Redefining the Big Words: Fear, Peace, Love

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 55:10-13, Psalm 65:8-end, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’

Language is peculiar.  Meanings of words slip and slide. Within a generation the meaning of a word may change entirely. The word “Broadcasting” for centuries, millennia even, was an agricultural term, and yet in less than a century this meaning was overtaken by radio and the BBC. “Streaming” was always about allocating children to classes, Sorting the wheat from the chaff (!) Or about sinus difficulties in a miserable cold. It’s still connecting with disease, but now it’s how we do church. 

Other words go further by having contradictory meanings – The word “quite”, means both “to a small extent” but also “completely” – “I’m quite miserable”/ “I’m quite miserable”; we also still hear of people who are “awfully nice,” and words like Ron Weasley’s favourite, “wicked”, confront social values by turning language upside down. ‘Cool’ was invented as slang in the thirties by the Jazz saxophonist Lester Young, Paris Hilton took the sentiment and turned it into her trademarked (literally) catchphrase ‘that’s hot’ in the noughties. Though she really was only stealing from Chaucer, who described Morgain as the ‘moste hotest woman of all Bretaigne and moste luxurious’. (Some years before Paris came on the scene.)

But even in the earnest language of the Gospel, the truth is rarely pure and never simple – and it’s often when we’re most certain that we understand, that we are furthest from the truth. So perhaps today you have fallen into error – You may have exchanged the Christian meanings of “peace”, “fear” and “love” for those of the World.

Let’s start with peace. The Gospel says two contradictory things about peace: we have all the expected stuff about being not troubled, but in today’s Gospel Jesus declares “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have come not to bring peace but a sword!” Surprising huh? Paradoxical? What do we mean by peace? Ask most people what they think about being at peace – they’d say something about being happy, surrounded by people who love and accept them, having the right job, enough money and a little extra, a nice boyfriend, a comfortable house. A better way to describe this peace is SECURITY:  a peace conjured by the range of insurance policies, social ties and conveniences that modern life allows us. But Remember: “Peace I give to you” but “I do not give as the world gives.” It’s to this peace, our sense of security, that Christ brings the sword; he’ll want to attack your boyfriend, hack up your sofa, rip out your kitchen, pull down your house, and steal your cat. And what’s more, you may be better off for it. Now I’m guessing you weren’t expecting that?  This is what comes from selective reading of the Bible. “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.”

So what is the peace that Christ gives to us? Well let’s first move on to fear. Fear we usually think of as the opposite of peace. A bad thing – fear stops us from being the awesome people we really want to be. Often the Christian message is not to fear but to have faith: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid”. “Do not fear those who kill the body”

On the other hand, what about “fear of the Lord”?  “The fear of the Lord leads to life”, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 19:23; 9:10). “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling”? (Phil. 2:12) a contradiction?  If the defining feature of non-Christian peace is security, the defining feature of Christian fear is our attitude to vulnerability.  Essentially, the fear of the Lord is about being vulnerable, and vulnerability scares us because it means we might have to change; we might lose something; it deprives us of security and calls attention to our frailty and weakness. In fact, fear of the Lord is vulnerability. Our fear, however, is mostly one step removed from this – It’s not being vulnerable that makes most of us afraid – we are mostly afraid of being vulnerable. This is the anxiety that Christ wishes to relieve us of because this fear is the barrier between me and God and between me and you. That fear should have died with sin and our old self. That fear disables our capacity to love.

In Martin Luther King’s well quoted speech he says, ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’. He condemns completely rioting and all violence. But equally he condemns the conditions that cause rioting, saying: ‘that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo, than about justice, equality and humanity’. Peace which stands as a barrier to love. 

Love is the last of my three misunderstood terms. People like to think of love as a possession, as security, as a validation of their significance:  They say things like, “We have each other – that’s what really matters”; “I got you, babe”; “Love lifts us up where we belong” But love is not easy. It involves risk and sacrifice – and not just in the beginning with all those coy glances across the bar and the “will he/won’t he” moments – but as long as you love. The Gospel is that God loves the world by becoming vulnerable to the point of death; that ‘there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’  ‘Those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. It’s more “Love will tear us apart” than “All you need is love”. And love is not a one way process –it’s as dangerous to receive as it is to give. Love interrogates us. It says: “I have done this for you. What are you willing to give?” So if someone tells you they love you – you have two options:  You can either say “I love you too”: be on equal terms. Or anything else. Anything else means “I don’t love you.” Or, again, imagine a person comes into your bedroom and takes off all their clothes.  [it might happen!] Essentially, you can either take off all your clothes or you get out of the building. It’s actually very hard to stay clothed next to a naked person. 

Love reveals itself in vulnerability but asks for a return of the gift –  you can walk out or you can get naked but you can’t ignore it.  Love is a risk and it demands a risk. But it’s not merely a possession or part of ourselves that’s offered in love – it’s the whole of you that is given – as the post-eucharistic prayers says – “we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”. Christ is the gift of love – complete and perfect, fearfully given. Christ is naked and amongst us;  he is the gift –  the question is: do we dare to remove our clothes? This returns us to fear – if we are afraid of being vulnerable we will shy away from the gift, we will seek to remain independent with our security and our solitude. ‘Those who find their life will lose it’; but in shedding our clothes, in fearfully accepting vulnerability, in taking the risk, we allow ourselves to be fully known – and fully accepted. 

In these days we have had a heightened sense of vulnerability. We have learnt what it means to be house-bound. There has been the whiff of mortality. With this new vulnerability has been an outpouring of love and service that has not been seen since the Second World War. With this right fear, has come vulnerability leading to love. For some, this new love has brought a new peace. Not in personal security, but in being right – Right with God. Right with our neighbours. Right with ourselves. The world turns on a sixpence. Volunteering is waning. Generosity is receding. 2020 can be a wasted year, a year without entertainment, a year interrupted, or it can be the wake up call we needed. A reminder of our humanity, a call to love; the gift of greater peace.  Amen.