A sermon for Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church, Adelphi, Maryland Easter
Sunday, April 16, 2017
The Rev. Evan Keely, Interim Minister
Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the entrance. She went running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
Then Peter and the other disciple went to the tomb. The two of them were running, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and saw the linen cloths, but he did not go in. Behind him came Simon Peter, and he went straight into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the cloth which had been around Jesus’ head. It was not lying with the linen cloths but was rolled up by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in; he saw and believed. (They still did not understand the scripture which said that he must rise from death.) Then the disciples went back home.
Mary stood crying outside the tomb. While she was still crying, she bent over and looked in the tomb and saw two angels there dressed in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet.
“Woman, why are you crying?” they asked her.
She answered, “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!”
Then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there; but she did not know that it was Jesus. “Woman,
why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who is it that you are looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, “If you took him away, sir, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned toward him and said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (This means “Teacher.”)
“Do not hold on to me,” Jesus told her, “because I have not yet gone back up to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am returning to him who is my Father and their Father, my God and their God.”
So Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and related to them what he had told her.
John 20:1-18 (Good News Bible)
PRIMA PARS
Out of the depths of this long night, I’ve cried
to thee, my God — a night of choking pain
and fear. I can’t explain
myself in my own skin, my innards clench
emerging horror. No. I can’t abide
my own heartbeat, my every throbbing vein
caught in a hurricane
of swirling loss — I’m gasping as I wrench
myself away from the repugnant stench
of unendurable despair. O hear
my cry, and let thine ear
attend, O Lord, to this, my breaking voice:
with thee there is forgiveness, Lord, but will
you overlook the choice
we’ve made in blood atop a ragged hill?
This wretched state is what the people chose.
I feel I should have known it, should have seen
this coming — but between
contempt for grace, and life abundant, how
could they elect to cast their lot with those
who live and rule by fear: the dull, the mean,
whose power to demean
they call their strength; whose zeal to disavow
compassion and integrity somehow
will make us great again — “We have no king
but Caesar,” worshiping
a bogus god whose promises of ease
are brittle pediments of vanity,
the cracked and crumbling frieze
of freely chosen mass insanity?
The wail for crucifixion is the hoarse
and nihilistic shriek of those who’ll buy
a venomous reply
to prophets’ queries (“What does God require
of thee?”): the elevation of a coarse
and cunning fraud; the flimsy alibi
of those who would deny
their loyalty as soon as things backfire;
the cowardice that only dares aspire
to sniveling appeasement of the strong,
to tolerating wrong
and cruelty if it’s someone else who’s on
receiving end of it. The cross, the spear,
the tomb — it’s all a con,
a scam on those who choose to live in fear.
The people had a choice:
they had to choose between compassion’s prophet and a thief
of life; between belief
in strength in our togetherness, and cruel
fear-mongering. How could the message lose
that offers up the hope of real relief
for our ancestral grief?
It turns out that we’re not that hard to fool.
The blinding glitter of a Roman jewel
confounds the nation’s conscience. That’s the sting
of it: “We have no king
but Caesar!” is our motto now. We’ve lost
ourselves, and generations yet to come
will have to count the cost:
for now, today, we pliantly succumb.
Am I the only one who notices
that Caesar never smiles? That stony face —
it never bears a trace
of joy or hope: it only wears a sneer
of cynical disgust, a look that says:
the purpose of this stupid human race
is solely to outpace
life’s idiotic march, year after year,
to meaninglessly trudge, until we veer
into the grave, through utter pointlessness.
I’ll never acquiesce
to this morose, grotesque abandonment
of life, this futile gladiators’ game
you play. I don’t consent
to your deceit. I know you by your name:
perhaps you think you’ve got the people fooled;
maybe. You might deceive yourself that they
unstintingly obey,
resigned to your indomitable reign.
To two-bit despots like yourself, who’ve ruled
not on compassion’s bedrock, but hold sway
high on the fetid clay
of hucksters’ promises, and smug disdain —
just mercy’s weak to you, and the profane
deserves reverence. Your sole satiety
lies in the joyless glee
and mirthless laughter of the dominant;
no hymns of honest loyalty are yours,
only a tuneless cant,
discordant noise that self-respect deplores.
But I have sat at friendship’s table, known
the amiable tabernacles of
unselfishness and love;
my ears have tasted laughter’s sweetness, seen
the generous refrain of friendship grown
from wisdom wise as serpents (not above
the mildness of a dove).
I’ve walked the streets and fields with those who mean
to heal the rifts that slither up between
us all, and I’ve known kindness that can make
a weary people wake
to some new day of possibilities.
The warm bread of forgiveness has been mine;
I’ve drunk down to the lees
from honest barrels of inclusion’s wine.
So what does all this mean? Is all that smashed
to bits? While some are hungry, who will feed
them? Just give up the need
to give a drink to those who thirst? So do
we quit? Does this mean all our hopes are dashed
that hospitality might supersede
distrust and fear, that greed
could yield to charity? I’m trudging through
bewildered woods. And yet I always knew
what I must do: the holy rituals
of burial. That pulls
me on, but what a bitter road I’ll tread,
entombing what I hoped would heal and save.
How can that hope be dead?
Yet here it finds me, slouching toward the grave.
I know it’s common: all that lives must die,
passing through nature to eternity.
When living souls break free
of these machines, the body left behind
gives off a fragrance that can mortify
our nostrils. So it’s difficult to be
so close to death that we
experience that scent which will remind
us that this is the way of things, the bind
of life that feeds on life — that last year’s grass
and leaves will gently pass
to this year’s nourished soil, nurturing
new life. I know. But still, it’s hard to bear
the loss of any thing,
of anyone we love, without despair.
And yet the stone’s been rolled away, the shroud’s
rolled up… an empty tomb? How can this be?
What is this mystery
heaped on my anguish? O my song, explain!
Do otherworldly messengers reply
to my dismay and pain
by looking at my tears, and asking why?
***
SECUNDA PARS
In the beginning was the Self, the Soul,
the Soul was with God, and the Soul was God.
All things were made by God,
the Soul; without that Self, not any thing
was made that was made. In that Self, the whole
of life is, life that is the light of God
and of the Soul with God.
The light shines in the darkness, lightening
that darkness made at last unconquering:
the Self, beyond destruction, intertwined
with all things, unconfined
by time, immeasurable, permanent.
I carry on the fight: I will not mourn
for what was never rent:
The Spirit never dies, is never born,
is never-changing, everlasting. How
can it be killed, or kill? No weapon can
abuse the soul of man
or woman, but untouched by parching gust
or drenching flood, beyond what could allow
it to be harmed, no power is greater than
the Spirit. It began
beginningless and ever One. I trust
the Spirit’s omnipresence, so I must
desist from sorrow, face to face with what
must be: no grieving, but
rejoicing in what cannot die, what’s seen
between unseens of life and death. Why should
I mourn, and contravene
this everlasting truth? For it is good.
The time is not far off when we’ll reclaim
ourselves, but not until we’ve all passed through
the trials that will renew
our covenant, or leave us destitute.
Jerusalem will be engulfed in flame,
And even now the axe is laid unto
the root, and we must hew
down every tree that doesn’t yield good fruit.
Yet from a stump there now comes forth a shoot,
and from those roots a branch has grown. On it
will rest a new spirit
of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might,
the spirit of the Lord, and of the fear
of God, not judging sight
nor chastising the hearing of the ear.
Love’s universal banner’s been unfurled:
a love that principalities and powers
can’t take away: it’s ours
forever. It is the true Light that lights
each one of us that comes into the world.
The tyrant who preposterously glowers
from garish gilded towers
knows nothing of the matchless strength that fights
that fight of faith. And when the Israelites
outdistanced Pharaoh’s chariots, the spark
of freedom pierced the dark;
by day, a sense of purpose, like a shade
enfolding them, kept watch. (We can’t forget
the cruel mistakes they made:
our liberation isn’t finished yet.)
Like pallid whitewash on an ugly wall,
thick daubs of rage and fear are smeared, but not
enough to coat or blot
away deluded prophets’ hateful lies,
seductive cries for phony peace. Let fall
in overflowing showers an onslaught
of truth, like hailstones shot
through stormy winds of love: then let the skies
be rent, and let that hateful wall capsize.
For I have seen a holiness. It may
not be that I can lay
my hands on it — not yet; it will ascend
to my God, and to your God, and I’ll tell
the world that I intend
to smash to dust the very walls of Hell.
Hosanna! Nothing ever can destroy
eternal love. It’s indestructible,
it is unkillable,
serene in its invincibility,
relentless in uncompromising joy:
immortal love — it flows forever full,
shared ever free. Its pull
embraces all of us, and sets us free:
no fear — not in this perfect love that we
imbibe together, cleansed, renewed and true;
now we are worthy to
drink deep this living water without fear;
enough. The first are last, the last are first;
each one is welcome here:
draw from the well, and we shall never thirst.
The daughters of a new Jerusalem
are on the march. We’re taking to the street
and singing on our feet:
we know we can. We are the ones for whom
we’ve waited. Now, our brothers — God bless them —
have done their part, but left things incomplete:
there’s wisdom in retreat,
so they retreated to the upper room
while women went with spices to the tomb
to do the holy rites our forbears taught.
We’re willing to get caught
in living the commandments and the vows
of who we are. And as we carry on,
we’ll veil our dauntless brows
in pinks as brilliant as the fire of dawn.
Not even seven demons could deter
or hinder me, or break my peace of mind,
though my name be maligned —
not minding all the lying mouths that spill
insults. When kindness whispers, “I’m with her,”
let every breath I’m breathing be aligned,
committed to the bind,
relentlessly, with what love will instill;
yet no one knows me — no one ever will:
remembered with contempt and ill-repute
and called a prostitute;
let haters hate. I only know that I’ve
lived all my life, imperfectly, with grit
in all I’ve done, to strive
headlong toward truth: to find it, and commit.
A multitude of tender mercies blots
out all my sins. An inward truth will urge
me on, and I’ll emerge
in wisdom, with my eyes for ever toward
the One who plucks my feet out of the knots
of tangled nets. I’ll willingly submerge
in sprays of hyssop: purge
me, and I shall be clean, of one accord,
of one mind, of the same love with the Lord.
I know how some would like me to behave:
yes, I was warned. They gave
an explanation. My response: my right
hand I extend in love; my left’s a fist
to fight the good, long fight
of faith: nevertheless, I shall persist.
Like mother Miriam of old, I’ll shake
deliverance’s timbrel as I go:
I can’t keep quiet — no.
My song, you sowed in tears; now reap and glean
in joy, our scythe like a triumphant sword
of hope. Mine eyes have seen
the glory of the coming of the Lord.
NOTES
“The Song of Mary Magdalene” is a canzone, a European poetical form that dates back to at least the fourteenth century. Though most of the poems of the celebrated Rime sparse of Francesco Petraca (1304-1374) are sonnets (in a form we know as the Petrarchan sonnet, despite Petrarca not actually being the progenitor of that structure), some of the selections in the Rime are in the canzone form — indeed, “The Song of Mary Magdalene” copies exactly the rhyme scheme and meter of his canzone “Una donna piú bella assai che l’ sole” (no. 119 in the Rime). More precisely, “The Song of Mary Magdalene” is a pair of canzone.
Lines 1-2: Psalm 130:1: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.” (KJV)
10-12: Psalm 130:2: “LORD, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.” (KJV) 13: Psalm 130:4: “But there is forgiveness with thee…” (KJV)
19: John 10:10: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (KJV)
25-26: John 19:14-16: “Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.” (RSV)
34-35: Micah 6:8: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (KJV)
47-48: Barabbas is described as a thief, a rebel, and/or a murderer in the gospel accounts (and depending on differing translations) — e.g., Luke 23:13-19: “Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him; neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him; I will therefore chastise him and release him.’ But they all cried out together, ‘Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas’ — a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city, and for murder.” (RSV)
92: Psalm 84:1: “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!” (KJV) Cf. Num. 24:5.
96-97: Matthew 10:16: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (RSV)
107-109: Matthew 25:35: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink…” (RSV) 121-122: Hamlet, I, ii.
143-151: John 1:1-5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (KJV)
152-172: Bhagavad-Gita 2:17-28: “Interwoven in his creation, the Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to and end the Spirit which is everlasting. For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable, immortal. Therefore, great warrior, carry on thy fight. If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither knows the way of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill: the Eternal in man cannot die. He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is for evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies. When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man, or cause another to kill? As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new. Weapons cannot hurt the Spirit and fire can never burn him. Untouched is he by drenching waters, untouched is he by parching winds. Beyond the power of sword and fire, beyond the power of waters and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, never-moving, ever One. Invisible is he to mortal eyes, beyond thought and beyond change. Know that he is, and cease from sorrow. But if he were born again and again, and again and again he were to die, even then, victorious man, cease thou from sorrow. For all things born in truth must die, and out of death in truth comes life. Face to face with what must be, cease thou from sorrow. Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens. Why in this truth find sorrow?” (Tr. Juan Mascaró)
177: Jerusalem was besieged and sacked by the Romans in 70 CE.
178-180: Matthew 3:10: “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (KJV) Cf. Luke 3:9.
181-187: Isaiah 11:1-3: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” (RSV)
189-190: Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (KJV)
191-192: John 1:9: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (KJV)
195-196: 1 Tim. 6:12: “Fight the good fight of faith.” (KJV)
197-200: Exodus 13:21-22: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night; the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.” (RSV)
203-211: Ezekiel 13:8-14: “Therefore thus says the LORD God: ‘Because you have uttered delusions and seen lies, therefore behold, I am against you, says the LORD God. My hand will be against the prophets who see delusive visions and who give lying divinations; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the LORD God. Because, yea, because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets daub it with whitewash; say to those who daub it with whitewash that it shall fall! There will be a deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind break out; and when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, “Where is the daubing with which you daubed it?” Therefore thus says the LORD God: I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath; and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to destroy it. And I will break down the wall that you have daubed with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare; when it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” (RSV)
223-224: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), a Quaker, wrote a poem in 1866 which begins: “Immortal Love, for ever full, / for ever flowing free, / for ever shared, for ever whole, / a never-ebbing sea.”
226: 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (RSV)
229, 232: John 4:7-15: “There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’” (RSV)
230: Matthew 19:30: “But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” (KJV) Cf. Matthew 20:16, Mark 9:35, Mark 10:31, Luke 13:30.
248: Mark 16:9: “Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.” (RSV) Cf. Luke 8:2.
258: There is not the slightest suggestion in any biblical account of Mary Magdalene being a prostitute.
263-264: Psalm 51:1: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.” (KJV)
264-266: Psalm 51:6: “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” (KJV)
266-268: Psalm 25:15: “Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.” (KJV) 268-270: Psalm 51:7: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” (KJV)
270-271: Philippians 2:2: “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” (KJV)
278-279: Exodus 15:20: “Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing.” (RSV)
281-282: Psalm 126:5: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy!” (RSV) 283-284: Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” 1861.