Collect
Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.
or
Almighty God, give us reverence for all creation and respect for every person, that we may mirror your likeness in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Epistle – Colossians 1.15–20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Gospel – John 1.1–14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Sermon on Second Sunday before Lent
Recently, I have been reading two novels which had to do with murder and the mayhem such an event engenders. In both the victim was a young girl. The horror which all felt at such a crime was on every page. The pathos everyone feels when hearing such news draws out the character of the sleuths. They show their humanity in their behaviour, evoking in the reader a sympathy with victim and detective. The author is trying to describe just how the lost life affected all the world around each of them.
One of the detectives described his emotions quite precisely. It seemed to me that he was in the throes of grief. The investigator kept thinking, “What if … ?” He wondered how he would be able to cope if this dead young woman had been his daughter. That thought drives him in many directions, but the most important thing is the eruption of compassion for the bereaved and the lost girl. It was as if the dead girl were actually his beautiful daughter. He began in anger, and proceeded in guilt – that “What if …?” haunted him to ever greater exertions. Eventually, with the solution of the murder he became reconciled to the loss of the girl’s life and both could rest in peace.
The important thing, I thought, is the observation that the inspector’s world had collapsed in on itself when he imagines his daughter as the victim, just as his world has revealed itself as a nexus in which everything is connected with everything else. We all experience this, don’t we? When something dreadful happens, don’t we begin to question everything? Like the sleuth, we realise that everything may not be what it seemed to be just a little while ago.
Our world is a Gestalt – a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. The detective realises, just as we do, that when a part is missing the whole is diminished by more than just that small part. The girl’s death throws many personal worlds into disarray, that of the detective with his “What if …?” and the world of each of those who mourn the murdered girl. Everything has become disjointed, the cohesion of everything we know has been dissolved. We all wonder how anything can become “normal” again, don’t we? The detective is in the midst of this chaos until the one part is fitted back into the events and a new world is created, one in which justice is found for the victim and everyone’s worlds are created anew and a new normal can begin. Everyone’s life is renewed by the solution of the murder. The world may not be what it was just a little while ago, but it has become a whole again, greater than the sum of its parts and new.
Our readings from John and Paul talk about the character of a believer’s world. Both speak of the Creator in terms so fulsome that we are comforted in a way that our ordinary understanding often doesn’t accomplish.
When I consider the Creator God, the Lord whom Paul extols in our reading, I have to look upon the world in an entirely different way, don’t I? The early spring flower struggling up through the terrible weather of winter and its aftermath is a very different creature for me when I see it through the prism of Paul’s thought that “all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” How can that blossom rising from the detritus of storm and flood be anything but fantastically beautiful, when I consider that in God everything is held together?
Don’t I know the truth of this chaos of interconnection myself? Don’t I know that because I love my wife so much everyone becomes precious to me in some way? Even the fellow with whom I have such difficulty, don’t I treat him differently because I know how to love him because I love my wife? Or because I know love as a child, doesn’t that transform my feelings for all those squalling children flooding the pavement as they stream home at three o’clock? Doesn’t that happen for all of us?
I hope we can acknowledge how we transform our environment, trying to make the best of all possible worlds amidst those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Just like me, everyone else is looking at the world through spectacles, which may be tinted rose but some may be some dark shade.
One hundred years ago, the deepest depression oppressed the world, when the shilling would not buy very much, in some countries even hundreds of shillings would not buy enough for survival. Their lives were filtered through the poetry of men mired forever in the stench of the trenches. That filter produced the next generation, those people who flapped about in excess, whose thoughts gyrated between colourful joy and black sorrow. That filter produced all the parents of the 1920’s. Now we are doing the same for our children as we pass on our own filters of tradition and attitudes.
Here we are producing the world, with those filters which allow us to function amongst all around us. Just as previous generations left us their attitudes, so we leave ours to our children. What have they learned from us? What have we handed over from the generation before us? What will our children give to the future?
This is an observation about society as well as individuals. Culturally we are handing on something we may not be aware of. Is it a culture of the bully or the culture of the caring shepherd? Only our children will show what we have handed on … and only the future can tell what we and our children have done. I would say that love reveals the connection of everything. I think that we reveal ourselves completely in love, and that love can help us understand the world as Paul does in our reading. Or to paraphrase John, “Love became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen its glory, the glory as of the parents’ only child, full of grace and truth.”
One Reply to “Second Sunday before Lent”
Comments are closed.