Easter: The Spirit of Resurrection

An Easter service titled ‘The Spirit of Resurrection', led by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall, with readings given by Roy Clark, Antony Bunsee and Jasmine Cooray, and music from George Ireland and our Quartet of Singers (Lucy Elston-Panter, Margaret Marshall, Benjie del Rosario and Edwin Dizer). 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Today is Easter Day. Today we celebrate life over death. This day we celebrate changed possibilities and give thanks for the spirit of life visible in Jesus, visible in each and every one of us, visible in people in all walks of life. And as we celebrate, we also acknowledge that all we have are the stories stories reshaped and told orally by people of faith from generation to generation. No logical scientific proof of a bodily resurrection, no video footage of an empty tomb, no seismograph of an Easter earthquake. Just the stories. That in the midst of brokenness healing stirs. That in the midst of darkness a light shines. That in the midst of death life is breaking forth. When all seems gone. Hope springs eternal. Welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Easter service. Welcome to those of you here in person at Essex Church. Lovely to have a full house. Welcome to everyone joining in via Zoom from far and wide, or indeed anyone tuning in at a later date via YouTube or the podcast stream. For anyone who doesn't know me, my name's Jane Blackall, and I am minister with Kensington Unitarians. This morning our service is titled The Spirit of Resurrection. In mainstream Christian churches, this is the culmination of Holy Week, and the story will have been told across a sequence of services which move from the apparent triumph of Palm Sunday to the devastation of Good Friday to the emptiness and the not knowing of Holy Saturday. Until we find ourselves here on Easter Day, when something extraordinary happened. And as Unitarians, perhaps we're not quite sure what to make of it. Our exploration this morning will be framed by the prayerful words of the Unitarian Universalist Minister Kathleen Rowlands. Spirit of resurrection. Remind us of the power of hope to triumph over fear. The power of love to prevail over the horrors of hate. The potential for peace to be victorious over his hostility. Before we go any further, let's do what we always do. Let's light our chalice flame. It's a simple ritual that connects us with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over. It reminds us of the proudly progressive religious tradition of which this gathering is part. And it's also a little ritual moment for us to take a breath and arrive to be here now. We come with hearts heavy, perhaps, with pain and anxiety, with spirits flattened by exhaustion and apathy, our vision darkened by strife and injustice all around. And still, we come seeking and sharing connection and love in this place of beloved community. So may the old, old Easter story of hope and renewal lift up our hearts despite it all and make us glad in the presence of each other's love and care. And may this little chalice flame be to us a symbol of the light we can hold even in life's darkest hours. Time to sing together now. Our first hymn today is in the middle of your hymn sheets. If you're in the building, life's rebirth. If you're online, the words will be up on screen as they will be for all the hymns today. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer and sing up as best you can. Life's Rebirth. This Easter prayer is based on some words by Ruth Gibson. You might want to adjust your position to get more comfortable, you might want to put down anything you don't need to be holding. You might want to close your eyes. Perhaps there's a posture that helps you to feel more settled and centred. Whatever helps you get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together now and to be fully present to ourselves, to each other, and to that which lies within us and beyond us. Spirit of life, God of all love, in whom we live and move and have our being. We turn our full attention to you, the light within and without as we tune into the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom to which and through which we are all intimately connected. Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the silence and the stillness at the very centre of our being. But we come with burdens of sorrow and pain, of shame and fear, of false obligation and false pride that we are carrying so much. And we acknowledge that we yearn to be touched by such love, but that we are not always ready to receive it or to give it. Our fears get in the way. We've hardened our hearts. We've busied our lives with care. On this Easter morning we pray that the heavy stones which burden and separate us from you might be rolled away, releasing our spirits to love and new life. As we allow such beauty to go unnoticed, we've deprived ourselves of occasions for joy and delight. So on this Easter morning, we pray that our senses may come alive, ready to respond to all the beauty, the fragrance, the taste and the texture of life all around us. It is the season of renewal. Everything around us is bursting into bloom and into song. The hidden beauty of nature is preparing to unfold. On this Easter morning, we would be assured that we too have a hidden inner beauty that is just as ready to unfold, reflecting the image of your creative power in this world. We will grow. As we feel you flowing and surging within, we pray for a courageous and a joyful faith. One that empowers us to become our most true and fine selves. Empowering us to see your image in our brothers and our sisters. Empowering us to participate with you in the creation of a new way of life in which love, justice, beauty, and peace are abundantly available to all. Give thanks for the blessings we've been given. And ask for whatever it is that we most need. As this time of prayer draws to a close, we offer up our joys and our concerns, our hopes and our fears, our beauty and our brokenness. And we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal. As we look forward now to the coming week, help us to live well each day and be our best selves using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice, and peace. Amen.

SPEAKER_06 16:42

The words will be on the screen in a moment or two as well. It's become a bit of an Easter tradition for us to read this every year. It seems useful for us to remind ourselves before we delve too far into the meaning and resonances of the Easter story. As Daniel Budd says in the title of the piece, we don't know what happened. And even so, there is much to be found in immersing ourselves in the story and in making it our own. But we know what it's like when someone appears in our life whose message we feel offers hope. Whose way of being inspires us with new ways of living. We know what it's like when they're taken from us, perhaps prematurely, by unwanted change, by death and the empty space in our souls. But we know what it's like to feel sorrow and loss, despair, and grief. We know the waves of tears and the thoughts of the past which flow through us. We know that memories and stories to begin to feel the emptiness. Reintegrate their gifts to us, and our lives are shorter in a different presence which will live with us all our lives. We're not sure what happened, but we know what it's like to realize, to have it dawn upon us that we have known and loved lives on with us and within us forever, a part of who we are. We know that someone in our hearts and souls resurrection is real, not of the body, perhaps, but of the spirit. Renewed, even reborn, in the midst of our lives and our living. We're not sure what happened. But we know there is a difficult hope, of faith that through whatever sorrow or grief we are feeling, there is also a growing sense of grace and gratitude, of joy and thanksgiving in the mysterious and abiding astonishment of being fully human. In this wonder we may find strength within our own sense of Easter. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Thanks, Roy. We're gonna sing it again now. The second hymn is on the back of your hymn sheet if you're in the building. It's a new one, potentially a tricky one. Thankfully, we've got the quartet here to help us out. It's called Morning Breaks The World Awakens. And George is gonna play it through once in four before we sing. Let's give it our best shot. Morning Breaks, the World Awakens.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

Every day by Rex A.E. Hunt. Jesus died. He was killed, murdered, because of what he said and what he stood for. Those close to him, we would claim, were both surprised and shattered. Stricken with fear and grief, they were in no mood to be looking for that silver lining that supposedly comes with every cloud. But some people did think about his death. And all we have of that time and of that thinking are the stories. Shaped and reshaped and told orally by people of faith from generation to generation. Yet it's in these stories, these sayings, they were saying something important, not about his death, but about his life. True, his death mattered to them, but only because his life mattered more. Especially when they heard him say something or do something that moved them deeply. So they began to speak of his death in ways that affirmed his life, and they came to see he stood for something so important he was willing to give his life for it. That something was the vision of life called the realm or the kingdom of God, the vision which we might now call beloved community. And they came to reaffirm their own commitment to the values and visions stamped into his life by his words and deeds. They believed that in his words were God's words, and that his vision of a new realm, a new kingdom, a new way of being cultivated by him among them long before he died, no executioner or cross could kill. Jesus was dead. But he was not dead to them. His spirit was still coursing through their veins. Likewise, when we believe in his vision of what's possible, a new realm, a new kingdom, a new way of being, we too can affirm our commitment to the values and vision and a resurrection invitation. To live life deeply and not and with zeal, to be embraced by life, not scared of it, in all its peculiarity. Because life cannot remain visionary. It must be concretely practiced. It must be a way of life. Because resurrection is not just a collection of stories about a so-called once and only event in the past. Resurrection can and does happen every day.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

We're moving into a time of meditation now, and to take us into the stillness, I'm going to share a poem by Kelly Kripchuk, which reflects the Easter themes of suffering, of death and resurrection, and the echoes of these themes in our own lives. At the GA meetings last week, the annual meetings of Unitarians, a colleague of mine made a comment about how Unitarians sometimes want to rush to the happy ending of Easter Sunday without first facing the horrors of Good Friday. And this poem uh speaks to that. It asks us to return to the tomb and to stay there a while. Following the poem, we'll hold a few minutes of silence, which will end with the sound of a bell, and then we're going to hear some more beautiful music from the quartet. So again, let's do what we need to do to get comfortable. You might want to put things down, you might want to get your feet flat on the floor. Whatever helps you to feel settled and grounded. And the words they're just an offering. Feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way. Return to the place where once you knew without doubt all hope was gone. The last dying grasp of breath expelled. Then silence. Stillness and the great tearing open of sky and earth. The first sign of spring is the revelation of all that's died. Snow's clean slate hides decay. But when the sun's warmth rises, its first disclosure is the depth of loss. The grass brown and trampled, barren, broken limbs scattered, earth exposed, and the empty stretch of field filled with brown stalks of dump decomposition. This is the time of waiting. The time in which we grow weary and lose heart. You have to watch the barren earth pull back brown leaves, lean close scanning the hidden places. You have to stand beside the stone, Martha would tell us. Your trembling hand pressed against the cold, hard surface. You have to enter the dark cave, Peter whispers, not knowing what you'll find. You have to sit through the long, dark night to see the first light of morning. To feel the sharp intake of breath as the sky's closed eye, cold and grey, cracks open slowly. Then with growing determination, this is what you must do to experience resurrection.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Years ago, I stumbled upon a little book by Julia Esquivel, the Guatemalan poet and social justice activist, titled Threatened with Resurrection. Those few words had a huge impact on me. I'd been taught that death is the great threat and resurrection and resurrection the great hope. But at the time I found Esquivel's book, I was experiencing the death in life called depression. Her title jarred me into the hard realization that figurative forms of death sometimes feel comforting, while resurrection or the hope of new life feels threatening. Why? Because death in life can bring us a perverse sense of relief. When I was depressed, nobody expected anything of me, nor did I expect anything of myself. I was exempt from life's demands and risks. But if I were to find new life, who knows what daunting tasks I might be required to take on. Sometimes we choose death in life as in compulsive overactivity, unhealthy relationships, nonstop judgmentalism aimed at self or others, work that compromises our integrity, substance abuse, pervasive cynicism, etc. Sometimes we choose death in life because we're afraid of the challenges that might come if we embraced resurrection in life. Every religious tradition is rooted in mysteries I don't pretend to understand, including claims about what happens after we die. But this I know for sure. As long as we're alive, choosing resurrection is always worth the risk. I'm grateful for the people and experiences that continue to help me embrace the threat of resurrection. My Easter wish for everyone is the ability to say yes to life. Even when life challenges us, it's a gift beyond all measure.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Thanks, Jasmine. We get to sing a bonus hymn this week because there's all these hymns we can only sing once a year. I decided to squeeze an extra one in. It's number 109 in your purple books. Now the Green Blade Rises. But some of us still find Easter challenging. As I mentioned earlier last week at the GA, the annual meetings of Unitarians here in the UK, a colleague commented that Unitarians sometimes want to rush to this happy ending of Easter Sunday without first facing the horrors of Good Friday. But I'm not sure that's quite true. In my experience, when Unitarians hear the Easter story, it's the resurrection bit that many of us struggle with or gloss over. The notion of someone literally, physically coming back from the dead is for many of us just too strange, counter to the laws of the universe as we know them. And it's my impression that these days most of us Unitarians probably don't give that much headspace to trying to make sense of the resurrection on a literal level. But the story that leads up to Easter Sunday is all too real to us, I think, and it has so many resonances with the world that we're living in right now. We Unitarians find it all too believable that someone preaching love and justice, standing up against empire, would get on the wrong side of the authorities, be persecuted, betrayed, ultimately tortured and killed. His voice permanently silenced as a message to others. And that his followers would be rightly devastated in the aftermath of that. They'd gathered around this charismatic leader, pinned all their hopes on him, seen him as their salvation in times of oppression, and then suffered this total catastrophe. Easter is a story of the worst possible thing happening. And it asks us to face up and witness the horrific things that are happening right. Right now in our own time. Whether that's the terrible violence and injustice that is being wrought by despots and their minions all around the world, or the casual cruelty and deep division that's being whipped up to enable such tyrants and oppressors to get away with it. Or the everyday suffering that's going on much closer to home as evermore are pushed into poverty and precarity by systems which depend on increasing inequality as others are scapegoated and made targets of the mob as a distraction. I could go on and on listing all the unnecessary harms that we humans do to one another. And of course, there are also all those sufferings that inevitably touch every life through natural causes illness and decline, loss and grief. That is just our human condition. Look at it with clear eyes in its totality. That we acknowledge all this pain and suffering, whatever its source might be, rather than looking the other way or putting on a brave face or being in denial. And perhaps even that we take a hard look at ourselves and ask what complicity we have in it all. That's the Good Friday bit of Easter. Then comes Holy Saturday, the morning after. Nothingness, emptiness, despair. The worst thing has happened. Jesus is dead. But his followers are still here. It's a time of not knowing. Everything they hoped for has been swept away. And now what? What are the survivors supposed to do in the face of devastation? That reading we just heard from Jasmine by Harker J. Palmer speaks to this for me. When he talks about the state of death in life, he speaks of various ways in which we might respond to disaster by falling into depression, by throwing ourselves into overwork, by self-medicating through substance abuse, by becoming cynical, by becoming even nihilistic. In the face of all the horrors, we might just trudge through our days like zombies one way or another, half a life, dealing with what's in front of us, but overwhelmed by the state of things. Parker J. Palmer suggests there is another possibility which he calls resurrection in life. Now I don't think he's suggesting this is easy, not at all. But it's the hope of Easter. If we're still here, we can choose to turn towards resurrection. To say yes to life, no matter how bad things seem. To make a way out of no way. Resurrection in this sense doesn't mean we're picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, and carrying on like nothing happened. Something was lost. We are changed. Perhaps we're permanently scarred by it, physically or psychologically. Our life is now most likely not going to look quite like we imagined, or quite like we hoped for. In the gospel, and as the story of the early church continues in the Acts of the Apostles, we see how things unfold. After Jesus' followers discover the empty tomb, there is at first confusion and disbelief. But a way forward slowly emerges. There are reports of Jesus appearing to the disciples for a while, but soon he ascends to heaven, and then it is down to them to continue what he's died. And now it is down to us. We gather in this community, as others from so many different religious traditions are doing, week in, week out. We gather in the face of all the world's ills. The death dealing, the injustice, the oppression, and we gather to give each other the courage that we need to live and live fully despite ill. We gather to uphold a vision of a better world, upon which our forebears might have called the kingdom of God. These days we might call it beloved community. But when we feel overwhelmed and despairing at the state of it all, we come back here to be reminded of what's possible and reminded of the part that we still have to play. To be strengthened for the task instead of giving up doing the little bit we can do, this is how we practice resurrection. We keep on calling each other back to hope. And we do this together by turning our attention to what is good and true. We're turning our attention to love. Life breaks through time and time again. Life breaks through what seems like death. Even in the heart of winter, life breaks through and unseen growth occurs beneath the frozen ground. Some plants need winter in order to flower in the spring. Laurel trees have the strength to break through stone to sustain their fragrant, vibrant lives. Even these seemingly frail lives can survive in the harshest of circumstances. Life is abundant and strong. It thrives in unusual places, even in the desert. Life shines through thresholds, even the threshold of death. It blooms and grows and changes through the stream of time. Life breaks through walls we build to keep it out and escapes prisons meant to keep life in. Life breaks through, shining through the world all around us, and life breaks through in us as well, in the forms of faith, hope, love, and joy. Life breaks through again and again, and so we celebrate Easter this day the triumph of life over death, of goodness over wrongdoing, and of love over hatred and intolerance. Life breaks through. One last hymn, number forty-four in your purple book. We finally get to sing some hallelujahs. It's Give Thanks for Life, hymn number forty-four. Thanks to Ramona for tech hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting online. Thanks to Margaret, Lucy, Benji, Edwin, and George who always gives it 110% for our wonderful music today. Thanks to Roy and Anthony and Jasmine for reading. Thanks to Juliet for greeting. Liz, oh no, hang on. Wrong way around. Juliet for making the tea. John for greeting. Marianne for doing the lunch. Thanks to everyone who's helping in various ways. If you're online, do stay on for a chat if you can. If you're in person, please stay for lunch. I would imagine we've got enough for everyone. Or even if you just want to grab some cake and go, there is plenty of cake as well. And help with clearing up after the lunch is always welcome. I think I'll say that on behalf of Marianne. Tonight on Friday at 7, we've got a heart and soul online contemplative spiritual gathering open to all. Just email me for the link. This week's theme is communication. Sonia will be offering her Nia Dance class here on Friday lunchtime. We're having a walk on Tuesday the 21st. That'll be exploring Greenwich Park, so it shouldn't be too strenuous. Sign up with me for that if you want to know more details. This month, the Better World Book Club is talking about Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. And we've got a couple of copies of that to lend out if you want to borrow that. Come along on the 26th of April on Zoom to talk about it. Next Sunday, Sarah Tinker will be leading the service on our bigger picture. That will be followed by Yoga with Hannah and the Memorial Quilt project with uh for Gaza with Patricia. Ask them if you want to know more. I'm going to nag you about membership. Many of you, thank you, about two-thirds of you have already filled in your membership form. I really appreciate it. We would really love to get that project complete and all the memberships in before the AGM, which is a few weeks away now. Um membership is not about money, it's about affirming your support for this congregation and what we stand for, and it's good for morale to have good membership numbers each year. Um if it would help you to do it, I'm going to set this laptop up as a membership station. If it's just a case of remembering, you can come and do it straight away and fill it in after the service. End of nag. It's not about the money. Did I already say that? There is no subscription fee, just to clarify. That's why it's not about money. Okay, stop digging a hole, Jane. Details of all these activities are on the back of your order of service. So in the Friday email, do sign up for the uh mailing list if you haven't already done so. The spring newsletter is out, and in the foyer, do take a copy of that if you haven't got one. We've very much got a life beyond Sunday mornings. Do what you can to keep in touch, look out for each other, and nurture those supportive connections. So just time for our closing words and closing music now. Let us go for Oh no, hang on, sorry, let us not go forth.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

Uh Elise Beale, a member of our congregation, is exhibiting some of her artwork at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. If any of you would like to pop along and have a look, the details are on the fly in for it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Thank you, Brian. Sorry. Too much to remember. Now, let us go forth this bright Easter morning with the faith that life is worth living, that defeat and adversity can be transformed into victory and hope. That love is eternal and life is stronger than death. May we find joy this Easter. A joy born of a life well lived. May we have love this Easter, bringing healing and new growth. May we have peace this Easter, a peace that gives us reason to sing. And may our faith inspire us to live our lives with dignity, courage, hope, and love, as we made the days to come.