Proper 7B: Psalm 133, Mark4:35-41 “Crossing the Unknown Sea”
Today’s Gospel lesson imparts a beautiful understanding of the depth of the peace in Jesus’ soul, a peace that could calm the frantic disciples, a peace that could calm the sea. This peace, of course, is the peace he wishes for each of us, especially at those times when our seemingly frail vessels are tossed about on wild and unpredictable waters.
Several of our hymns today come from a section of the New Century Hymnal called “Comfort and Assurance.” One that I did not select is known to many of you. It is variously called “My Life Flows on in Endless Song” and “How Can I Keep from Singing.” There is a phrase in this hymn that has become a mantra for me. The first verse goes like this: “My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I hear the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear the music ringing. It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?”
The second verse then picks up the theme of the growing storm, which could potentially create great fear and discomfort. “What though my joys and comforts die? My Savior still is living. What though the shadows gather round? A new song Christ is giving. No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that Rock I’m clinging. Love commands both heaven and earth. How can I keep from singing?”
The phrase that has been my saving grace through many trials is, “No storm can shake my inmost calm.” It is this phrase that reminds me that I am eternal, that I am of God, that although I have a body and an ego, I am neither. I am a creation and an emanation of the eternal. I will never die. I came from the light, and to the light I shall return. “No storm can shake my inmost calm.” In my case, this calm is cultivated daily in the practice of Centering Prayer, where all the insignificances of my life are left behind, where all the endless chatter of my fearful ego is silenced, where I sink below the surface of those choppy waters that are my sometimes life and observe them from the safety of the depths of my true identity.
The title of today’s message comes from a book by David Whyte, spelled with a “y”. David Whyte had a stormy passage in his life regarding the career or vocation he had chosen. My recollection of his work is that he had been some sort of corporate giant before electing to become a poet. The focus of his work now is to help corporate people understand that they need not shackle the poet in their souls, but can integrate it. He teaches people that “To have a firm persuasion in our work—to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exact same time—is one of the great triumphs of human existence.” His book is designed to “reawaken the sleeping captain in us before (our) soul crashes on the rocks.”
Certainly the discernment of our vocation can involve crossing an unknown sea. But I would suggest to you today that there is another unknown sea that vexes and perplexes all people from time to time. That unknown sea is the contemplation of the death of our physical bodies. Today during an adult forum, we will be doing some of the work involved in our final wishes and our final words to our loved ones. Several weeks ago we pondered the sacrament of ordination.
Today we will ponder the sacrament of extreme unction, or last rites. Just as ordination, the accepting of the call to a ministry, is not just for pastors, extreme unction is not just about the death of your body. Symbolically, it can be your agreement with your creator to quit living in the past and embrace unlimited possibilities of the present. Our preoccupation with the past is a surefire way to drain energy from our availability for the present. Worst of all, it can cause us to predict that the future is going to harm us in the same ways we believe that past events have harmed us. There is a phrase for this: “future events appearing real.” The first letters of these four words spell “fear.” The very best way I know to keep the past from influencing the future is to catch myself whenever I feel fear or pessimism and ask the Holy Spirit to give me a new interpretation. This is called “the holy moment.” I used it last Thursday when this sermon was not wanting to be born. I was stuck. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me. Soon I was busy doing some heavy-duty lawn and garden work. The next morning, some information I needed for this message was given to me and the birthing of this message became easy instead of laborious.
The main thing I want to say to you today is that you need not fear your own death. It is so very easy for those of us born after the Enlightenment, after the scientific revolution, to depend on our five senses and forget that we have a sixth sense, if not more! Let me tell you a story about my brother Gary, an inorganic chemistry professor. I think that Gary knew even from childhood that the type of Christianity he was being fed in Sunday school was not satisfying for him. When he was a child, he was dropped off at church to get on a bus to go to church camp. My grandmother called my parents not long after that to say that Gary had walked to her house to escape embarkation.
I am seven years younger than this brother, but I can recall him coming home from Iowa State University stating that he wished to change his major from chemistry to philosophy. My father, an electronics engineer, was aghast. It did not happen. Gary had, after all, won the International Science Fair in high school for the discovery of a new compound! He was an up and coming star in the field! Gary went on to earn a Ph.D. and his chemistry textbook is now in its third edition. But Gary had another unknown sea to cross, and the experience created in this agnostic though tender man a new understanding of the transcendent, based not on measurements and formulas, but on the experience of something he had not previously acknowledged.
We were all gathered in Kansas City for my father’s funeral. Gary had had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with our father, who was as opinionated and dominant as Gary was gentle and patient. We were seated in, of all places, “Country Club Christian Church.” The plights of the have and the have-nots had always been a theme in our family discussions! Such irony.
The place where Gary and our father had joined most successfully was in their appreciation of classical music. Gary felt that he experienced God most fully in nature and in the music of Gustav Mahler. An organist had been found who was willing to play an extremely challenging work on the pipe organ. As Gary sat listening, he felt the presence of our father, he experienced a very bright light as he gazed upon Dad’s picture, and he felt a deep and abiding sense of peace and calm. It was a while before Gary could speak of this. He sent me a book by a fellow Tennessean named Scott Degenhart called Surviving Death. The author had also had a remarkable visit from his father just moments after his father’s body ceased its breathing function. He found that the vast majority of people do not wish to discuss such matters, and are even more loathe to discuss the experiences of those brought back from the dead.
As a former nurse, and a spiritual person, I consider attending to the dying a sacred privilege. Yes, this crossing of the unknown sea can be frightening as the ego comes to grips with the notion that all of the former roles such as “parent, provider, pastor, gardener, writer” fade into nothingness. My father experienced this in his dying and called us in a cold panic for reassurance, which we were happy to give him for as long as he needed it. But if a person can begin releasing their “roles” now, might it perhaps be easier for us when we return to the light? These roles can actually be a burden to us if they keep us from recognizing our eternal nature.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying tells us that of course the dying are afraid. They are leaving everything they think they have ever known: their body, their home, their loved ones. But for thousands of people today, this fear no longer exists or is greatly diminished. These people know at a level beyond their five senses that death is not the end. Some learn it very close to the time of their death and some learn it earlier. Those who learn it early give up their preoccupation with material things and find great meaning in simply extending love whenever possible.
There is so much more I could tell you if we but had the time. I have sat with people who began communicating with the other side towards the end of their lives and they have taught me a great deal. For as John O’Donohue says in Anam Cara, “When a person is close to death, the veil between this world and the eternal world is very thin…Your friends who now live in the eternal world come to meet you, to bring you home.” Please never be frightened by the words of the dying. They may not be talking to you, but to someone in that place where they are going.
O’Donohue goes on to say “Sometimes people are very worried about dying. There is no need to be afraid. When the moment of your dying comes, you will be given everything that you need to make that journey in a graceful, elegant and trusting way.” If fears of death are presently bothering anyone here gathered, I hope you will seek me out. There is so much more I could tell you.
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