Unless a Grain of Wheat... Lent 5

 Theologian Karl Rahner wrote, “the earth is the body that holds the ‘soul’ until resurrection.”

The earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

In my heart of hearts, I would love for every human being to mediate on this line, even just to say it aloud a few times throughout a day. The earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

I believe that the nuance of the idea that the earth is the body, and we are working parts within that body – giving the soul purpose and connection with other souls to be in service of the earth – is enough to change how we sojourn and live.

Often when we contemplate change, repentance, forgiveness we think of an hundred percent turn around; all or nothing. Yet, it only takes a 2% movement in our thinking, to be change.  It is not about the all-in, it is change little by little. How would the world change if we took time to consider the earth is the body that holds us all?

Karl Rahner’s comment -the earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection- was highlighted as a phrase to cause movement in thinking and in people’s hearts. The phrase was used in his discussion and observations around burial practices and how such practices have changed and in their changing have caused a loss of connection with humans to the earth.  As a society we have become un-rooted to earth and the rhythms of life and death outside of ourselves. Consider the changes in our practices of death over the past century:  how many of you have washed a loved one’s body after death? Or been to a wake in the person’s home with the body present? Have you sat vigil with a body on and off over a couple of days? Have you hand dug a grave or filled one in? Have you wrapped a body in a shroud? Trudged through the cemetery, walking over other graves, to see the hole in the ground? Wailed in the cemetery? Taken care of a grave – added dirt on a settled plot, planted grass seed on it in the spring? Walked passed grave markers resurrecting the names written on them by reading them?

Many have not had experiences of the earthiness of death. In recent years, more and more people are choosing no visitations, no ceremonies, no burying or scattering of bodies turned to ash. Urban living and the funeral industry have sanitized and sterilized death.

We have lost connection to the earth -a connection to God- because of an un-rootedness in burial practices.

 

Whenever I hear the Gospel reading from today read, I am immediately transported to another place. ... There I am, a little apart from a huddled group of people, fixing black shoes on a patch of higher grass as it sinks into the mud, breathing in the smell of fresh earth, feeling the bitter wind on the tips of my ears, hearing the call of birds as focus goes to the hole in the ground. From my mouth come the words: Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

And in that moment, I am grounded; my faith is firmly rooted; I am -the group is- embraced by the body of the earth.  I am connected to the rhythm of life and death and resurrection. At any other time one may find me all over the map, as to the percentage of faith I have, or feel, or how connected to God I may be... but never, in that moment on the lip of an open grave, in the elements, standing on Mother Earth, have I ever been in doubt that the return to earth is the beginning of resurrection.  ..unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies...

 

We begin Lent each year with Ash Wednesday, a day with rituals and prayers to change our minds and hearts.  The day is but a start to a 40 day season to focus on sojourning to and through death; it is not a quick fix, but time under pressure. Ash Wednesday and Lent are part of the rhythm of the church year; having us purposely sojourn in uncomfortable places because if there are no uncomfortable places our hearts and minds never move, never change, and the possibility of resurrection remains dormant.

Obedience to the rhythms outside of ourselves – means seeing and experiencing a bigger vision- we move beyond individual ego and concerns, and enter the body of the earth; Relationship with the Creator of all.

Pastor Brooklyn from Mahone Bay shared with the Lutheran clergy group a thought about the Gospel and what she might preach today.  She reworded the imposition of ashes line from the Ash Wednesday service to, “Remember that you are compost and to compost you will return.”  The image works, we understand the richness of compost, the life giving qualities of compost, the fruit that compost bears. – For compost to be compost, living things sacrifice life.

 

Death, - this past year- sacrifices, griefs, reconnecting to the simple, to the earth, --- this extended sojourning in an imposed Lent-like landscape has changed us; maybe not a 100%, but at least 2%. We are no longer who we were a year ago when COVID closed the church’s physical doors. As individuals, a congregation, a worshiping community we have sojourned with death and that is changing everything.  We are in varying degrees of composting.

There is hope stirring in vaccines; there is talk of opening this and that; conversations that include dreams looking further into the future than just a few days; resurrection is in the air, it is just around the corner.

 

As we enter the last week of Lent, I am giving you a task.

Remember that you are compost and to compost you will return.

Accepting that this year has been one of sojourning with death, consider the rich compost we have become because of loss and grief and sacrifice. Our hearts and minds have changed.  We are grains of wheat that have fallen into the earth, died, and are now ready to bear much fruit. Your task is to reflect on: what things will you let go and not pick up again?  What practices have you learned over the year to bring with you into new life? What does church life and being the people of God look like/feel like moving forward? How will you, how will we, live resurrection?

 

Easter is not here yet, there are awkward days ahead and a long difficult journey: deciding when to shake hands, hug, or touch another person; when -if ever- to stop wearing a mask; when to let people into your house; when to go back to coffee hour; how to act around people you haven’t physically seen for a long time; and being prepared to let down walls and to experience pent-up emotion seeping out of your eyes.  It is going to be a muddy journey. I am thankful that as community we play in the mud together. Remember we are all compost and to compost we will return.

Resurrection will come, there will be much fruit.

 

And for now, the earth is the body that holds the soul until resurrection.

Thanks be to God. Amen.