The Story Begins with Grief

Sermon

The story of this woman, Ruth, is a small one in terms of Biblical proportions. No kings, no battles, no one is overthrown, and God doesn’t appear. But it is a large story in terms of the human experience. And like so many of our stories, it begins with grief.

Naomi’s husband has died. And then her two sons die, leaving their wives, Ruth and Orpah, widows. A famine rages through the land. There is so much loss – not only the loss of husbands and the grief that goes with that, but also the loss of all that a male family member provided – security, status, safety. More than these three men have died, because with famine comes starvation and disease. It’s a bleak picture.

We know about bleak pictures these days. We know about losing things and losing people. My assumption, in this eighth week of sheltering in place, is that we are all grieving. We have all lost things. The world as we knew it will never come back. We grieve the loss of gathering together, of hugging one another, of travel, graduations, proms. My heart is with the black community and all their allies who grieve yet again over the murder of a young black man, shot to death for the crime of going out for a jog.

I once read these words that have stayed with me. “If you don’t deal with grief, grief will deal with you.” Each of us grieves differently. For those of us who are parents with kids still at home, it’s helpful to be reminded that in children, grief sometimes looks like a temper tantrum, or a refusal to do homework, or shutting down and not saying a word. Can we blame them? Our kids miss their friends. They miss their teachers and school in general. They miss being able to play on the playground. No amount of screen time can make up for that.

Throughout scripture we read that God grieves. Certainly Jesus grieved. He grieved the choice of the rich young ruler to walk away. He grieved the suffering of his people. He grieved feeling forsaken by God.

For grown ups, grief can look like more than just sadness. We are indebted to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross for her work on death and grief, when in 1969 her book “On Death and Dying” was published. She described five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She and others have acknowledged that grief does not move predictably through those stages; grief is less linear than that. It moves back and forth from those stages, and long after we thought we’d accepted the loss, we find ourselves angry or depressed about it again.

This week in preparing the sermon, I came across two resources that I found immensely helpful in learning about grief. One is an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief.”
(https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief/) The second was a podcast between renowned sociologist Brené Brown and David Kessler.

Kessler is the author of that article, and he is a protégé of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In his work on death and grief, Kessler had a sense that something lay beyond acceptance. He had studied the work of Victor Frankl, who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning” as he, Frankl, tried to make sense of the Holocaust. Before Kubler-Ross died, Kessler worked with her on his idea that there is actually a sixth stage of grief: finding meaning. Kessler devoted himself to exploring this question: how in our darkest moments do we find the light? People of faith ask that question too, and often find light in the presence of God or in the promises of God.

After working on this for years, in the worst moment of his life, Kessler learned that his adult son had died. He begin to live what he had studied and taught. In his own deep experience of grief, he said that finding meaning in his son’s death did not take away the pain, but it gave him a cushion against it.

So what does it look like to find meaning in our grief, especially all the grief we are experiencing because of the COVID-19 pandemic? Let’s be clear: the pain we experience, the grief we feel, is not where we find meaning; we find meaning in what we do after we have experienced the grief.

Let me give you some examples of finding meaning in the grief of all that we have lost in this pandemic. I grieve that so many people have lost their jobs, lost their income, and now must go to food pantries so that they can feed their families. I find meaning in my weekly, half-hour-long errand of picking up donations from Trader Joe’s and delivering them to Northeast Emergency Food Program. It feels like holy work to me.

I grieve that fact that we can’t hug one another, or shake hands, and that it is recommended we wear masks. I find meaning in all the people who can sew – something I can’t do – who can sew and are sewing dozens and dozens of masks for us and for people staying in shelters and for restaurant workers and so many others.

I grieve the loss of Sunday morning worship in the sanctuary at Westminster. I miss the chancel choir and the concert bells, I miss Michael letting loose on the organ, I miss seeing the deacons greet worshipers. I miss the kids coming forward for the children’s time. I miss coffee hour. I miss our collective experience of the holy. I miss all of it. But I find deep meaning in seeing names scroll up as we do our best with live worship from our dining room, meaning in knowing that people are turning to the faith community and holding each other up in all of this. I find meaning in the prayers that are shared at noon every day, as we lift up our joys and our burdens to God.

In their podcast conversation, Brené Brown asked David Kessler if it is possible for those of us who are grieving to offer solace to others who are grieving. Do we have enough emotional space to reach out to others?

Ruth did. That ancient woman, the grandmother of King David, was grieving so much. Yet out of her grief she reached out to her mother-in-law. We have no idea how well those women knew each other, if they even liked each other. That doesn’t matter. Ruth saw another woman in a situation like her own, and reached out, and pledged companionship no matter what they would face together.

Do we have enough emotional reserve to care for others who are grieving in the midst of our own grief? David Kessler says we must be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers right now, but to remember that as we care for others, others will care for us.

He then tells what he calls “The Parable of the Long Spoons.” It has been told widely with differing details, and it finds its origin in a story told by a Lithuanian rabbi. It goes something like this.

A woman is led to a great dining hall where the aroma of an incredibly delicious feast greets her. She sees a sumptuous banquet and joins others at long tables. But when she goes to eat, she notices that the only utensil available is a long, long spoon – two feet long. It is impossible for her to feed herself. She and all the other diners have a choice – to starve, since they can’t feed themselves, or to feed each other, and live.

As Ruth cared for Naomi and Naomi for Ruth, as those at the great banquet fed each other, so we have the opportunity to care for one another, to find meaning in our grief, and to remember that so many of the stories that begin with grief end with something else.