Sermon given by Aiden McMahon, November 12, 2023.
“The Prophet,” by Kahlil Gibran, is my favorite collection of poetry, and the poem we just read, “On Joy and Sorrow,” is my favorite poem. You may have heard his words before; elsewhere in these pages we get the words so often used in child dedications - “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”
My favorite thing about this volume is that these twenty-six poems are framed by a narrative. The eponymous Prophet, Al-Mustafa, has spent the last twelve years away from “the isle of his birth,” in a city called “Orphalese,” when from atop a mountain he spots a ship from his native land, come to take him home. Each poem is a dierent piece of departing wisdom he dispenses as he journeys down to the port.
In the opening narrative, we get both his thoughts about, and the reaction of the people of Orphalese to, his departure.
“And the priest and priestesses said unto him:
Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces. Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils it has been veiled.
Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you.
And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Or, in perhaps more modern, less flowery language:
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
On Joy and Sorrow seems to me to strike at the heart of the narrative. In that same introductory passage I just read from, Al-Mustafa asks himself “How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.” And yet he then says that “long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from [their] pain and aloneness without regret?”
So, even while he made a home in Orphalese, he ached for the land of his birth. Even while he “scattered the fragments of the spirit in those streets,” he longed for more familiar paths.
Hear again the words of the poem:
“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Almost every congregation I have ever been a part of has, in some way, carved out time each week to uplift the Joys and Sorrows of the community. As I’ve watched this beautiful ritual you have of lighting candles, I began to wonder about how those of you who have called this place your spiritual home for some time have experienced this practice. Specifically, I wondered how many of you have, for someone or something in your life, lit both candles of Joy and Sorrow?
How many of you have lit a candle to celebrate a wedding, and mourn a divorce? How many of you have prayed for a loved one’s healing, then later celebrated their recovery...or mourned their passing? Perhaps both. How many of you have shared some cause close to your heart in front of this congregation, or celebrated some small measure of progress?
More than any other pair of emotions, we seem to speak of Joy and Sorrow in the same breath, and Kahlil Gibran is far from the first person to name this in some way. The author of Ecclesiastes writes that there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;” and that “sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad.” Tradition holds that this text, almost nihilistic at times, and the Song of Songs, the ecstatic, erotic love poem placed directly next to it in both Hebrew and Christian bibles were written by the same person - King Solomon.
The Sufi Mystic Rumi writes that “Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.”
St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, directs the church there to “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”
I wonder if they lit candles.
That’s probably not the important part, admittedly. What is important, I think, is that Paul is establishing something communal. In this respect, I’ve come to see the sharing of Joys and Sorrows as something of a sacrament; it is a kind of confession, after all; not one of wrongdoing, but of deep, raw emotion.
It is a radical act of trust and vulnerability on the part of the speaker, and an equally radical promise of care and empathy on the part of the congregation. One we must strive to honor and tread with due seriousness.
It is a visible manifestation of what Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven and what King called the Beloved Community. Such a thing can only be born out of abiding in love.
Gibran had a lot to say on love, too.
“But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then is is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”
Instead, he says that, if our love desires anything at all, it should be that we “know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
Love can be defined in many ways; one that has resonated strongly with me is “consenting to suer.”
That, you may be aware, is the root of the word “compassion.” Com - with, and passion - to suffer.
Love is the opposite of a fairy tale ending. Living happily ever after is not only unrealistic, it’s a life half-lived. Grief is the greatest proof of a life that has been lived in love. Not one of you, I dare say, would trade away the love you have felt, and the love you have given, if it meant not having to grieve it some day.
I think this is what Gibran was getting at with the closing words of “On Joy and Sorrow:”
“Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver,
needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”
It’s the dance between the two which makes life worth living. Without both Joy and Sorrow, we are stagnant.
I know that my message so far has been quite melancholic, to put it lightly. And while that suits me just fine - I resonate strongly with what Rev. Frank said a few weeks ago about UU’s “Sunny Optimism” - I know this is not necessarily what everyone needs to hear today. In any given congregation on any given day, there are both the comfortable and the aicted; if we are doing our job well, no one will end where they started.
To be clear, though, I’m not making the case for physical or emotional self-flagellation. I don’t want anyone to make themselves miserable in pursuit of spiritual growth.
There is enough sorrow to go around, after all. And some of you, I know, have had the lion’s share of it. To you who are hurting today, to those of you for whom Sorrow has been a close companion, I pray this may be a safe place for you to bring your pain. And if it is not or has not been, then it is to our great shame. I ask that you hold us accountable, so that we might make it so, if not for you, then at least for the next person in need.
To those more acquainted with Joy, I pray that you are willing to receive Sorrow. To let it carve into your being. Hold it for those who can hold no more.
And when you are in your own sorrow, I pray that you can then entrust it to others, knowing that they, too, are willing to receive it. This is how Sorrow turns to Joy - slowly, often achingly so, as we engage in the sacrament of living fully together.