Sermon
Immortality
The
Rev. Jack D. Bryant
We
speak of time in three ways or modes -- the past, present and future. Every child is aware of them, but no wise man
has ever penetrated their mystery. We
become aware of them when we hear a voice telling us: you also will come to an
end. It is the future that awakens us to
the mystery of time. Time runs from the
beginning to the end, but our awareness of time goes in the opposite
direction. It starts with the anxious
anticipation o f the end. In the light
of the future we see the past and present.
So let us first consider our going into the future and towards the end
that is the last point that we can anticipate in our future.
The image of the future
produces contrasting feelings in man.
The expectation of the future gives one a feeling of joy. It is a great thing to have a future in which
one can actualize one’s possibilities, in which one can experience the abundance
of life, in which one can create something new -- be it new work, a new living
being, a new way of life, or the regeneration of one’s own being. Courageously one goes ahead towards the new,
especially in the earlier part of one’s life.
But this feeling struggles with other ones: the anxiety about what is hidden in the
future, the ambiguity of everything it will bring us, the shortness of its
duration that decreases with every year of our life and becomes shorter the
nearer we come to the unavoidable end. And finally the end itself, with its impenetrable darkness and the
threat that one’s whole existence in time will be judged as a failure.
How do men, how do you, react to this image of
the future with its hope and threat and inescapable end? Probably most of us
react by looking at the immediate future, anticipating it, working for it,
hoping for it, being anxious about it, while cutting off from our awareness the
future which is farther away, and above all, by cutting off from our
consciousness the end, the last moment of our future. Perhaps we could not live without doing so
most of our time. But perhaps we will
not be able to die if we always do so.
And if one is not able to die, is he really able to live?
When
I think of immortality I am reminded of what Woody Allen once said: “I don't want to achieve immortality through
my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” I think that sums up how most people feel
about the subject.
Immortality means living forever.
It means never dying. Or if death
does happen, it doesn’t really happen.
Immortality – as commonly understood in the western world – says there
is something that transcends the body, that continues to live – something that
is the real you or me that will live forever.
In other words, immortality is about life. But I disagree. I believe Paul Tillich is correct. Our concern about immortality arises out of
our concern about death. Immortality is
not about life, it is about death.
Regardless, when we talk about immortality, we use words that speak of
life.
Immortality
is no stranger to Unitarian thought.
Thomas Jefferson – a Unitarian – believed there was a life after
death. And William
Ellery Channing, the greatest Unitarian preacher of the nineteenth century, said,
“Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity.” I have not crossed the River Styx, so I will
not say if
The
idea of the soul comes from Greek philosophy – not Greek religion, but Greek
philosophy. It does not come from the
bible. Ministers today who speak of
someone dying and going to heaven are preaching Greek philosophy, not the bible
– although most of them don’t seem to know that. I once attended a funeral for a six-year-old
boy. The minister said he was certain
that little boy was walking the streets of heaven, hand-in-hand with
Jesus. I am sure he believed he was
preaching from the bible. But the New
Testament is explicit on this point.
When people die, they are dead.
They are in the grave, and that’s where they stay until Jesus returns –
which is when they will be bodily resurrected.
And if their bodies have been destroyed, they will be given resurrection
bodies. That’s a very different idea
from an eternal soul going to heaven – or hell – as is commonly preached and
understood today.
But
neither the bible nor Greek philosophy has the final word when it comes to
immortality. Do you remember the UFO
cult called Heaven’s Gate? Forty-one of
their members have committed suicide since 1997 in the belief they would leave
their earthly bodies and move to a higher level of existence where they would
be immortal. And then there’s my
favorite contemporary story of immortality – which takes the form of a
movie. It is my favorite because on one
level it is a very funny story – and at the same time it succeeds – in a very
serious way – in illuminating the traditional understanding of
immortality. That story is the movie
“Groundhog Day.”
The
movie’s plot revolves around a cynical, self-absorbed television weatherman
played by Bill Murray. He travels with a
cameraman and his woman producer to
The
next morning Phil Connors awakes to discover he is reliving the previous
day. And this goes on day, after day,
after day. After recovering from his
initial shock, he uses his special form of immortality to exploit and take
advantage of other people – consistent with the character he has shown. In particular, he tries to seduce his
producer and another woman, taking advantage of the knowledge he gains by
constantly reliving the same day. But
eventually he tires of the game and settles into a depression that leads him to
commit suicide. He kills himself over
and over again. But each morning he
awakes to once again relive the same day.
Eventually,
instead of exploiting people he tries to help.
He begins to make the most of each day.
Repeating the same day over and over again he learns to play the piano,
saves the same man from choking to death, takes a homeless person to the
hospital, and catches a small boy who falls from a tree – day after day. And instead of trying to seduce his producer,
he reveals his true self to her – the true self he has always been so afraid to
reveal that he has had to hide it behind cynicism and cruelty to others. To his amazement – and hers – she likes him
for who he really is. Eventually, having
lived a perfect day, he awakes to a new day.
I
find the conclusion particularly interesting because of two theological
ideas. First, his salvation is salvation
by character – a thoroughly Unitarian idea.
And second, the salvation he finds is not immortality, not life eternal,
but mortality. When he was immortal, he
wanted to die. When he becomes mortal,
he wants to live. It is by becoming mortal
that his life becomes worth living.
Remember what Tillich said? “[I]f
one is not able to die, is he really able to live?”
It’s been said there are no
atheists in foxholes. I was only in the
army for a brief period of active duty.
I was never in combat. But I don’t
believe the claim that there are no atheists in foxholes. I believe that claim has less to do with the
anxiety of those in combat and far more to do with the anxiety of those who say
it. Perhaps that doesn’t make sense to
you, but it does to me. It makes sense
to me because of my experience in chaplaincy.
There’s nothing unique about
the experience of working as a hospital chaplain. Everyone encounters such situations. It’s just that as a chaplain one does it
several times a day. The situation is
the encounter with the anxiety and fear of patients – and their families and
friends – facing serious illness and even death. The first day I worked as a hospital
chaplain, I was told there was one thing a chaplain must never do. A chaplain must never deny a person’s pain or
fear or anxiety. Instead, one must
acknowledge that pain and fear and anxiety.
Even if it is groundless; even if the person is wrong; even if you know
to a moral certainty that he or she is wrong, it is essential to acknowledge
the person’s pain and fear and anxiety – because to deny it will only increase
it.
For myself, I have always
believed that immortality serves to deny a person’s fear of death. That doesn’t mean a person who believes in an
afterlife – some kind of eternal life – is afraid of dying. Perhaps they aren’t. But if they are, then I believe the “promise”
of immortality, of eternal life, will increase their fear and anxiety of
death. That’s why I believe mortality
was the gift of salvation for Phil Connors.
I believe his greatest fear was of living in a world in which he was not
loved and in which he was incapable of loving.
Immortality became a burden. That
was why he tried to commit suicide. But
when he finally achieved a life worth living, he was able to joyously accept
his mortality.
I know there are people who
disagree with my view of immortality. I
believe there are people for whom a sense of immortality, of some kind of life
after death, is a comforting thought. I
also admire what I believe is the motivation for the origin of the belief in a
heavenly life. I believe it is derived
from the reality of life in the Roman World.
The history books tell us it was a world of the Roman Peace. But for the majority of the people it was the
world of the Roman terror. There was no
escaping the horrors of life under Imperial Rome – a world built on
slavery. There was no hope of a better
life in that world. But hungry for some
sense of hope, I believe there evolved the idea of an eternal life where
justice would reign forever. This is not
an idea to disparage as superstition – it is an idea that reveals the human
hunger for justice. It is an idea that
reveals humanity at its best.
But I cannot personally
accept it because I believe it is to give up on life. I cannot accept it because I believe that it
is the boundary of death that gives life meaning. Without that boundary, I believe I would
ultimately face depression and meaninglessness.
But there is something of
that idea that still calls to me. It
compels me to ask this question: Is it
possible to imagine a different kind of immortality? Might this different kind of immortality be a
true affirmation of life, instead of a reaction against death? I believe this is possible.
The liberal religious
tradition is one rooted in individualism.
I stand in that tradition. But
suppose – as the philosophers Whitehead and Hartshorne have – that life is not
an accident of a mechanistic world.
Rather, the world, the universe, is itself alive – not in the sense that
we are alive as individuals, but in the sense that life is the very essence of
all existence. Life then does have its
own meaning – and that meaning is the very meaning and purpose of the
universe. That does not mean that it is
for us – personally – to understand the meaning of the universe – only to know
that such a meaning exists.
In such a world I will
someday cease to exist. My personality
will end. But because my life is part of
a greater life, that which I sometimes call the universe, and other times call
God, then life does continue and I will be a part of it. In the same way, those I have known, those I
have loved, are still with me. Not as
personalities, but as memories – memories in the very mind of God – where God
is understood as being the life of the universe as a whole. Every life that has gone before is still a
part of the greater fabric of life that is the universe. I cannot have the comfort of thinking my
personality will continue forever – but as I’ve said, I don’t think that is a
comfort – rather, I have the knowledge that my life is part of something larger
than myself; and my life has meaning – real meaning. Most especially, my life is not just
preparation for death, which is what happens in the traditional view of
immortality. To me, that’s the great problem
with the orthodox view of this Easter season.
You can hear it in these words, the Apostle’s Creed.
I
believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in
Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the
dead. He ascended into heaven and sits
at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the
living and the dead. I believe in the
Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness
of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
The
Apostles creed reduces the life of Jesus to a comma. It says his life was unimportant. It says all life is unimportant except as
preparation for death. This claim of resurrection and life eternal – as William Ellery
Channing once observed – “place a gallows at the center of the universe.” I believe we should place life at the center
of the universe. That’s why I am content
not to have life eternal. It is why I am
content to have my life defined by a beginning and an end – a beginning and an
end that give it meaning and purpose and make it dear to me, so long as I shall
live. Instead of celebrating death, I
say we should celebrate the life we have.
I say, to life. L’Chaim.
Amen.