5/02/23 Holy Communion. St Peter’s
1 Cor. 2:1-12 Matthew 5:13-20
I started looking at today’s passages just after I’d finished a detective story (Bleeding Heart Yard - Elly Griffiths) where one of the characters was nagged at by a phrase from an old A level set work ‘No light, but rather darkness visible’ and then having read the passages and what Jesus said about light, and our being the light I found it began to nag at me too.
Let me put the phrase back into the passage it came from
‘No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all;
( John Milton Paradise Lost Lines 63-67)
Darkness visible, sights of woe, regions of sorrow, a place where peace and rest can never dwell, a place without hope. It’s probably no surprise that originally the poet was describing hell, what is more depressing is how uncannily it sounds like too many of our news bulletins - from Ukraine __to Afghanistan__ to social housing with mould is growing up the walls and no place to keep your children safe from it - sorrow, woe, no peace, no rest, no hope - darkness visible is something we recognise.
I’ve sometimes heard people suggest that we need darkness so we can properly appreciate light - but I don’t buy that idea in the slightest. We don’t need sorrow to understand happiness, or misery to understand content or despair to understand hope, what we know is that where there is darkness, we do need light.
We know light pushes back the darkness, but when we look around the darkness can seem so enveloping and the light such a pinprick that it is easy to feel dispirited.
But Jesus lived in the same world as us and though he knew better than anyone the power of the dark he was not cowed by it and neither do we need to be.
He knew - and knows - us his followers well - he knows us accurately and without wishful thinking and still he said of people like us ‘You are the light of the world…. let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.’
So what can we say in the face of the darkness?
To begin with - light and dark, good and evil are not equal and opposite. A French writer (Simone Weil) writing about stories put it like this
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.
There is more to light than there is to darkness it will have the last word.
But what can we do?
1) Our gospel reading came from early on in the Sermon on the Mount, but it came just after the bit where I want to begin - Matt. 5:1-12
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit …
It’s worth noting the world these Beatitudes are spoken into - we began with a picture of darkness visible the poet gave talked of a place of sorrow, woe, no peace, no rest, no hope and that could be the world of the beatitudes - many are addressed to those those who know sorrow and woe - the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted - but Jesus doesn’t leave them there he gives them hope. How is he going to make that hope good?
These sayings are not just addressed to the those in a hard place some are for those who are seeking to give or receive peace rest hope - the hungry for righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers.
God often chooses to work through his people - The beatitudes are blessings for troubled and searching people. They are what the kingdom of heaven looks like as it is lived out in our troubled and searching world.
How can we push back against the darkness? what needs do the beatitudes point us towards.
2) Next how we live matters
Our reading began with salt and light and then went on to Jesus saying
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.’
A passage I have sometimes found rather uncomfortable - uncomfortable because I have seen Jewish law as a mass of rather odd restrictions which don’t apply now, and anyway knowing God is a matter of grace, of gift - it’s not a matter of good behaviour so why is Jesus making a big deal about it. What has this got to do with salt and light, what has it got to do with the beatitudes
What I had missed was what the purpose of God’s law - it’s utterly different for example from the law which was imposed on Israel as part of the Roman occupation - the purpose of Roman law was largely to protect and preserve the rights and property of Roman citizens - nobody else had much in the way of rights, and slaves of course had none at all. What the Roman law created was a society that served the interests of the few - if others benefitted from the smooth running of the machinery of state that was fine, but if there were people it didn’t suit then so much the worse for them. It wasn’t concerned with good or evil let alone the transcendent and so it allowed darkness to flourish.
The law and the prophets that Jesus says here he didn’t come to abolish are quite different - they are not arbitrary , they are things of light. Both law and prophets are fundamentally a working out of the the great commandments You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. Love God above all else. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
These two commandments are the pillars of God’s Kingdom - they are its geography.
God’s law is for the creation of his kingdom - it is all about the creation of his people. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
How we live matters
3) Jesus said Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them’ Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by completely loving God with all his heart and soul and mind, and utterly loving his neighbour as himself. Jesus fulfilling the law didn’t mean ticking every available box, it means he is the embodiment of what God’s law is intended to achieve.
We are his followers - how do we live
Law, salt, light, defeating darkness sound heavy - I’m going to finish by quoting Rowan Williams which pick up the idea of real good being always new, marvellous, intoxicating.
When reading the Gospels you sometimes get the impression that if anywhere in ancient Galilee you heard a loud noise and a lot of laughter and talking and singing, you could be reasonably sure that Jesus of Nazareth was around somewhere nearby. Jesus created fellowship wherever he was. And it is one of the things in the Gospels that is remembered as most distinctive about him, because even then some of his friends were embarrassed by it. The indiscriminate generosity and the willingness to mix with unsuitable people were already, in the first Christian generation, just difficult enough for the Gospel writers to scratch their heads and cough just a little bit about it. But they could not deny it or suppress it. It was too vividly remembered. Jesus sought out company and the effect of his presence was to create a celebration, to bind people together.
(Rowan Williams Being Christian p41, 42)
