A sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at Cromer Avenue United Reformed Church, Gateshead on Sunday 13th February 2011
Matthew 5.21-37; 1 Corinthians 13.1-13
St Valentine's Day tomorrow: and a gift to the preacher, for our thoughts turn to love: The Beatles sang about it, Barbara Cartland, the pink chiffon queen of Romance wrote about it, Sinatra crooned about it, Elvis the King rocked about it, Shakespeare wrote sonnets and Schubert composed Lieder songs about it; servicemen and women laid down their lives because of it and the Chaucer’s Prioress in his Canterbury Tales had her broach inscribed with it. What are we talking about - Love! At my son’s wedding I presumed to offer him some fatherly advice as he looked at his beautiful bride...........from Ronan Keating.........
“The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all!”
And for the those Valentines in serious long term marriages it was Goethe who said that “the human condition is compounded of so much joy and so much sorrow that it is impossible to reckon how much a husband owes a wife or a wife a husband. It is an infinite debt; it can only be paid in eternity.”
Love directs and advises all our relationships, as the Dean of Durham recently explained – “love given, love received, love longed for and love unrequited, love disappointed and love fulfilled; the memory of love and the hope of love; love's endeavour, love's expense, immortal love for ever full, the love that moves the sun and the other stars, God's love.” And as I speak like this I ask myself as a semi retired super-sixty baby boomer whether I want to add to the millions of words spoken about love down the centuries, whether I can add anything?
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Nothing in this world
Could keep me from you!
Roses Are Red
Violets Are Blue
God made Me Pretty
What happened To you?
Well, perhaps I should try. Here’s a start.
The message on St. Valentine's Day which we celebrate tomorrow is simply this – love each other. Love each other - not with the love that depends on chemistry, mood, and feelings – roses, cards and a romantic M&S dinners for two, nor even with the love that depends on the behaviour of others, but love each other with the kind of love that Christ refers to in the reading from the Sermon on the Mount, our gospel lesson from Matthew a couple of weeks ago.
For some the beatitudes are a gospel in a nutshell. Who went up the mountain to bring down the laws of God........? The Ten Commandments....... who later sat down to teach? – Moses. In Matthew’s eyes Jesus is the new Moses – Jesus went up a mountain to sit down to teach the beatitudes. Clifford Longley on a recent BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day programme quoted President Obama who recently described modern Egyptians as "heirs to an ancient and great civilization." He might well have added "as are we all." And of Friday night fireworks lit the skies of Cairo as protesters in that ancient and great civilization shed tears of joy as they celebrated the end of President Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of power. That same Moses who wrote the Commandments was himself a highly educated Egyptian, raised by a pharaoh's daughter. He would have known about the great experiment with monotheism. He would have known that to get into the Egyptian afterlife the deceased would have to pass a series of tests, which included: "I have done no murder. I have not stolen. I have not set my lips against anyone. I have not lusted after someone else's wife or husband. I have not coveted that which belonged to another." Ring any bells?
Love, murder and revenge are disturbing headlines used to advertise Graham Greene’s new film Brighton Rock, now on general release in local cinemas. Murder, anger, adultery revenge are every day stories on the soaps... look at Tracy Barlow and John Snape from Coronation Street - heaven help us when the new Dallas soap kicks off later this year. Murder, anger, adultery are heavy topics which occupy Matthew’s thoughts and instruction. Matthew that most Jewish of all the gospel writers tells the story of Jesus rooted in the culture and heritage of Israel in organised and orderly ways that he hoped would help Christians to keep the faith and share it; very relevant for us in today’s church that appears to have a menagerie of different opinions. He cared deeply about the mission of the church, was concerned for community, practical matters and was a clear and caring pastor. And here in this section of Matthew’s teaching are some of the most important sections in the whole of the New Testament. No fewer than 5 times does Jesus quote the law in this passage, the Law of Moses, the laws from the Ten Commandments, only to contradict it and to substitute a teaching of his own. In other words Jesus fulfils and goes beyond the Ten Commandments, the Law of Moses, and the sacred texts of the Israelites. The former Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, writing in his commentary on this passage suggests that Jesus is not so much saying don’t commit murder, adultery and the rest – Jesus is saying that your heart has to be right also, for this is the way to safety and security. It not just what we do it’s what we think we might like to do which is just as important.
In Edinburgh last weekend my wife and I went to see the 2010 psychological thriller film “The Black Swan” directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman. The plot revolves around a production of Swan Lake by a prestigious New York City ballet company. As is usual with all productions of the ballet, the production requires a ballerina to play both the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan. One dancer, Nina (Portman), is a perfect fit for the White Swan, while Lily (Kunis) has a personality that matches the Black Swan. When the two compete for the parts, Nina finds a dark side to herself. It is not a film I enjoyed.
Like the character of Nina who wanted to be both the White and Black Swan to some extent we all have some sort of split personality; there is part of us which is attracted to good, and part of us that is attracted to evil. One voice incites us to take the forbidden thing; the other voice is forbidding us to take it. Plato likened the soul to a charioteer whose task it was to drive two horses. The one horse was gentle and biddable to the reigns, the other wild, untamed and rebellious. The name of one horse was reason; the other horse was named passion. Life is always a conflict between the demands of the passions and the control of reason. The reason is the leash which keeps the passions in check. But a leash may snap at any time.
Part of growing up as Christians is to realise that tough choices are being asked of us; the choices are real, reflected in our reading this morning. Jesus after all didn’t say “If anyone would come after me they should go with the flow and do what comes naturally.” To love - to change your heart - can often be one of those hard choices – this is not a wishy - washy sentimental love. It is the love that goes beyond what seems right according to the letter of the law, and enters into the Spirit of what God wants for us, the love that enters into feeding others, into healing others, into showing grace to others, into giving peace to others, the love that values others, regardless of who they are or what they have or have not done. Love is total - it is unconditional - or it is not love at all. Think of the words of Jesus we heard read a few minutes ago. They were words addressed to a people used to compromising, going with the flow, to altering love's demands as they are found in the law of God so that those demands would be easier to fulfil.
To be sure there are no loopholes to be found in Jesus' words. No compromises, no deals, no escape hatches. What Jesus does is crystallize the issues involved in loving God and our neighbours so that we can know - without doubt – just where we stand, and exactly what we need to aim for. There is a story about an old pilgrim making his way to the Himalayan Mountains in the bitter cold of winter when it began to rain. An inn keeper said to him, "How will you ever get there in this kind of weather my good man?" The old man answered cheerfully - "My heart got there first, so it's easy for the rest of me to follow." The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that we can meet all the demands of love that are expressed in the law in one way – and only in one way - we can do so if with our hearts we go there first.
If Paul’s words from his letter to the Corinthian churches are to mean anything, it should surely be that our love for God is re-awakened - or rather and put in a different way - our awareness of how God so loves us. Our lives are journeys in love, a new discovery of it each day as we walk towards heaven. Our journey is a daily transfiguration, a life-changing encounter with the beloved Son whose voice we have heard and whom we love because he first loved us. Without love we are nothing says St Paul. But once touched by it we glimpse glory, we see into the face of the divine. Life is not the same after that. What we once thought it was worth burning out for we are learning to see in a different way. Like the journey of the magi and their return home, we read about at the beginning of this Epiphany season, we are no longer at ease with these old gods. The epiphany we have glimpsed has lit up something within us, made us see the world in a new way. We feel and know that we want to turn away from dead things to seek after the living God. It is disquieting and disturbing; but it is transfiguring too as our gospel reading later in Lent will tell us.
And finally, the prayer I used before the sermon “Come Holy Spirit of God, pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,” is from an old and beautiful prayer in the church’s liturgy. The reading is Paul's great hymn to love in the 13th chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians: ‘now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love'. The ancient prays: ‘send thy Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the very bond of peace and of all virtues without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee'. ‘Love', caritas, the love that never fails because it is divine.
Tomorrow - Valentine's Day – the martyred saint - I urge you - let your hearts go - love God and love each other as deeply as you can. When you do - you will find, no matter how many mistakes you may make on the way, that goodness and blessedness will blossom along your path, and all that God has planned will come to pass. Amen.
Revd Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working across synod church partnerships
