek, and Demeter began anointing the little boy with ambrosia, and placing him in the midst of the fire every night, in order to make him as an adult ageless and immortal. When his mother, not understanding Demeter's powers or her intentions, happened to observe this process, she cried out in protest, and the gift was ruined.

Frustrated in her attempt to use her power secretly, Demeter then revealed her identity to Celeus and his family, and asked for a temple and an altar to be built for her there on the island of Elusis, because she refused to go back and live among the other gods. Happy to acquire their own goddess in residence, Celeus and his neighbors willingly did as she requested. But Demeter's anger and sorrow were not assuaged, and now they began to take their toll on the world around her. As only half of the sacred power of grain, Demeter alone could not make anything grow in Persephone's absence. Furrows were plowed and seeds were planted in vain; the earth lay barren and harvestless while the goddess grieved. At last it began to occur to the gods on Mount Olympus that if the human race starved and perished, there would be no more rituals or sacrifices in their honor. One by one, mighty Zeus sent the members of the pantheon to plead with Demeter to return to her rightful place, offering her the choice of whatever divine honors she wanted, if only the earth would be fruitful again. But she sent them all away, and would not be comforted, because her daughter was stolen from her. Finally, Zeus recognized that nothing but the return of Persephone would serve to solace her mother, and so he sent the messenger Hermes to retrieve her from the underworld and restore her to Demeter. The maiden goddess, who had also been pining for her mother, was eager to return to the upper world, but just before she did so, she accepted a sweet pomegranate seed and for the first time ate, there in the realm of shadows.

Great was the relief and delight when the two goddess were restored to one another, but Persephone was now bound to the underworld as well, and obligated to return every year for a period of several months. During this time, Demeter mourns, unconsollable as for someone dead, and the earth lies barren and lifeless, until the joyful cry each year that "She is risen!", when the daughter goddess returns from the underworld, her mother rejoices, and the springtime comes again.

After this, Demeter taught Celeus and his neighbors on the island of Elusis the mysteries of her worship and the ways of agriculture, which are her gift to humankind. And long after the death of the man-god Jesus and the rule of his church, there were still practiced on that island off the coast of Greece the torchlight parades, the barley water communion, and the descent of the seed grain into the underworld of death that must come before the annual announcement "She is risen!" and the grateful acclamation of her servants, "Risen indeed!"

Some teachers say that there is a version of the story even older than this Homeric poet's famous hymn, wherein Persephone is moved of her own volition to take pity on the confusion of the dead, and chooses to become their queen so as to bring order and comfort to the underworld. These scholars maintain that it is not accurate to see her as a victim, and that her sacrifice is self-chosen, even though it brings distress to her mother. But whether her initial descent is abduction or voluntary, Persephone clearly becomes a willing participant in the annual cycle, and this is the basis of what we understand about the secret rituals celebrated in her honor as the Eluesian mysteries. The seed goes into the earth as if it were a tomb, and then rises into new life in the form of young plants emerging from the earth as the season turns to spring. With the nourishment of soil and the passing of time, it matures into the ripe grain, which is harvested and either eaten, or put back into the earth-tomb in order to rise again the next year.

Worshippers of Demeter and Persephone, the two aspects of the goddess of grain, were invited to imagine this sequence as applied to human life. There is a continuity, this ritual seems to say, by virtue of which life is eternal, and in which we may take a deep comfort. All that goes into the darkness of the earth, all that seems to perish and be lost to us, returns and is restored in the ceaseless rhythm of time. Like the cycle of the year, our lives have their seasons; there is a winter of the spirit, when the world inside us seems frozen and dead. Our suffering and sorrow, like that of Demeter, is real; it is inevitable, given the way the universe is structured; but equally inevitable is every year's new life, the coming of spring, the rising and ripening of the grain, the next harvest. There are times when our wholeness, and even our very survival, lies in reminding ourselves that no one moment in that cycle is final of itself. Let us join together in reading number 510 in our hymnals.