Beginnings/Endings 1994
Death has been our companion for as long as we have been human.
Knowing
that we had a beginning and that we would
have an end,
knowing that
there was a time when we were not,
that there would come a time when we would
have ceased to be,
this is the knowledge of the gods,
the fruit of the
tree of knowledge,
the insight
which separated us from our fellow creatures,
from all that crawls and creeps
and swims and flies
across the face of this fecund planet.
It was the
knowledge of our own death
which ripped us from the nest of innocence,
which
stood us naked and responsible in the universe,
the only part of existence
to know its own finitude,
to reflect upon its being,
to contemplate
its own end,
to conceive a world in which it had no part.
Driven by that
knowledge,
we have created
the definitive works of our species--
complex civilizations,
intricate
works of art,
cities and towns and villages,
and religious speculations
of incredible variety--
all designed to repeal the sentence,
to defeat death,
to
enter than infinitude
which is the logical necessity
if we be
finite.
Gods we have cobbled together
compounded of hope and fear
and
the tenuous speculation
that death may be an entry into another world,
not
the end it seems,
but a passage,
a
means to not be and yet still be,
to leave the world but to affect
the world.
Driven by the knowledge
that we must die,
we sometimes
embrace madness.
Unable to elude death,
some have enlisted in its service.
Angels
of destruction we become;
betrayed by self-knowledge ,
we
become the enemies of life,
sowing death and despair
athwart the planet.
We
natter on
of megacorpses and acceptable deaths;
We murder friends
and strangers alike
For what
they have done and for what they have not done,
And for who they are or are
not,
And for no reason at all.
Through it all,
sane or mad,
hoping
or despairing,
we know death stands by our shoulder
mirroring to us
our unique humanity.
When we have the courage to look full in the face of death,
then
we discover who and what we are:
That single living form which
because of the knowledge of death
has invented meaning and purpose and direction.
Then
we learn that death
does not ask us to serve it,
does not ask us to be the enemies of life.
Death
waits quietly to gather us in peace unto itself
when life has used us
up.
This morning,
with the old year gone
and a new year stretching
before us,
a new year born in cold and darkness,
we gather to celebrate
our endings and our beginnings,
and to find a place in our own lives for death,
so
that we need neither flee it, nor fear it, nor serve it,
but learn
to live richly with its dark
realities.
How many millions have died this year
no one can count.
A
thousand different ways death has overtaken them.
Some have been surprised--
In
youth and hope and promise
they have been cut down.
Some have
been gathered in the fullness of years,
Rich in honor, surrounded by love,
worn
out in the using of life.
Some have been the victims of violence, brutality,
hatred, carelessness.
Some have been casualties of their own passions.
Many
more have been culled
by the earth,
gathered in by drought, disease, famine, earthquake and storm.
Some
have died in anger and pain;
some have found death a gentle release.
Most
of us have known someone this by-gone year
whose life has ended.
Today
we celebrate their lives,
their successes and their failures,
their
victories and their defeats,
their magnificence and their meanness.
We
mourn them, and in them, ourselves,
and we pray them eternal rest.
For
those who died too soon,
victims
of hatred, violence, thoughtlessness,
casualties of a world which
has yet to embrace its universalist destiny,
we mourn and repent,
and
seek the vision and courage
to change the world,
to serve life
so that
death become live's welcome servant,
not its bitter adversary.
In memory
of those who have died,
we light these candles:
First, for those
who over the years have been members of this congregation and who have died this
past year, we light a candle.
We remember: ANNA BABBIT
ED BOWER
EILEEN HELCK
JACOB TRAPP
MORTON FAGEN
MICHAEL STANLEY
WILMA
STARR
EDWIN ROBINSON
Second for those who were
relatives of our members and friends, and who have died during this past year,
we light a candle. (Will those who have lost a relative during the past twelve
months please stand, and if
you wish, speak the name of your family member in this holy place.)
Third,
for all our brothers and sisters across the globe who have died this year, we
light a candle. (Will the rest of the congregation please stand and remain standing
through the hymn.)
HYMN: WHERE MY FREE SPIRIT ONWARD LEADS ...324
If
death has been our constant companion
from the very beginning,
birth
has been our hope.
In each child born out of the womb of time and space,
product
of the seed of
woman and man,
we have dared see a promise--
that the past is not prescriptive,
that
history is not destiny,
that the errors and follies of the past
need
not be repeated in endless procession.
We greet each child
as
a bond between past and future,
as a reason to hope,
as a renewal of
the covenant
between the human community and the world which gave us life.
We
are reminded that ultimately we stand as children
before the immensity
of the power which created us.
We
are reminded that ultimately we stand as children
before the complexity
of the world we have created for ourselves.
We are reminded that ultimately
we stand as children
before the possibilities which stretch before us.
We
greet each child
as a challenge and a reproach.
Each child is born
into a world
shadowed by hatred, injustice, violence and want.
Each child
receives as a birthday present
the legacy of our failures.
Each child
has,
for shield and protection,
only
the love and concern
of parents
and family
and friends
and
community.
Each child born challenges us to accept as our own
responsibility
for all the children of the earth.
How many have been born this
year, we cannot say.
How many have coughed out their lives
before more than
a few days had passed
we cannot say.
Nonetheless, this January morning,
standing
at the beginning of a new year,
we greet the children of the
human family;
we welcome you
to this tired, troubled, beautiful, promising planet;
we extend to you the
shield of our protection and concern;
we pledge to you our continued effort
to bring to birth
a better world
wherein you may grow up healthy, strong,
free;
wherein your children may someday laugh and sing.
In your honor,
we light candles.
First, for the children born into our church family
during this past year, we light a candle. (Will all those who have had a birth
in their families during the
past twelve months, please stand and if you wish, speak aloud the name of the new
child in this place of hope.)
Second, for all the children born into
the body of humanity this past twelve months, we light a candle. (Will the congregation
please rise and repeat after me.)
They are all our children;
we are all their parents.
HYMN: CHILDREN OF TOMORROW...110
One
year is gone.
one year is just begun.
We belong to both,
To the old
and the new.
Birth and death,
death
and birth,
Out of the womb of the earth we come,
to stand briefly
beneath the stars of the heavens,
to dream dreams,
to give birth to
dreams
and to children,
to change the universe, however slightly, forever
and always,
and then, to the earth we return,
partners forever in her eternal
dance around the sun.
Like the candles we light,
our lives burn
briefly,
but they glow with a power not rivaled
in all this vast sidereal
universe.
In this time of
beginnings and endings,
let us tend the light of hope and promise
making
our lives a gift
for all time
secure in the eternal processes
which belong
to the good earth,
our home.
HYMN: LADY OF THE SEASON'S LAUGHTER
...51