When Horror Comes to Supper
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 65:1-9, Psalm 22, Galaitians 3:23-end; Luke 8:26-39
“When horror comes to supper, it comes dressed exactly like a Christian.” It’s a line from the play To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Aaron Sorkin.
The horror in Maycomb, Alabama, is a deep violent racism among the ostensibly Christian community. And as much as it’s focussed in the vile impoverished Bob and Mayella Ewell, it’s equally evident in the twelve jurors who return the guilty verdict, and the police who shoot one-handed Tom Robinson 17 times in his alleged attempt to escape. Although it’s set in the Great Depression of the ‘30s, it’s not far enough from contemporary experience, (and, who knows, perhaps we have now a new Great Depression on our hands.) There are demons in To Kill a Mockingbird, but no exorcism, which makes it a tragedy and a miscarriage of justice. Because exorcisms, which are frequent in the Gospels, and a key factor in the success and rise of the Early Church, make the point that the truth will make you free. Jesus says to the disciples: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”.
When Jesus is healing and exorcising spirits, he is as likely to say ‘your sins are forgiven’, as ‘rise, take up your pallet and walk’. The act of restoration in Jesus’ ministry is holistic. Here, Jesus returns the man’s sanity, his peace of mind, he is released from chains and shackles. He is healed, restored, clothed, and he returns home praising God. Whether there’s physical or mental distress, if there’s social ostracization, whether there is sin or wrong-doing, if someone is excluded from worship, The reconciliation of Jesus is always all of these things. In healing, in preaching, in exorcism, his is a ministry of deliverance. Like Moses, he has come to set people free. But they are everywhere in chains. And, very often, as that other great Aaron Sorkin courtroom drama tells us: ‘You can’t handle the truth’. (Jack Nicholson at his finest.) Can we handle the truth? Can we recognise, beneath our Christian dress, the little horrors within us?
The Book of Common Prayer Eucharist has been described as a penitential rite with communion. If it’s not familiar, it would strike anyone as harrowingly soul-searching – about our sins, our generosity, our worthiness; It speaks to the soul that is beside itself with its failure; If it is familiar – it’s probably too familiar. Our 10am service, on the other hand, is more light-touch; The plea for mercy is there but it’s less graphic. No more: ‘the remembrance of [our misdoings] is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.’
For most of human history social inequality has been everywhere. Undeserved suffering has been everywhere; Human misdoing written on every street; The wages of sin hung on Tyburn tree for everyone to see. Our possessed man, one of legions who through poverty, illness, disability, distress, trauma, family, injustice is driven into the wilds. The old service speaks to that stricken, fallen world. Today, the mentally ill, the very sick and dying are mostly removed from sight, we lock up vast numbers, pain is stupefied by morphine;We are far better at helping those with very little, and if not we can probably send them to Rwanda. Inequality, wickedness, sin are less visible.
And with this sanitising of society – both literal and figurative – We have taken up a lexicon of appropriate behaviour. There is an increasing vocabulary of banned words – You can see the fear in people’s eyes sometimes – “Can I say that?” “Is that insensitive? Politically incorrect?” But it’s a morality that is only skin-deep – saying the right thing – And the fear of getting caught out will as often as not us keep us from approaching and showing some genuine humanity to someone whom we can only see as different. We only know our prejudice when we interrogate it. Am I less patient with this person? Am I more likely to talk about them behind their back? Do I make a show of being overtly friendly to them in front of other people? Do I seek to get away from them as soon as possible? Am I relieved when they leave? We will not be free from prejudice until we confront it in ourselves. Until we have examined our conscience, And stripped our heart so that there ‘is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female - for all of [us] are one in Christ Jesus.’
And there are many other horrors, many demons that may assail us. Our addictions – The patterns of behaviour that entrap us. They may be obvious – alcohol, drugs, television; the sort of thing that actively derails our life, our ability to work, parent etc. But I’m always reminded of C.S. Lewis’ description of the gluttonous woman. Not gluttonous in demanding more and more food, the woman affects a position of delicacy. She wants just a cup of tea and piece of toast – appearing moderate – but it must be just-so and if it’s not then she is poisonous to all around her. The devil is found in her ungenerous, ego-centric “ALL I WANT…” Of course, she doesn’t know this; She calls it delicacy or good taste. But whenever our habits begin to limit us, to exclude charity, to put out others, they quickly turn into horrors.
It’s been said that the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. We could say the same about money; A while back I preached on how it was true of the internet and social-media; A wonderful servant, a terrible master. There are many freedoms in this world, which if exercised too much becomes fetters. And when we are in fetters, horrors come to supper, as often as not dressed like a Christian. Our conscience, and our testing of it, is what keeps those horrors at bay; It is the watchman of our soul.
The first and last lines of Sorkin’s play are a moral imperative. All rise. A reminder that we are all under judgement. And a command to do better. But also a reminder that society also binds us. The Gerasenes find this situation too disturbing. They still can’t accept the healed man. They can’t accept Jesus. They are ‘seized with great fear’. It is left to the one man to proclaim through the city, the freedom that he has found, what Jesus has done; One voice of truth trying to raise a city.
To Kill a Mockingbird is all about the power and freedom of conscience: Conscience is ‘the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule’. In coming before God, in attending this service, we are asked to examine our conscience. not to bewail and bemoan; To get tied up in hand-wringing; But to find our freedom. The release of conscience is an exorcism of demons, of horrors dressed up as Christians. And that is a deliverance.
In the last weeks, through Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, the Gospel has reminded us that, as Jesus ascends, we are given the Spirit of Truth: the Spirit sent to guide the Church. Our faith calls us continually to honesty; To an examination of conscience; The awareness of our poor patterns of thinking, our prejudice, our lack of charity; our refusal to go to our neighbour’s need. Let us find the power and freedom of our conscience; Let us find deliverance from the horrors that would come to supper, Let us cast out fear with charity and truth. All rise. Amen.