Sermon

Lessons of Loss

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

November 7, 2004

First Reading: Patrick Rorke, S.J. The Wisdom of Adversity.

When a man has lost all that makes our life pleasant, nay tolerable, he discovers for the first time, probably, the preciousness of tiny things, and he is filled with wonder and joy by what before he took for granted. As the poet says in the “songs of a Sentimental Bloke,” we are often so intent in groping for the stars that we trample on the daisies beneath our feet. To turn a tap and fill a glass with dear water; to sit on a chair and eat at a table from a plate; to walk in real shoes, clean and shining, along a smooth, rain-washed street; to switch on a light; to have paper to write on and a book to read … all these things are precious when one has lost them. To go into one’s room and shut the door and be alone! To have solitude and privacy, for the first time for years, after living in overcrowding in one’s allotted space - 6.5 ft. by 2.5 ft.-ever surrounded by men and noise and movement, and never alone. To be quiet and silent, after continual chatter and din. To enjoy the civilizing company of good women, after being beset all day by “men-in-the raw,” and ceaseless profanity. To exchange new ideas, and taste the sweets of intelligent conversation, when, before, all topics had long worn thin, poverty-stricken and exhausted (except for the never-failing topic of food!). To be clean, in body and clothes; to life in a clean place and eat off clean plates; in a word, to lay aside the sordidness of life, with its bugs and lice and mud and smells.

Above all, to be free! Those who have never lost their freedom are apt to sneer cynically at the exaltation of liberty; but the escaped prisoner in “Don Quixote” was wiser when he said, “There is nothing in this world, in my opinion, that can be compared to the regaining of liberty that one has lost,” and Cervantes knew, for he had been a prisoner of the Turks. If a man would learn the value of freedom, let him go live behind the barbed wire and life for three and a half years under the heel of the conqueror.

Second Reading: 23^rd Psalm

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Sermon

When I was a senior in High School my English teacher required our entire class to memorize and recite a peace of poetry. The poem that I chose was the 23^rd psalm. I think she gave us a list of poetry from which to choose - but I’m not sure - so I can’t tell you if I picked it from a list or found it on my own. To me it was just an assignment - and it’s possible that I chose it because it’s short, thinking it would be easier to memorize than the alternatives. It was a time in my life when I wasn’t comfortable with public speaking. In fact it terrified me - even standing up and reciting a poem in class made me uncomfortable. Roll that all together and you have what was for me just a high school class requirement I would just as soon have avoided. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think I chose the 23^rd psalm because it was short.

But amidst my discomfort and lack of concern for the words I had chosen, something odd happened. It was the reaction of my teacher when I recited the words. The look on her face was ecstatic. The words might not have meant much to me, but they touched her soul. I would not remember the incident, but for the look on her face.

Over the years I’ve had mixed feelings about the 23^rd psalm. Theologically and intellectually I don’t care for the image of God as shepherd. It doesn’t resonate with me. But as poetry - whose purpose is not to communicate intellectually, not to communicate ideas, but to communicate emotions, to communicate feelings, I find it powerful. And as I said, I’m aware that those two responses are at odds with each other.

I have occasionally been asked to read the 23^rd Psalm as part of a memorial service - by Unitarians as well as people of other faiths. When asked I’ve done so, which has always caused me to remember my English teacher and to wonder why it moved her so much. Over the years I’ve decided that in large measure it was probably because she had more experience of life than I did. She had more experience of loss. And that sense of loss had - I suspect - awakened in her a sense of appreciation and gratitude for something suggested by the Psalm of David. On the surface it is about the actions of God, of a shepherd like God. But as a minister of liberal religion I believe religion begins with human experience. I don’t think my English teacher had ever been in a wilderness and had a deity set a table for her. But she was old enough that I’m certain she’d lost members of her family and had friends bring covered dishes to her home so that she and her family wouldn’t have to cook a meal. In the wilderness of her grief a table had been set for her as she faced death and loss. In the midst of grief and loss had come appreciation and gratitude.

Patrick Rorke was a man who knew something about loss and gratitude. He was a Jesuit priest who was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp with British soldiers. After the war he wrote a book about his experiences. It seems to have disappeared for the most part, but I was fortunate to stumble across it. He tells a story I find fascinating.

When a man has lost all that makes our life pleasant, nay tolerable, he discovers for the first time, probably, the preciousness of tiny things, and he is filled with wonder and joy by what before he took for granted.

Imagine what his life must have been like. He spent three and-a-half years in a six and-a-half by two and-a-half foot space, deprived of almost everything he had taken for granted. Yet out of it arose a sense of gratitude, a sense of awareness of the value of life.

I wonder what you’ve lost? I’ve lost a fair number of things in my life. I’ve lost more than some people, and not nearly as much as others. But I’ve lost what seems enough to me - and at the same time I know for a certainty that I have more to loose. But what have you lost? And what is it we should learn from loss?

After fifty something years I’ve concluded that the greatest lesson to be learned from loss is gratitude and thankfulness. That’s not because loss is something good, but because I don’t think one can truly appreciate what he or she has until it is lost. After all, what could life possibly mean if we were immortal? How could we judge its value? To me that’s one of the ironies of people who seek immortality, whether it’s in heaven or through mortal achievements. Suppose you were to obtain it. What could life everlasting mean? How could you measure its value? I don’t think you could.

One of the greatest challenges of life in general - and ministry in particular - is working with children about death. How do you tell a four or five year old that his father or her mother is dead and won’t be coming home? I’ve been on both sides of that question. As an adult I’ve been acutely aware that adults often think young children don’t understand. In part they are right. But mostly they’re wrong. They’re wrong because they see children responding like children instead of adults. They don’t understand that children aren’t adults. They don’t understand that children know what happened, but as children they are being forced to deal with questions that befuddle adults - questions about meaning and purpose and value.

Most children, unlike adults, have little experience of loss. As a child grows older, he or she accumulates losses - and by doing so begins to appreciate and value life and its possessions. But the experience of loss is necessary before one can truly begin to value what one has. I think that’s why so many teenagers wreck their first cars. Most teenagers are provided cars by their parents to drive. And they wreck them. But I’d be willing to bet that teenagers who, with money they’ve earned themselves, buy their own cars have fewer wrecks - because they had to loose something that they valued - the money they had earned - to obtain that first car. Maybe we can understand value abstractly. I think it’s possible. But it’s difficult. For most of us, I think we have to experience loss - genuine loss - before we can truly understand and appreciate the value of something or someone. As Patrick Rorke said of freedom,

Those who have never lost their freedom are apt to sneer cynically at the exaltation of liberty; but the escaped prisoner in “Don Quixote” was wiser when he said, “There is nothing in this world, in my opinion, that can be compared to the regaining of liberty that one has lost,” and Cervantes knew, for he had been a prisoner of the Turks. If a man would learn the value of freedom, let him go live behind the barbed wire and life for three and a half years under the heel of the conqueror.

If we are to know the value of life, if we are to know the value of anything, we must have experienced its loss.

My high school English teacher valued the poetry of the 23^rd psalm. But I don’t think it was the poetry she valued. I think she valued what it pointed towards - and while one can see the obvious theological references, my own inclination is to think that she was responding to something that is less transcendent and more mortal.

Some of the most powerful experiences of my life have been when I was working as a chaplain and was asked to be with family and friends while someone died or immediately thereafter. There was a remarkable similarity in most of those occasions. I might say a few words, but for the most part I would just be in the room, I would just be present. It’s important to understand that I didn’t do anything that was of any consequence. But as people would leave they would usually thank me for all I’d done - even though I hadn’t done anything. But there was nothing formulaic about what they said. They seemed genuinely appreciative. I finally came to understand that they just appreciated someone being there with them. The presence of someone, of almost anyone, seemed to act as a reminder of the value of who they had lost.

I think that’s how to understand the attraction that the 23^rd psalm has for so many people. Looking past the theology that it suggests, it speaks of loss and pain and sorrow and of someone being with you. The particulars don’t matter. In the absence of one person, the presence of another seems to suggest and point us towards that loss in a way that reveals the value of the person who is gone. And in doing so, leads us to the necessity of gratitude.

It’s been said that the difference between a funeral and a memorial service is that a funeral focuses on theology while a memorial service is a celebration of the life of the individual. In a way that’s true. But it’s not true. I think both are focused on theology, different kinds of theology. I believe the traditional funeral service in our culture celebrates a theology that says it’s good the person died because now they are in heaven. It’s good because the person’s mortal life didn’t have any particular value. The memorial service in our tradition, however, is a theological statement that says the person’s life did have value - and by extension our lives, the lives of all people have value. It’s is a theological declaration that life has value - not in part, but in whole. The funeral says we should hide from loss because it is meaningless. The memorial service says we should acknowledge loss as a reminder of life’s value. The death of the one who was loved is cause for sorrow, but it is also cause for celebration, it is also cause for thanksgiving.

This month we will celebrate Thanksgiving. I think it is second only to Christmas for religious significance to Unitarians. That’s for two reasons. First, we are the direct religious descendents of the pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower. Second, Thanksgiving, as a day of celebration, is rooted in loss. The settlers at Plymouth suffered grievously. They starved, they lacked shelter and clothes and the basics of life - all the precious and tiny things that make life pleasant and tolerable. In their loss they came to appreciate their true value. In their loss they discovered the need to give thanks. And in their loss they discovered they were not alone. The native peoples they had met came and joined them in a three day celebration. Together they set tables for one another in the wilderness. With an abundance of food and fellowship they celebrated and gave thanks for all that was precious about life. But they could not have done it without first experiencing loss.

I believe faith is about commitment. There is an element of belief to faith, but it is a secondary matter. The essence of faith is commitment to something larger than the self. I believe the faith of liberal religion is commitment to those actions that create and sustain the beloved community. That is the community that is with us in the wilderness of our loss, the community that nurtures, supports and sustains each of us in the best and times and the worst of times, but most especially the worst of times, the times when we experience loss. It is the community that teaches us that loss carries with it the gift of understanding the value of what we take for granted. And while we may grieve at our losses, we must always know that loss is the constant reminder of the need for thanksgiving. Loss is the guide that lights our path. As the poet Rumi said:

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the sham, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Amen.