The stone man made soup. The burning woman drank it.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 2.15-17;3.1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5.12-19, Matthew 4.1-11

Ted Hughes in Birthday Letters wrote poems to his wife Sylvia Plath after her death. One particularly struck me, where he remembers a trip when she got food poisoning and became very ill.  His initial reaction was to be a good nurse, making soup and doing everything he can for her. Then he writes:

As I paused
Between your mouthfuls, I stared at the readings
On your dials. Your cry jammed so hard
Over into the red of catastrophe
Left no space for worse.  And I thought
How sick is she? Is she exaggerating?
And I recoiled, just a little,
Just for balance, just for symmetry,
Into sceptical patience, a little.

If it can be borne, why make so much of it?
'Come on, now,' I soothed. 'Don't be so scared.
It's only a bug, don't let it run away with you.'

What I was really saying was: 'Stop crying wolf.'
… Then the blank thought
Of the anaesthesia that helps creatures
Under the polar ice, and the callous
That eases overwhelmed doctors. A twisting thought
Of the overload of dilemma, the white-out,
That brings baffled planarian worms to a standstill
Where they curl up and die.

You were overloaded. I said nothing.
I said nothing. The stone man made soup.
The burning woman drank it.

Hughes, here, can respond to the evident need in front of him. He can love, nurse, trust this woman to whom he is married. But he looks again. Is he being taken advantage of? A trace of scepticism, the overload of caring too much, the sheer effort of continuous loving, easily becomes overwhelming and we can find ourselves withdrawing from the painful trials of love.

We have all been in situations where we have been caring for, helping out, people when it has occurred to us that we are actually under more pressure, our situation is objectively more difficult — it might be our partner, our children, our parents, our friends. The force of resentment can be overwhelming, and sometimes it’s right and we do need to walk away or challenge those who are making demands of us. But it’s a slippery, serpent-like voice very often, that whispers to us: ‘haven’t you done enough’…  ‘it can’t be all that bad’… ‘And what about you; don’t you deserve some looking after…’ We can look on our sick beloved with love and trust. We can look on our sick beloved with suspicion and resentment.

Today’s Old Testament reading tells us of the beginning of sin. But the language of sin no longer resonates. Sure we make mistakes, sometimes we’re a bit selfish, and there are plenty of other people who we might describe as ‘difficult’. Then we could probably line up some historical figures who were actually evil: Pharaoh from The Prince of Egypt, Hitler and Stalin of course, Harvey Weinstein, Jimmy Saville, Draco Malfoy, I’m sure you can think of more. 

But we think of our own judgements and actions less in terms of sin. That would seem archaic.  Perhaps if we commit some tangible act or crime we might think of it as sin — murder, adultery, theft but then we can sometimes go weeks without accomplishing these. Committing a sin can almost seem grand, profound.

So maybe we should drop the language of sin altogether. After all most sinners have grown up in broken homes, or had poor educations, or society has not given them the breaks that would have made them model citizens; or they have a defective gene or a mental disorder; or they have fallen into bad company, or have a different culture with different morals. In fact, human beings are all so different, isn’t calling someone sinful really just being judgmental? My sin is your virtue…

It’s perhaps not surprising that given this brouhaha over personal responsibility, God’s usual recourse in the Old Testament is to punish an entire nation, sometimes the whole world, like in the Great Flood. What this should tell us, though, that sin is not so much a personal failure as a structural problem. To believe the world is fallen does not require the historical certainty of scantily clad gardeners in Eden, the demonization of crafty snakes, or the eroticizing of apples. It’s morally bizarre to suggest that we are still paying for the crimes of our ancestors.

But the fall is a reality present around us and within us — this sickness unto death. ‘Death has spread to all because all have sinned.’ The social ills which a short walk through Wandsworth will expose; the secret thoughts of our hearts which we dare not expose to the world. This rapid spread of contagion; the death toll in failed states like Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan.

But St Paul tells us that now death does not exercise dominion. ‘Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all’; so we seem to have this double situation where on the one hand we’re clearly still a part of a world where death is the defining reality. And, on the other, we are told that we are now under grace and free from this law of death.

Earlier, we saw that Ted Hughes could look with love and see the beautiful, vulnerable person he married; or he could look with cynicism and see the burden; the boring needy whinger using up his time and energy. We can look on the world and see death; or we can look with hope and see grace. The best illustration of these two worlds is the crucifixion - because, depending on your perspective, the cross is a victory either for sin or for love. For the fallen world, the cross is the victory of sin because it shows how violence wins. Jesus is executed. The force of power triumphantly asserts itself. Seen through grace, though, the cross is the victory of love; the demonstration of perfect self-offering, complete vulnerability, a love that gives itself even unto death. A sacrifice that does not flinch from the victory of sin, but testifies that the victory of love achieved in these situations is greater — that the victory of love’s sacrifice eclipses the victory of sin’s violence.

It may well be that nothing changes in Syria or Yemen or elsewhere. Are the sacrifices made in war by those fighting for a better world, those simply trying to bring aid and relief, in vain? Do we judge an act of love by the consequences and results it produces? If we do then we have by another way submitted to the world of power — we are still operating under sin, because love has become a form of manipulation rather than a different way. 

The point of the cross was not that in the end Pontius Pilate or the Jewish authorities were forced out and had to admit they’d made a mistake, but rather that it expressed a different set of values, which were true. If your life is oriented towards power then the cross is an embarrassment, a total defeat. The cross only makes any sense if you believe in love: that love triumphs over all things, including death, just by being love.

So in Christ’s temptation we heard the tempter’s voice testing Jesus. He can use his power to serve himself or he can trust God. He can gain the world, only to lose his own soul. He can allow his vision to be clouded with power, or he can use that power to serve the world with the message and acts of love.

So we have two ways of seeing the world. If we cling to the world of sin, we see it as a conflict of various powers in which we must assert ourselves, become dominant, use force to achieve our goals, to fulfill our needs.  This is the way of seeing the world that Jesus enters the desert to escape from. This is the world under judgment that is brought in by Adam. 

Then there is the way of seeing the world brought about by one man’s act of righteousness. This is the way of seeing the world in terms of love — that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things endures all things; that is patient and kind; the love that gives itself even unto death.

So next time someone asks you for something; next time you’re caring for someone who’s ill; when you’re wondering if the effort you make for others is really worth it and whether it’s time for a little more self care; ask yourself if you’re seeing the world through love or through sin; and this Lent, let us pray for grace to follow Jesus in service and kindness. Amen.