To Be Or Not To Be Series

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

That, of course, was from the Merchant of Venice, which I studied in grade 11. Do they still teach Shakespear in High School? Do they still require that you memorize portions of it?

My favourite monologue from the play are found in Shylock’s words.

How like a fawning publican he looks!

I hate him for he is a Christian,

But more for that in low simplicity

He lends out money gratis and brings down

The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

If I can catch him once upon the hip,

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.

Almost fifty years later, and they are still etched in my mind.

In grade 12 we studied Romeo and Juliet, and perhaps you are familiar with Romeo’s words outside Juliet’s balcony.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Most of us are familiar with Romeo and Juliet, if not the original then one of the movies the play has inspired, or perhaps the soundtrack from the 1968 movie. The title theme was called “A Time for Us” and it was part of the prelude music played for our wedding.

But, if you’ve not studied the play, then you simply think it’s a love story.

Seriously, it’s about a 3-day relationship between a 17-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl that ends with six tragic deaths, including their own. But that’s a story for another sermon.

The play we didn’t study in high school was “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” You probably know it simply as Hamlet.

And even though I never studied it, like most people I know a couple of lines from the play.

If I ever see a plastic skull, you can count on me to hold it up and say, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio.”

And then there is the quote, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

That actually is part of a much longer monologue given by the Prince. Hamlet goes on to say,

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

But it never dawned on me until the other day, when I was reading a novel, that what Hamlet was saying, was “To Be alive, or not to be alive, that is the question.” He was talking about life and death. I didn’t know that because I hadn’t actually studied the play, I just knew the quotes.

Sometimes we are like that with the Bible, we can quote it without knowing it.

This is week 5 of our series “Colossians, Christ above all.” And I want to focus today on the first verse that Greg read for us, and it says: Colossians 2:13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.

And, if you’ve never studied the book of Colossians, you might wonder why Paul would be addressing the letter to dead people?

Dead is a word that we don't often use in today's society.

When Angela and I were first married, I had a summer job at the Sussex health center, and every once and a while you'd hear an airline voice say "Code 10, room 115, code 10 room 115." Now if you worked there, you knew that someone had died.

Angela worked at the Kiwanis nursing home that same year and you'd think that with all those old people there, that the occasional one would die. Uh-huh, not once. What did happen is that “they expired.” That's right expired.

Come on parking meters expire. Warranties expire. People die. With one exception, I will probably expire but only because I forgot to mail in my renewal.

People die. But what is death? What is dead? Well I’m glad you asked. Collins English dictionary death: The permanent end of the life of a person or animal. But there has to be more to it than that.

Alice Thomas Ellis wrote, “Death is the last enemy: once we’ve got past that I think everything will be alright.”

And Robin Williams said, "Death is nature's way of saying, 'Your table is ready.'"

And while we all know we are going to die, I think we all share the sentiments of the tombstone that said, "I expected this but not yet".