Washed in the Blood of Betty, and The Flight of the Ladybug

Sermon for Easter Day, March 23, 2008
The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley

Every Easter is like the first day of the rest of your life- the best Easter you have ever had. But I am going to tell you the story of an Easter of mine which, like the Easter story itself, was a scary story with a happy ending.

I was supposed to deliver a children’s sermon that Easter, and the day before, as often happens, I didn’t have any good ideas. So I started to make lunch. I sliced a cabbage open in preparation for making coleslaw, and there, in the very center, miraculously unharmed but unmoving, was a tiny ladybug.

Now that ladybug had been in that cabbage in the refrigerator for three days. But of course it was springtime, being Easter, and the window was open. A ray of sunlight shone on that cabbage, and that ladybug began to move and breath (I guess) and she spread her wings.

And since the window was open, she ascended into heaven.

Now that was the homily I was going to tell, but something happened on that Easter morning that prevented me from telling it. It was Easter Sunday and the church was packed, and a favorite senior of mine, very full of years, was sitting right up front. For reasons unclear to me still, she approached the altar, tripped and fell, glancing her head on the communion rail. And there, on Easter Sunday, directly in front of the cross, in the middle of the church, she lay bleeding from a head wound. I always sat up front, so I was the first to get to her and I held my hand over the wound (which was really bleeding) and tried to calm her.

The priest’s husband is a doctor, and so the priest started shouting, "Jonathan! Jonathan!" Jonathan was downstairs with one of his kids, and the longest five minutes of my life began to tick by. Someone called 911 on their cell phone, and then no one knew what to do, so we did what Episcopalians always do when they don’t know what to do: we started singing. We sang the Taize standard “Stay with Me,” swaying and holding hands and praying. Jonathan finally appeared and told me to run to the kitchen to get some ice, which I did. My hand was literally full of blood, so I first went to the sink to wash it. As I did I thought, “Here it is Easter morning and I’ve been washed in the blood of Betty!”

I came back and Betty was already feeling a little better. Then, like a flock of rescuing angels, the emergency workers surged down the aisle of the church and took care of Betty. They bandaged her, comforted her, and supported her as they all walked back down the aisle. Betty smiled and waved a queen as everyone applauded.

I later thought of the whole thing as an Easter allegory; when we fall down, even if we are wounded, with a little help from our friends and a lot from the Holy Spirit, we can arise. And maybe, like the ladybug, even find our wings and fly.