"El Dia de Los Muertos"

Ezekiel 37:1-14

October 28, 2007 Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

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Kim and I were on an elevator after visiting our friend Glenn when the elevator stopped on the 5th floor. A priest walked in. He was dressed in black and wore a clergy collar; a Bible and a purple stole in his hand. It was most likely that he had just performed last rites for someone who was dying. He looked very serious and solemn. As the elevator began to descend to the main floor, I said to the priest, “I thought you guys only go up and never down.” The priest burst out laughing. Humour has way of unburdening us from life’s challenges.

I grew up seeing caricatures of tigers and evil spirits in South Korea. Some of the old houses had drawings of a tiger with large fangs on the gate of a house. Some of the old cemeteries had huge stone carvings standing ten feet tall guarding the tombs. Each and every one of these image also had humorous expressions on them. The tiger, one of the most feared animals in Korea, had comical expressions on his face. Many of the tigers were holding a long stemmed tobacco pipe, smoking. The stone carvings of the evil spirits had cartoon-like features like huge rounded eyes and a huge circle depicting a nose.

I learned while studying Korean religion and philosophy in university that the ancient Koreans turned the objects of fear, such as tigers and evil spirits, into humorous caricatures so they could grapple with fear in a manageable way. Images of death, like a ferocious tiger or evil spirits, were “tamed” by re-imagining them into something comical and silly.

Many cultures and communities around the globe use humour to deal with fear of death. Making something that is outside of one’s grasp into something tangible like anthropomorphized tiger and evil spirits in order to make some sense has been part of spirituality in many communities.

If you were to pause and look around you, you may be surprised to know that there are many who are living with illness and many are grieving the loss of loved ones through death. Irene Maguire, one of the staunch members of our faith community passed away last Sunday. Her funeral was held here on Thursday and she is missed by many of us. Death is part of our lives. And yet North American culture focuses so much on youthfulness and rejuvenation of individuals. Our culture seems to be focused on “death-denying” and we do not want to acknowledge death as part of our life. Many TV and print advertisements in North America are about youthfulness. Billions of dollars are spent on anything and everything that would make people look youthful. “Old is bad and young is good” seems to be the message.

But if you were to look at the reasons why we are so preoccupied with youthfulness and rejuvenation in our culture, you might draw the conclusion that it is not youthfulness we are preoccupied with but a fear of death. It is the fear of death that drives people to find ways to deny that death is part of the human life journey.

I am sure some of you were shocked at the images you saw in the bulletin this morning. I must admit that I, too, felt somewhat uncomfortable using the images of “El Dia de Los Muertos” when DeeAnn and I sat to work on today’s service a few weeks ago. The images of this Mexican festival looked so alien to me. Is this Christian? Could we use such images on Sunday worship service? Are we glorifying death?

DeeAnn was very helpful to point out to me that “El Dia de Los Muertos” – translated roughly from Spanish into English as the “Day of the Dead” – is about re-connecting death as integral part of our life rather than trying to deny that reality. “El Dia de Los Muertos” uses humour to help us to embrace death as an integral part of the human life journey. There is also a sense of tribute to nature and respect for one’s ancestors present in ofrendas – the offerings – to the ancestors.

Hallowe’en began as a Celtic ceremony reflecting the vision of life as a natural, never-ending cycle of birth, death and reincarnation. The five days of festivities known as Samhain (pronounced sa-wen) began on the eve of October 31, and constituted the greatest event in the Celtic calendar. The Celts’ religion, still practiced today, is called Wicca, meaning wise. The Celts believed that the veil between the spirit world and the living is the thinnest on Samhain (sa-wen) Eve. As the two worlds become transparent to each other, those who died recently chose the bodies of people or animals to inhabit for the next year. To scare away these spiritual “squatters,” the Celts dressed up as demons, hobgoblins and witches.[i] Hallowe’en began as a way to embrace death as part of the circle of life in ancient times in British Isles, West-Central Europe, Spain and Portugal. Many Celtic belief and practices have been incorporated into western Christianity over the years.

Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of the powerful Babylonian empire, destroyed Jerusalem and burned Solomon’s temple to the ground in 586 BCE. The Jerusalem temple, where Yahweh dwelt, was essential to the Israelites. Some ten thousand Israelites were exiled in Babylon. How would they serve Yahweh without the temple that was the only means of making contact with their God? Five years after his arrival in Babylon a young priest called Ezekiel had a terrifying vision. He saw a vision that God had left Jerusalem and, riding on what seemed to be a massive war chariot, had come to live with the exiles in Babylon.[ii]

Today’s scripture reading is part of Ezekiel’s vision from his experiences of exile in Babylon. It is a vision of re-imagining new ways of being in the midst of suffering and death. It is a vision of hope that God is with them even when Israelites felt disconnected from God.

If you were to see the images in this space – this sanctuary – through the eyes of someone new to the Christian faith, you would be surprised how much symbols of birth, death and resurrection you see here. There is a cross – a symbol of torture and death from the Roman era turned into a symbol of a new birth. There are images of dead saints – those whose lives are eternal through the re-telling and re-enacting of their deeds by the followers of Jesus. There is also all of us – individuals at various life and faith stages walking together as community. This is a place of acknowledging life, death and renewal.

How do we learn to pause at times to reflect on our life?
What are we thankful for when we think about our ancestors?
How do we grieve loss of lives of our loved ones in ways that are healing rather than just experiencing pain?

I would like to invite you to take time to reflect on those questions as you participate in the activities following this reflection. Like Ezekiel we live in the midst of despair and hope for radical changes. Like Ezekiel we would like to vision a renewed life that is filled with God’s spirit so we could experience connection with God once again.

May God’s spirit be poured into us and renew our soul, mind. and body. May God gift us with a sense of humour when we feel too exhausted to laugh. May we be a source of hope and strength to one another.

Amen.

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[i] Gregory Felton, “How Halloween took flight,” The Globe and Mail October 31, 1994. “Halloween born of ancient pagan rituals” Toronto Star October 31, 1996.
[ii] Karen Armstrong, The Bible: A Biography (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007) 9-10.