Second Chances
In this Easter sermon, stories of Jesus illustrate some of the ways second chances can meet us in this life. There are second chances that come as unexpected gifts, second chances we make with persistent vision and adaptable strategies, and second chances we co-create through reconciliation. This sermon was delivered on April 24, 2011.
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My family had a Passover seder this week. Actually, we had two. The first night, we had a small one with just the three adults of our household and Ondiru’s parents. We had it at the traditional time, so the twins were asleep. The second night, we started at 4pm so that the children could be exposed to the ritual. Ondiru edited the seder to be a little shorter and more modern. The babies won’t remember their first Passover, but we will. We also invited a couple of friends and family with their children, which made for the liveliest search for the Afikomen that our house has ever seen.
Two problems: we hadn’t anticipated how long it would take to do things like set the table given the new shape of our family. Our guests, being seasoned parents, were not surprised and were more than happy to pitch in when they arrived.
The other problem was that one of our babies got very upset. We didn’t know why. In retrospect, I think the twins are very aware of people, and are at a stage when keeping track of the permanence of people drifting in and out of sight is a lot of work. One of them coped, one of them was running low on cope that day. The baby calmed down during a walk outside, fascinated with the petals falling from the magnolia tree and the pear blossoms shaking off the recent rainfall. It was a huge difference, like a reset button.
One of our six-year-old guests said, “[This baby] is the fussy one. [That baby] is the jolly one.” I said that, while it’s true that they had their moods in that moment, neither baby is the same way all the time. Her mother explained that people are always growing and changing, and that’s why we can make observations, but try not to give permanent labels to babies. Six is an age for figuring out the rules of life. A six-year-old will be very clear about the correct way to play a favorite board game. It’s OK that she tried to make sense of the situation in her own way. Even as adults, labels are hard to resist. I had a good reminder that all of us, not the only the youngest among us, have opportunities to defy our labels at any moment.
There are many ways that second chances come into our lives. Some of those are small opportunities to re-start the day with a new attitude. Some second chances are large, saving our lives or turning us around to a new way of being. Easter is a great time to consider the possibility of beginning again, of celebrating renewal. There are the second chances we receive unexpectedly, the second chances we make with persistence, and the second chances we co-create when we reconcile with others.
Unexpected Gifts
Sometimes a second chance comes out of nowhere. When I was very young, maybe five years old, I went with my parents to a conference at a hotel. It was one of the few times I remember from my childhood when we traveled somewhere other than to see relatives. The hotel had a pool, which was a great novelty. I was hanging around with some of the kids whose parents knew my parents. I’m sure there was an adult keeping watch from a deck chair. The other children were a little bit older than I was, and were excited about trying out the slide into the deep end of the pool. I wanted to be a big kid like them, so I went along.
I went up the ladder, one rung at a time, more nervous with each step. My companions urged me on, impatient for their turns. Down the slide, under the water, and suddenly I didn’t know which way was up. There was water in my nose. Panicked, I flailed and kicked in all directions. That moment is suspended in my memory like a few frames of a movie on infinite repeat. I felt myself being lifted up above the surface and deposited on the side of the pool. I thought at the time that it was a lifeguard, but now I’m not so sure. Lifeguards are pretty rare at economy hotels. It’s just as likely that my friend’s parent or an alert bystander noticed that something was wrong. I’m very lucky they did. Drowning can easily be overlooked.
I got a second chance at life. I also got a second chance at being a swimmer. My parents didn’t let my one lapse in judgment turn into a lifetime of land-locked fear. Before that incident, my family hadn’t prioritized the time and money for visiting the pool or taking swimming lessons. You better believe that changed the next summer. Eventually we joined the swim team at the public pool and my parents became active team boosters.
When I started climbing up the slide, it didn’t occur to me that I might really be in trouble. I could dog paddle, and I thought that was good enough. I didn’t look for a lifeguard or a responsible adult. I didn’t expect saving or think I would need it. The help I received was a surprise act of generosity that took a moment of someone’s time and made all the difference in the world to me.
To me, that’s a form of grace. I think it’s consistent with rational faith to notice unexpected gifts, to be open to receiving them, yet without depending on them. Having been the recipient of grace, I could imagine that this means I am set apart from everyone else, that my luck somehow marks me as part of an exclusive group. While I do interpret the blessings I receive as an imperative to make good use of my time on this earth, exclusivity does not match a rational faith. Instead, I think that every unexpected gift from the universe I receive is a reminder to spread the luck around. Not everybody gets the same number of second chances.
Sometimes, in an effort to protect our hearts from bursting, it is tempting to believe that the most disadvantaged people are un-deserving of second chances. We might imagine that a person who is an ex-offender, an undocumented immigrant, or a troubled student has gotten themselves into a situation by acting in a way we don’t condone, and therefore their suffering is no longer a human concern. I’m thinking here of some of the young people I met lobbying for the DREAM act, kids who were told that they deserved death for their audacity to stay in the only country they remember as home. I’m thinking of the women incarcerated for decades away from their children, locked up for drug conspiracy because they ran errands at the bank for the wrong people in their families. (My colleague, the Rev. Melissa Mummert, has written about this and made a documentary film, Perversion of Justice.) There are places where grace could flow if we removed the dams.
It can be overwhelming to imagine that good people experience bad consequences, because that means any one of us could find ourselves on the receiving end. Trying the slide at the pool when I wasn’t strong enough was a mistake. I’m glad someone thought I should live through it. As a spiritual community, I hope we can agree that spreading second chances around more evenly is part of our purpose.
It seems to me that stories about Jesus can inspire the generosity of spirit it takes to support second chances. Perhaps the Jesus of the gospel stories was moved by his own experience of second chances, events that led him to live in a different way.
“John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness calling for baptism and a change of heart that lead to forgiveness of sins. And everyone from the Judean countryside and all the residents of Jerusalem streamed out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan river, admitting their sins.” (Mark 1:4-5) I think about the large numbers of people in this story who were ready for a change of heart. Faith, in this case, trains us to notice and to be able to accept the gifts of the universe. Faith should not train us to believe that we are the only ones who are worthy of them.
“During that same period Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And just as he got up out of the water, he saw the skies torn open and the spirit coming down toward him like a dove. There was also a voice from the skies: ‘You are my favored son—I fully approve of you.’ And right away the spirit drives him out into the wilderness …” (Mark 1:9-12)
The author of the book of Mark uses poetic imagery to describe Jesus’ experience of a life-altering moment. I don’t know if it happened exactly that way, but I believe it’s true that a change of heart can open us up to the gift of starting over. I believe it’s true that sometimes a second chance comes out of nowhere and can lead to surprising places. Having a companion—a cousin, a mentor, a strong friend—who can lift you up when the chance comes along is even better. After we step into the waters of grace, may we find ourselves in the company of people who will help us learn to swim. May we turn around to help others as we continue downstream.
Persistence
A second chance is a beginning. We need to keep going in order to reach the middle of the story. With persistence, we can create some of the second and third and fourth chances we need for this path of giving and receiving. Persistence takes hope, and sometimes a new direction.
For me, persistence and the lack of it is illustrated in my relationship with music. Sometimes I keep at it. Sometimes I let go. Sometimes I alter my course. When I was in sixth grade and wanted to start music lessons in school, I filled out a form with my first, second, and third choice of instruments. I had visions of being in marching band like my parents had been when they were in school, so I listed trumpet and clarinet as my first two choices. I had seen something on TV about cellos, so I listed them third.
The instrumental music teacher came around to see the interested students. She asked me to open my mouth. “Hmm. You are going to need braces. Let’s get you started on the cello.” I was foiled! But I’m glad that I took cello lessons. The girl who would become my best friend in the world at age 11 and who remains my best friend was also in the strings group. We shared orchestral shenanigans for many years. She’s a professional musician and music teacher now. I stuck with cello through college, and I play once in a blue moon.
After moving a few times and starting seminary, it occurred to me that a more portable instrument might be a good use of my time. I got a guitar for my thirtieth birthday, and took lessons for two years. I know a few chords and different strum patterns. My guitar skills are not ready for prime-time, and I can’t say I’ve been persistent in that technique.
Music comes in handy when there’s a feeling I want to understand or to share and I can’t come up with the words. When I wanted to spend time with my grandfather on his porch, after the point when he was not entirely aware of his surroundings, I could play “Morning Has Broken” and “For the Beauty of the Earth” and not worry about whether he understood on a literal level.
Lately, I sing a lot. I’ve heard you’re supposed to talk to babies, but I don’t always know what to say, so I sing. I hope to re-introduce the guitar soon. Right now, I need my hands free to be a human trapeze net while the babies practice cruising along the furniture. They laugh when I perform “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”
Persistence, for me, is a mixed bag. I don’t necessarily keep at something that’s working, and I don’t always figure out right away how to make adjustments so that I can keep going when a new direction is needed. Sometimes I lose hope that there is a purpose to dedicated practice and the vulnerability of being not yet good at something. The different techniques of cello, guitar, and voice meander toward the same goal. Every once in awhile I gather up the nerve to create a second chance, to risk looking foolish in order to experience beauty and human connection. Being hopeful and looking foolish are some of the best things I do these days.
Creating second chances for ourselves and for the world can be tiring. We may find our previous strategies exhausted, our personal stores of hope dwindling. The poet Adrienne Rich reminds us we don’t have to start over alone. She writes:
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
So much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age,
perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
(Reprinted as #463 in Singing the Living Tradition)
In the stories of Jesus, he knew when he sent his followers out into the countryside to minister that they would sometimes need to start over. He commissioned them together, and sent them out in pairs. Experience showed that not every stop would go well. The writers of Mark and Luke repeat the advice, “Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, get out of there and shake the dust off your feet.” (Luke 9:5; see also Mark 6:11)
According to a group of scholars known as the Jesus Seminar, that bit of advice probably didn’t originate with Jesus himself. More likely, it came from early Christian communities and was incorporated into the wisdom handed down before the stories were collected into the Christian Bible. (The Five Gospels: What did Jesus really say? The search for the authentic words of Jesus, New translation and commentary by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, p. 311) To me, this demonstrates that groups of people, not just individuals, have the power to change strategies. The early Christians figured out that they would need to learn to let it go when a particular attempt didn’t pan out. Changing directions helped them hold on to their vision.
Needing to shake off the dust can be discouraging. We create second chances when we start over. Sometimes the techniques change, heading toward the goal with persistence in motion. May we sustain hope for each other, and begin again.
Reconciliation
So far, I’ve talked about the second chances that come to us by surprise, and the ones we create with persistent hope. There are also second chances that we co-create in forgiveness and reconciliation. Starting over in relationship comes in different sizes. There are economy-sized examples of forgiveness, epic tales of restoring relationships that change the course of history. Most of our lives are built on smaller stories, travel-sized chances to begin again.
In my early twenties, I went to Boston fairly frequently. I had friends there from college and from my days working in high tech. I missed them a lot when I moved to California. One of my few, precious trips to Boston was coming to a close when I had a conflict with the friend I was staying with. It started with an empty tube of toothpaste.
As I was washing up and packing my things on my final morning in Boston, I finished a tube of my favorite hippie toothpaste: natural flavors, no artificial sweeteners or colors. I went into the living room to ask my friend if I could borrow a pair of pliers. He wanted to know why I needed pliers to pack a suitcase. I explained that the toothpaste tube was made from recycled aluminum, and I could put the empty tube in the recycling bin if I snapped off the plastic tip. My friend rolled his eyes. “You’ve been living in California too long,” he said.
I was so angry I left the room without speaking. How could he trivialize my efforts at sustainability! I was reminded of the quote about leaving California before it makes you too soft. Did my friend think I had gone soft? We barely spoke on the way to the airport. I hope I remembered to thank him for the ride and for letting me stay with him, but I’m not sure that I did.
The six-hour flight back to San Francisco gave me time to think. I was setting myself up for a long fight over an empty tube. It seemed like my defensiveness had something to do with sadness. I felt grief over the distance between our two cities. His comment glommed on to the part of my mind where I second-guessed my life choices. I called my friend from the ground to apologize. I told him that I over-reacted, and how much I missed all of my friends. He was stoic and forgiving over the phone. We’re still good friends.
Thinking back on this story, I regard it as a close call. I could have let my fear about distance turn into a permanent disruption. As it was, we lost valuable hours that we could have enjoyed in friendship during a short trip. And, really, who wants to lose even one hour out of this life? In his poem, “Forever Turning” (from Sonata for voice and silence), UU minister Mark Belletini writes of “weighing grudges on a scale balanced by galaxies and blue whales.” My friend and I both needed to be willing to start over in order to heal the relationship. Reconciling freed both of us from time-consuming resentment.
In this morning’s Time for All Ages story (Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco), the children take a chance on reconciliation after a misunderstanding with Mr. Kodinski. The story illustrates that, even when there has been no wrongdoing, reconciliation takes thought and effort. In the story, the effort leads to a relationship of joy and generosity.
When we talk about forgiveness, I want to emphasize that I don’t mean letting people who are harming others continue to do so. Putting up with abuse is not a spiritual obligation. For mutual misunderstandings and disagreements, though, a second chance can be a lifted weight.
The Easter story illustrates a second chance on a larger scale, not only because of the idea of resurrection, but also because of the way the community of Jesus has a second chance together after their leader had been executed. The four gospels tell different stories about what happened after the crucifixion. The book of Luke tells it this way:
“On the first day of the week, at daybreak they made their way to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went inside they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And so, while they were still uncertain about what to do, two figures in dazzling clothing suddenly appeared and stood beside them. Out of fright, they prostrated themselves on the ground; the men said to them, ‘Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:1-5)
“And returning from the tomb, they related everything to the eleven and to everyone else. The group included Mary of Magdala and Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and the rest of the women companions. They related their story to the apostles, but their story seemed nonsense to them, so they refused to believe the women.” (Luke 24:9-11)
Picturing the community of Jesus after his death, they must have been demoralized. The story Luke tells here is one of cynicism and mistrust. This retelling supposes that there were some unkind things said in the grief-stricken days after the crucifixion. Yet they pulled together. They found a new way of spreading the idea that the Divine Kingdom is within you and among you. Returning to the community after tragedy, after their trust with each other had been strained, could not have been easy.
I like to imagine that the power of love helped them overcome their differences. Having been introduced to a vision of the Holy that was personal and concerned for the “least of these,” having worked together and traveled together, there was enough spiritual and personal love in the community to tip the scales toward reconciliation. Their mission and their friendship had a second chance.
Love lends its power to starting over, to healing and forgiveness. Two or more people who agree to begin again in love co-create second chances for themselves and each other. May we share this gift of peace in the season ahead.
Conclusion
As it says in the first letter to the Corinthians, “There are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of the three is love” (1 Corinthians 3:13). A rational faith opens our minds and hearts to notice the unexpected gifts of the universe, to receive them gracefully, and to pass them along. Hope fuels the persistence we need to follow our principles through setbacks and changes in direction. Love draws us back into relationship when we are called to forgiveness and reconciliation. Faith, hope, and love are all ways by which second chances come into our lives.
I think it is one of the core truths of the Easter story that we may yet have another chance at life before death. May we savor it and share its richness. May we give to ourselves and others the chance to begin again, and again, and again.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
