Only life and death

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
March 31, 2013

There are dying and rising gods all over human history. What might the resurrection be about?

This morning Christians in this congregation and around the world are celebrating Easter, the day of the resurrection of Jesus, when in the Christian faith story, he became not only Rabbi Jesus the teacher, but Christ, the savior of humanity. Often, joining with our Christian brothers and sisters, I preach from a Christian perspective on Easter. This year we are going to look together at the story of Ishtar. The holiday was probably named, not after her, but after a Germanic version of her named Eostra, goddess of the dawn and new beginnings. Her name is similar in many cultures. Astarte, Ashtaroth… these were traveling and trading cultures, and it is likely their stories would have traveled with them. There is even a moon goddess in pre-Columbian culture around what is now Guatemala named Ix Chel, whose consort is a rabbit. They share a similar story: a voluntary descent into death and darkness, of having everything stripped from you, then emerging transformed.

This faith story comes from the ancient lands of Sumer and Babylon, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, modern day Iraq. This five thousand year old story begins as Ishtar is born from the full moon as it touched the river. The first full moon after the spring equinox, that moon we saw in the sky this week, became known as “Ishtar’s egg.” As the poem about her descent into death begins, she bends her ear toward the underworld. The word in Sumerian for “ear” and for “wisdom” is the same, so you could say she was puzzling about the underworld where her sister, Ereshkigal lived. There was a funeral going on there she wanted to attend. Getting ready, she puts on seven things: a dress, earrings, a breastplate, a necklace, a belt, or girdle around her waist, bracelets on her wrists and ankles, and a crown. She leaves her consort, the shepherd king Dumuzi, or Tamuz, and their two sons. She leaves her temples where people worship her, and she arrives at the outer gates of the Underworld. There she announces herself as “Queen of Heaven, on my way to the East.” The chief gatekeeper of the underworld is skeptical and questions her. She replies that she wishes to descend because of her older sister, Ereshkigal, and to witness the funeral rites of Ereshkigal’s husband.

The gate is opened a crack, and the attendant asks her to take off her crown. When she asks why, he answers: “Quiet, Ishtar, the ways of the Underworld are perfect. They may not be questioned.” At the second gate the earrings are removed from her ears, at the third gate the necklace from her neck, at the fourth gate the ornaments from her breast, at the fifth gate the girdle from her waist, at the sixth gate the bracelets from her hands and feet, and at the seventh gate the covering cloak of her body. Ishtar protests as each symbol of her power is taken from her, but the guardian says this is the experience of all who enter the domain of death. When her sister sees her she is enraged, and she turns on Ishtar the “eyes of death,” inflicting on her diseases, judging her harshly, insulting her and accusing her. On a meat hook in her sister’s chambers, her corpse hangs like rotten meat. Three days she is down there. Her faithful hand servant, a warrior woman and advisor, charges two small animals with going after her disguised as flies, the lowest form of life. “You will hear the bitter queen of the underworld lamenting, moaning in pain as if she were giving birth. Moan with her and she will favor you. She will want to give you a gift – ask for Ishtar’s corpse. Sprinkle the body with this food and water of life, and she will come alive again and return with you.” They did as she asked, and Ishtar, alive again, was allowed to return with them to the land of the living. Attached to her, though, were two demons, who demanded that she send back a replacement for herself in the underworld. Returning to her palace she found Dumuzi /Tammuz the shepherd ruling, not having missed her. Suddenly she sees the perfect one to give to the demons. His sister, desperate to help him, offers herself, and they each end up spending six months in turn in the world of the dead.

Ishtar and Tammuz are among the many another dying and rising gods, along with Osiris, Dyonisius, Krishna, many of whom were conceived by a virgin, born in a cave, threatened with death when they were babies, and adored as having saved the world with their suffering. Ishtar’s worshippers in the land between the rivers would rise early on the day of the full moon after the equinox and greet the sunrise. Then the families would go hunt eggs, Ishtar’s eggs. They told the children these eggs came from the rabbit in the moon.

I’m not giving you this information to say “Oh, those silly people who believe this literally….” I’m telling you that the archetype, the pattern of dying and rising is engraved deeply in the human psyche. We don’t only see it in nature, in the lives of our bodies. We see it over and over in the course of our living. This story is of hitting bottom, of having the things that matter to you stripped away one by one. Many people in this room have had times like that in their lives, where everything was taken, where they were attacked by their dark inner sister, accused, destroyed, immobilized. There are heroes and sheroes among us: the people who have done the descent. They have hit bottom. They are not afraid of losing everything, because it has already happened. Maybe they have lost all their money, had their children taken from them, maybe they have lost their sanity. Marianne Williamson, renowned spiritual teacher, says a nervous breakdown is a highly underrated way to achieve enlightenment.

The Easter story is the story of losing everything. You are sick in your body or your spirit. Hope seems absurd. Part of you has died. You’re in the dark. Suddenly someone sends a tiny thing down there to help. Does it help by cheerleading and telling you everything’s going to be okay? No. It helps by joining in the moaning of your bitter and angry side. Then a little food and water sprinkled on the dead meat might make it begin to stir. You have been in the tomb and now you emerge. Is it just a human dynamic? Is it just about grass and corn? Is it about the earth or about the earth and more? A liberal Christian humor magazine called The Door offers a liberal Easter hymn. The words say “Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluiah…” in the title they have crossed out Easter and written ‘pretty yellow flower day.” In the verse, they cross out is, and write “may or may not have,” so it reads “Jesus Christ may or may not have risen today.”

I suddenly wanted to title this sermon “Your mama’s a pretty yellow flower.” How can they scorn a flower when it goes through the same things Ishtar did. The same things any dying and rising god does. It has to abandon its beauty, first losing its petals one by one, then its stem turning to slime, it seeds buried in the cold cold ground for a time, the water there tormenting it until it bursts open, then struggling back to the surface, through the dark, being tiny and vulnerable until it grows into its beauty again. That’s a rough journey. Our babies today have had a journey through darkness as well, closed up inside, then going on a harrowing journey to break in to the light. And we will all go back to the earth when our time has run.

As faith stories these proclaim that the Divine One is willing to descend, to empty herself of her power and suffer with us, that as she emerges she conquers the power of death, teaching us that there are pathways from here to there, and the great round continues to be danced. Behold the mystery: All that dies shall be reborn. May it be so in our lives.

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