Freedom and Choice

The Rev. Dr. Timothy Ives

First Congregational Church

Chappaqua, New York

April 15, 2001

John 20:1-20

“For the twenty two castaways on Elephant Island, August 30 began like almost any other day. At sunrise the weather was clear and cold, giving promise of a fine day. But before long heavy clouds rolled in and the scene once more became, as one of them wrote ‘the prevailing gloom to which we are now so inured.’

As always, almost everyone tramped individually to the top of the lookout bluff to satisfy himself once more that there was no ship to be seen. By now they did so more out of habit than of hope. It was simply a ritual to which they had become accustomed, and they climbed the bluff without anticipation and returned to the hut without disappointment.”

Do you know the story? These twenty-two castaways had been shipwrecked for a year and a half mostly on the ice near the South Pole. Only because of incredible leadership and courage of the Captain Ernest Shackleton had they somehow managed to survive and arrive on Elephant Island. But it was there they would probably perish or so the crew thought by August 30th 1916. Shackelton had left twenty two of his crew on that terrible little island on the edge of the Weddell Sea, five hundred miles south of Cape Horn and just off the Antarctic Peninsula to cross 800 miles of some of the stormiest and coldest waters in the world in hopes of arriving at South Georgia Island whaling station. It was a journey that couldn’t be accomplished in a small boat with only the stars to direct them. If they missed by just a few degrees they would sail out into the South Atlantic and surly be lost forever. It was an impossible risk they took. Gale winds, seventy foot seas, freezing temperatures, (so cold that they had to chip off the canvas deck to keep from capsizing) and equipment and cloths that could not keep them dry or warm, for two weeks, trying to navigate to an island that would be more than easy to miss in much better conditions. That is the risk that Shackleton took to rescue his men. In other words he really had little hope of pulling off a rescue. But it was the only way out so Shackleton had decided to risk it.

It had started in the fall of 1914 as a great adventure. They were going to traverse Antarctica right across the South Pole. They would be the first to do it. But they never even made landfall and their ship; the Endurance got caught in the ice, it never to get out. They spent a year marooned on the ice. They lived a year on the ice! Once freed they had only three small lifeboats to sail the hundred or so miles to Elephant Island. But that was just a stopping point if they were going to get out to safety. Someone had to make the treacherous voyage to South Georgia Island.

When you are desperate enough any small glimmer of hope is hope. And so Shackleton set out to do the impossible leaving twenty-two of his crew on little Elephant Island with little more than his promise to return. And that is all that they had to live on from April 24th to August 30th. So each day they would go up and look to see if there was any sign of their rescue.

By August 30th they had all realized that they were doomed. They all realized what they already knew. They all understood that Shackleton had not done the impossible and what little hope they had kindled for him actually doing the impossible was in vain. But they would not admit it; they would not talk of it. But dutifully, even though there was little reason to, each day they went up to see if the impossible could come true. Each day they would act as if they still had hope.

Why would anyone hang on to hope when all indications would have to tell you that there was nothing to hope for? The answer was a question. What else would they do? They found it was better to hope, or at least act as if they had hope. It was simple if they did not have some slim thread of hope they were lost. And Elephant Island was all they would know until they perished. It was too much to consider so they didn’t. They believed that the small hope they had was the only thing that held them together, so they protected it.

It was not that they believed so much in their Captain. It was not that they even believed that a rescue could be accomplished. It was simply that hope was better than oblivion. Hope made the difference.

So in spite of everything they knew they made a habit of hope and each day they would go up on the bluff and look as if they truly believed that Shackleton would come to save them. Perhaps more than Shackleton that little ritual was the thing that saved them.

Mary Magdalene faced the same kind of situation on the morning of the first Easter. You may not realize it but there is something missing in this account of Easter that appears in all the other Gospel accounts. In all the other accounts the women who go to the tomb on that first morning have a reason to go. They gather spices so as to do their religious duty to the dead man Jesus. It is their tradition. And so they go to the tomb. But in the Gospel of John the spices are not mentioned and the duty is never mentioned. The only detail is the darkness. It was before dawn when Mary went out to the tomb.

What is she doing? She saw him die. I like to think that it was a habit of hope that took her out there. But her habit of hope was a little different than those on Elephant Island. We don’t know a great deal about Mary Magdalene except she was an outcast. She had been a demoniac. And we know that she would not accept that which everyone else accepted about Jesus. It takes some courage to wonder about things that no one else is wondering about. It takes conviction to ask the questions no one else will dare. But she did. In the darkness she wondered if her Lord was really dead. She didn’t have it figured out but she had strength enough to ask the question and seek her Lord in a way no one else had thought of.

I don’t think she really expected Jesus to be alive. She doesn’t act that way. She believes the body has been stolen. She doesn’t even recognize Jesus when he appears to her. She didn’t think she would find anything but a dead man when she went to the tomb and yet she goes to the tomb.

Her habit was to ask the question nobody else asked. We see that as somehow wrong these days in the religious world. It isn’t right to ask after God in a challenging way. We have been so influenced by the years of church dogma and tradition that we believe that we can only think about God in one way. It is almost impossible to keep an open mind. If Mary thought that way she would have never gone out to the tomb. She would have not been the one to see the risen Christ. Dedication to wonder is a habit of hope. I think Mary lived it.

Such habits of hope create a world that is far better than a world where hope is lost. But habits of hope are not always logical. It is not rational to look for a dead man alive. It isn’t credible to believe that Ernest Shackleton could make the Drake Passage in a twenty-two foot boat. But that does not mean that these habits of hope are unfounded. Hope has great value in and of itself. The truth is that habits of hope make all the difference regardless of reality.

I want to close by telling you about a man, a very spiritual man who called his people to habits of hope at a time when they surly needed it. Because of these habits of hope, a time of great darkness for his people became a lasting time of inspiration and light for his people.

Isaac Luria lived during the middle years of the sixteenth century. It was a time of when Judaism suffered terribly. This was the beginning of the Jewish ghettos in the cities throughout Europe. Large numbers of Jews were herded into centralized locations and then were walled off from the rest of the world. “The forced impoverishment that came with ghettoization entailed a shocking collapse of a once proud culture. The loss of books and the proscription of education led to sharp declines in literacy.” It was degradation of the most demoralizing kind. If you were a Jew and would not convert to Christianity your fate was sealed. You could never get beyond the walls of the ghetto, you could never leave prison.

Into this situation Isaac Luria introduced an idea. The idea was this. The messiah would come (they would be saved by God as the Israelites of old had been) when the work of the Jewish people had been accomplished, which would be done through the faithful study of Torah, observance of the Law, and performance of works of justice. So Jews found a way to believe that even in their degraded situation, they had a noble, uplifting function to perform, one that was nothing less than contributing to the restoration of the fullness of the Godhead. Isaac Luria introduced or more precisely reintroduced his people to the habits of hope that had served them so well. He introduced them to beliefs that would sustain them in bad times. He introduced the belief that what his people did today mattered ultimately and were of utmost importance to them and God. He introduced them to a fullness of life that they hadn’t known even outside the ghetto. He gave them hope that they were God’s people and they still had God’s work to do. Habits of hope are ways of acting as if God is present and powerful even when the evidence might suggest otherwise. It makes all the difference in every life. Even now.

In what ways do you look for God? What habits of hope do you cultivate in your life? There are lots of ways to live by hope, and I think we need all of them. I think we need to live this day with a sense of expectation like those men on Elephant Island. Salvation can come this day. I believe like Mary it is important to keep our minds open because God comes to us in many different ways all the time. So we must question that which everyone accepts as true especially if you feel like those beliefs are obscuring God. And I believe it is essential to remember, as Isaac Luria reminded his people, that what you do today matters. The kindnesses you show, the help you give, the prayers you say, the time you take for gratitude, the commitment you make to study scripture all add up to a rich kind of life. I believe it all adds up to a kind of resurrection alive in your life. So we can live this life keenly aware and alive in God no matter what happens. Even if it seems like God is dead in your life habits of hope will see you through. And will lead us all to a new sense of this glorious Easter morning. In Christ Jesus. Amen.