Sermon: Evensong at Selwyn College, Cambridge

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 5th May 2013

Venue:

Selwyn College, Cambridge

Service:

Evensong

Readings:

Zephaniah 3: 14-end

Matthew 28: 1-10, 16-end

Given the clichéd title, you’d expect Love is all you need to be a rom com.  There’s a family wedding in an Italian villa and the sound track is That’s Amore! So far, so predictable; it’s Mamma Mia! minus the Abba songs – it even stars Pierce Brosnan, though thankfully not singing. 

But it is more complicated than that: life is more complicated than that, and so is love.  Long before Susanne Bier directed the film, the Beatles had already sung that love is all you need.  Bier turns a banal lyric into a question; and she does so by bringing love face to face with fear.  Beneath the sunlit lemon groves and we glimpse shadows of heartache; as the celebration unravels a poignant undercurrent of transformation.  Bier holds up a mirror showing us what we love and long for and what we most fear.  And paradoxically, it is in moments when they collide that we see a glimmer of joy.

The central character Ida, played by the Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, captures fear and love in words, gestures and all she leaves unsaid. Facing her oncology consultant there is fear of illness, treatment, mortality; yet she also demonstrates extraordinary sense of self, which isn't reliant on body image or prognosis. In facing the infidelity of her self-pitying husband, there is fear of loss and humiliation; yet she acts with grace and dignity.

For other characters fear is masked, rather than faced.  Pride, success and wealth become means of stifling grief; doubts, sexuality, isolation are blocked out by the momentum of a wedding.  There is fear; and brokenness. That is the messy reality of our human life. 

Ida's character acts as a catalyst for honesty, healing, courage, and strength.  Those things are also part of the tapestry of our lives.  They emerge out of our vulnerability, out of fear mingled with love. 

What or whom do we love? What do we fear?

Dwell on those questions for a moment.

When I’m listening to a paper, I always find myself doodling. It helps me concentrate. Connections form in my mind; but as those words take shape as a question, as the speaker reaches the conclusion, I can feel a knot at the pit of my stomach. My throat goes dry; my heart rate increases.  I worry that the scrawled sentence won’t come out right if I ask a question.  I am fearful of making myself vulnerable, or looking foolish, or revealing that I’ve misunderstood. 

That's a trivial example, but we recognize the physical responses and thought processes in situations across a spectrum of fear and anxiety.  We grow fearful because of what we value, consciously or not:  our reputation or aspirations, the regard of friends and colleagues, the things the make us feel fully alive; the longing for security and future stability; fulfilment and a sense of who we are.

We grow fearful when we risk losing what we love: our work,  our health and our family; trust, intimacy, faithfulness. Sam Wells puts it like this: Fear isn’t itself good or bad. It’s an emotion that identifies what we love... we fear intensely when we love intensely or when we think what or whom we love is in real danger. So a world without fear wouldn’t be a good thing, because it wouldn’t just be a world without danger - it would be a world without love.

When we are fearful we our sense of self is heightened; we become more aware of what matters most to us. It can open up a capacity to speak honestly; to reach out in vulnerability; to find a common humanity. At other times, fear can make us retreat; it is perhaps then that we need others to reach out to us.  Writing in today’s Telegraph Katherine Welby describes with powerful honesty the impact of practical love and awareness on her in the midst of the darkness of depression. In those moments, she says if a text or pot of stew is ‘all the rest of us can offer, it’s a start’.

What makes Ida a compelling character to watch is her capacity to meet fear with love.  It isn’t instantaneous. There are times when she opts to joke, or weep. There are moments of paralysing fear before she decides to seize an opportunity.  Yet, she seems to radiate an extraordinary conviction that loving – however fragile, imperfect and vulnerable – will transform her fear into moments of contentment and even joy. 

Fear isn't limited to the private realm. Fear permeates our public discourse: politicians claim that they can abolish it by pursuing a particular policy in relation to immigration or the economy.  The media seems to intensify it by repeating the rhetoric of striving or skiving, the tribalism of them against us, the deserving or undeserving.

Fear can become corrosive or paralysing. We need to acknowledge that and consider what we need to be liberated from in order to embody a lifestyle which is generous, discerning, compassionate and realistic.   This is important because how we respond to fear, with or without love, has an impact on others, on the common good, on our future.

Our scriptures take us to the crucible of fear and love, which with the heat of encounter with God, ignites great joy – making trust in a new future possible.  Our second lesson takes us to such a place of refinement. Mary Magdalene and Mary go to the tomb. Unlike other gospel accounts, we aren’t told that they go to anoint Jesus’ body with specially prepared spices.  They go to look at his tomb.  They go to confront the reality of his death; they go in grief and loss. They go, just as light is dawning.

They are confronted by something strange and unexpected.  Matthew writes in a vivid way drawing on biblical symbols of God’s glory – of radiance, and lighting, of earthquakes and angels.  This is the stuff of visions. The ordinary is changed – charged with the grandeur of God; a new era is dawning; a new creation is breaking in.

And the guards and the women were afraid. The mystery of God is full of grace and promise; yet it generates fear because it is overwhelming, beyond our control. The phrase “do not be afraid” isn't a platitude.  It acknowledges their human hopes, loves and loss.  They are held in full attention, before hearing words of absence and promise:   Come, see: he is not here. Go and tell: he is going ahead of you.

Something new is breaking in; something that renews; something that holds out the possibility of faith and hope – and a love that that is not defeated by death.

As they go on their way, they hear again those words “do not be afraid”.  This time the greeting is on the lips of their risen Lord : it reflects too the power of God’s love and purposes to overcome all that we most fear – our corrosive human vanities and delusions and death itself.  The Magi were overwhelmed with joy when the saw Jesus the little boy who is God with us; they paid him homage.  The women are now overwhelmed with joy as they hear, touch and see the risen Lord; God with us who defeats fear and death;  they worship him.

The risen Christ met them in the midst of fear and despair, with great love. Love made real in touch and speech; love offering the hope that the future might be full of unimagined possibilities. As Jesus commissions the disciples he reveals the liberating power of the resurrection. He has all authority, all nations will hear all that he has commanded, and he will be with them always, to the end of the age (when God will be all in all).

Christ meets us where we are too; yet he also there ahead of us as we work out the implications of his love as we wrestle with vulnerability and fear; as we accept his invitation to share in a pattern of life that demands both impatience for justice and patience to trust.   There is no place or time outside the scope of God’s love; but we are called to a serious and practical commitment. We are to walk in the world in such a way that we are able to face fear with love. 

In doing so we become people through whom God’s transforming power can break through; we become people who can recognise and rejoice in the good; we enable others to find strength in their vulnerability.  The commission is to invite others to walk with us as disciples – people who are learning to face fear differently and transform it.

This pattern of life is rooted in incremental shifts in our patterns of thought, speech and action. We need to learn from the example of Jesus – from his ability to face fear with love in the midst of grief, exclusion, failure, need and anguish. We need to keep his commandments – endeavouring to love the other, to love ourselves; accepting our frailty and glimpsing our potential; seeking to place the love of God at the heart of all our dealings, allowing it to reshape our dissention and claims to rightness.  It is a pattern that the Church needs to re-learn.

This pattern of life is rooted in attentiveness to God and also awareness of ourselves. Paying attention to God in worship is about finding that still point where love can disperse our fear.  In word, music, silence, sacrament – there is the breaking in of grace. Creative, redeeming and sustaining grace reflects the very nature of God with us that changes us.  God remains faithful to us, regardless of our doubts and fears, our hesitation and preoccupations. In worship we find a place of refreshing honesty; a place where we can evaluate what we truly love and what paralyses us with fear.

Moving on from that place we can become agents of reconciliation – facing concerns and building consensus. Love is perhaps all we need, but not in rom/com happy ending sort of love.  Rather, a love that can face fear – that has the courage to reach out to others. Love that is self-less, yet rooted in the assurance of a deeper and unending love, which the resurrection reveals.

This pattern of life is expressed in hospitality and compassion; in bearing with one another and seeking consensus. It might seem far off, but in so doing something of joyous breaks in.  The prophet Zephaniah expressed a vision of God’s Kingdom which was radical and universal in scope.  It is a vision forged out of fear and love.  Human fear is confronted with divine love – disaster, judgement, enmity, shame, oppression, shame and confusion are to be no more. Sing, shout, rejoice: do not fear.  God is in your midst.  He will renew us in love. May we radiate that love with deep joy, in anticipation of the fulfilment of the Kingdom.