Anthem - Leonard Cohen

Sermon for Daffodil Sunday - August 28 2011

Readings:  Matthew 16:21-25; Exodus 3:1-14

One of the central stories in our family – one that shapes who we are and what we might be – centres around my little sister.  Although two years younger than me, in many ways we were like twin sisters as we grew up together.  The two of us did most things together – all through our childhood and teenage lives. Usually dressed alike, we shared a bedroom until we left home; our childhood was filled with playing and scrapping, exploring imaginary worlds together, singing, dancing, and often ganging up against our three brothers.   Then, we grew up – moved away from home – and married two brothers.   The children of our families, double cousins, reveled in their extended family relationships.  Holidays were nearly always spent together.  It might be considered an idyllic, perhaps even perfect, family story.  But of course, that wasn’t the case.  There were hurtful moments, heartbreaks, times of grief; but when, fifteen years ago, cancer claimed the life of my little sister, while her children were still very young, our family life was cracked open, exposing naked pain and inadequate faith to cope with our emptiness and sorrow.

I imagine each of us has experienced a time (or times) in our lives when a crack has appeared in what seemed nigh perfect.  This morning, within the framework of this day on which we remember those who have survived cancer – those who have died from it – and those who live with it, I invite you to ponder how people of faith might respond to those times in our lives when brokenness is the reality thrust upon us. 

During my recent holiday, I’ve been enjoying the music of Leonard Cohen, who speaks so eloquently into the shattered dreams and lost hopes of our lives.  Cohen’s song “Anthem” – the words of which are printed in full on the back page of your order of service – reminds us ‘there is a crack in everything’.  But this is no despairing emptiness, about which he sings – rather it’s a dose of hope-filled realism – especially for those of us who imagine perfection to be the truth of the human condition.  Cohen’s song reminds us that we find hope, not in perfection, but rather, seeping through the cracks and brokenness in our lives.  There’s a crack in everything, he sings, that’s how the light gets in.

The birds they sang at the break of day
Start again I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

One of the central stories of our Judaeo-Christian faith tradition – and also our Presbyterian tradition – is that of Moses’ encounter with God-ness at the burning bush.

Another story of brokenness.  As is always the case, hearing one part of the story can lose sight of the direction.  The story we heard read this morning is of holiness, glory and great promise.  Our tendency to grasp perfection might have us leaping quickly to the glory: “Nec tamen consumebatur” (and yet the bush was not consumed).  But let’s resist that tendency to take hold of – and understand the divine revelation that God is who God is – God will be what God will be.  Let’s recognise the journey into mysterious holiness and miraculous possibility for what it is – one that is embedded in pain, loss and confusion.  Let’s not forget the beginning of the Moses story, with its many, many cracks.  We might wonder, would the light, the glory, the splendor have been recognised had there been no cracks?  Let’s remember the beginnings of the Moses saga -  a Hebrew baby, at risk, abandoned, set adrift in water by his mother to be adopted into the Egyptian family who planned his, and his people’s, genocide – a baby who grew into a young man whose identity was confused and compromised – a Hebrew, whose anger against Egyptian injustices spills over into violence and murder – an Egyptian on the run from Pharaoh, who offers protection and care for the defenceless.  In this, one of the defining stories of our faith tradition, do we not come to recognise that the light meets us in the midst of our confusion and brokenness?

We asked for signs

the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed

the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood

of every single government --
signs for all to see.

Ring the bells that still can ring - forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in.

In an interview, Leonard Cohen was challenged.  “It's not a very happy thought to believe that something will always have to be broken in order for light to get in” his interviewer suggested.  Cohen responded “It is a happy thought if we enjoy the truth.  There is always something that will have to break.  Usually it is our personal pride.

A Buddhist thinker said that disappointment is a great way to illumination.  Other masters said, "From the broken debris of my heart I will erect an altar to the Lord."

The idea that there is a staircase of gold and marble which leads to knowledge is seductive, but it seems to me that the idea of something needing to get broken before we can learn anything is a more true idea.  [This] has been my experience.  Maybe you can escape it, but I doubt it.  Unless the heart breaks, we will never know anything about love.  As long as our objective universe doesn't collapse, we'll never know anything about the world.  We think that we know the mechanism, but only when it fails do we understand how intricate and mysterious the operation is.  So, it is true, "there's a crack in everything."  All human activity is imperfect and unfinished.  And there's something positive inside us that can only be located through disillusion, bad luck, and defeat.”[1]  

Perhaps put in a different way – but can’t you hear echoes of this morning’s Gospel reading?  The story of Jesus, the one whom we follow and whose life we are committed to emulate, is reflected in Cohen’s “Anthem”.   Like Peter, in this morning’s gospel reading, we want the staircase of gold and marble leading to truth and love.  Too often, we want to deny the suffering – to paper over the cracks – to prevent the pain – without realizing that this is how the Spirit breaks into our lives – through the cracks, through the pain, through the confusion.  As Jesus put it “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  As Cohen puts it “every heart to love will come – but like a refugee.”

In the midst of my family’s life shaping story, we had to explore new ways of loving and new ways of understanding that force of Love, which we call God.  It didn’t take away any of the pain, but we were led into a journey where there were new ways of knowing Love, which were less arrogant, less binding, more fragile and more trusting.  In the process, some of us came some small way towards understanding the God who is and will be. 

Over recent weeks, we have all struggled to understand meaning in the midst of more and more cracks opening up in our lives.  Earthquake, hurricane and fire assault our planet home; war, rioting and murder fill our television screens; betrayal, loss and heartbreak fill the lives of our friends, if not our own; the church struggles to live as it is called to live – all of us feel the uncertainty of life…..“Ah, the wars, they will be fought again, the holy dove, she will be caught again – bought and sold”.  

Cohen’s “Anthem” and the stories of our faith tradition remind us that pain and loss are the way of humanity – and yet, there is more! The in-breaking of that which we call God – the sweeping in of the winds of the Holy Spirit – come through the cracks, out of the dust heaps, bringing hope to blossom in  the most illogical of ways.  Resurrection moments are happening all the time – even when we are not looking for them.  And when our moments of pain force us to stop and consider what is happening in our lives, amazingly and miraculously, through the very painful cracks, that is when we come face to face with the Divine Light, the Holy Other. 

Every heart to love will come – but like a refugee.

photos taken during this service may be viewed at

http://www.nzdigital.org/Knox280811/

 

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[1] excerpted and paraphrased from an interview conducted by João Lisboa for Expresso,  a weekly Portuguese magazine, July 9, 1994   http://www.mattradio.com/leonard_cohen_anthem.html