I was preaching for Evensong at Guildford Cathedral this evening - 18 June. When I read the text last week, I wasn't sure what I could say. Since then, we've been confronted with the catastrophic fire in Kensington - and the desperate human need and the generosity of response. So often we try to be 'superhuman' in ways which are unrealistic - it's not for nothing that my sister has Franzmusik's 'Wonder Woman' as her ring tone for me - reminding us, quite bluntly, that 'your candle burns at both ends / and mostly in the middle... cause even Wonder Woman takes a break... and don't you know that it's OK / to take a rest some days'. The text were Samuel 21-1-15; Luke 11:14-28
I used to want to save the world, this beautiful place, but the closer you get the more you see the great darkness within.
So says Diana Prince a.k.a Wonder Woman at the opening of one of this summer’s blockbuster superhero movies.
Somewhere - in the recesses of my mind, if not the pages of our family photo album - is a vivid image of me pretending to be Wonder Woman. The lasso was a skipping rope - the famous headband and cuffs a careful cut out of a replica from the back of a Weetabix packet. Childhood memories led to midlife nostalgia in watching this film.
Diana Prince joins a motley band of flawed characters; she falls in love - perhaps that most bewildering and complex expression of desire, power and sacrifice. As every comic book and cinematic superhero has done before her, Wonder Woman sheds her 'ordinary' disguise and reveals her identity in a crimson and navy warrior dress. She goes it alone; exhibiting feats of inexplicable strength, resilience and agility.
Restoring the cosy conviviality of village life is not the peaceable ending we think. A super-heroine vanquishes super-villain - but this fiction is not salvation. Scripture doesn’t collude with dualisms of goodies and baddies, of superheroes and super-villains. It speaks of beauty, darkness and the triumph of love.
In our first lesson, we are plunged into a drama about two complex characters Saul and David - about two men who ruled over Israel. When God’s people wanted a king - to be like other nations - Samuel anointed Saul. Not only is he caught up in skirmishes with the Philistines, but he’s also plagued by jealously, paranoia and dramatic mood swings.
David takes centre stage - the child-hero who slays Goliath with a shepherd’s slingshot; the talented musician who can calm the unpredictable Saul; the poor boy who defies death to claim a royal bride; the likeable youth who is held in deep affection by the Saul’s son and heir Jonathan. Jonathan cannot bring reconciliation between father and friend: David flees from court.
Reading 1 Samuel charts something of the ‘great darkness’ within our beautiful world: there is revenge, violence and deception. But it also charts something hopeful within human lives - the capacity to show mercy, encouragement and comfort. Here the fugitive hero receives from a priest protection and help in the guise of food and a means of defence. Fear drives him to feign madness as a disguise.
It would be easy to place onto David a form of hero-typology - he’s brave, attractive, successful, loyal, courageous and impulsive - a leader who refuses to return hatred to Saul. We know too that his faithfulness to God wavers - with dire consequences.
When he has established his own royal palace and looks to the stability of his own dynasty, he pursues his own desires with aggressive entitlement. He seduces Bathsheba - leading to spiral of adultery, deception, abuse of power and a successful plot to murder her husband.
This gifted leader sees how far he has fallen and repents: he lives with the tensions of kingdom, throne and family. He’s a flawed hero - whose tears remind us that in the world of suffering and forgiven sin, it is God who remains faithful. God who can save.
God sent his Son in this beautiful world. In Jesus we see not a superhero but the Word made flesh. He is the light that shines in the darkness - and the darkness has not, cannot, will not overcome it.
That does not mean that there is no darkness: but it does mean that the darkness is not the ultimate reality. In our second lesson we heard a text which points us to the depths to which God’s love reaches out to us - but also the nature of the kingdom which we are called to seek, find and participate in.
Jesus the one who is the Word of God restores speech to one who was mute: such an act arouses not only amazement but opposition. There were those who had their own ideas about what kind of dramatic and heroic deeds constituted a sign from heaven. Jesus won’t play that game.
Instead he names the problem - speaking of the way in which division drives division - jealousy, suspicion, greed and selfishness breaks our bonds of kinship. We see the great darkness deep within a world rich in beauty and resources. That is our human propensity to mess things up; but in that place, God meets us in his Son and reveals God’s propensity to love.
Jesus loves in standing with the one who was a stranger, an outcast, who who could not express his identity in eloquent speeches. Jesus went to that place of isolation - to the one who was voiceless - and spoke words of grace, dignity and mercy.
That is the sign of God’s kingdom: that even in the face of our deepest fears, fragmentations and pain, there is restoration.
What we see Jesus in this episode expresses love on the margins, challenging power. It foreshadows his being with broken humanity as on the cross we hear his cries of forgiveness from the depths of agony; in the tomb, that love goes to the cold and silent depths of sin death; in resurrection the power of God’s life is uncontainable.
Jesus presents us with a choice: to be with him, and to gather; or to be against him and to scatter? Our choice is to fix our eyes on the light - and to participate in the ongoing transformation of the world. Then we bring light - we see the beauty and we push the darkness back.
We saw that in One Love Manchester: when Justin Bieber, who has more Twitter followers than Justin Welby, said said I’m not letting go of hope, or love, or God. We saw it when the Bishop of Southwark led a liturgy or re-hallowing or re-claiming the space of Borough Market.
We see that when Britain remembers Jo Cox in neighbourhood get togethers which reflect that we have more in common than divides us. We see it when we refuse to allow poor public services to become public services for the poor. We will see it when 9 year old Alfie tells Graham, Bishop of Kensington that he’s saved his pocket money for the people in Grenfell Tower.
We will participate in it when we persist in responding to tragedy by running towards it rather walking away. In gathering together, we scatter that darkness. God’s Kingdom is not brought near by superhero intervention; it is brought near my ordinary, courageous, compassionate and costly acts of love.
It comes near when the voiceless find a voice; when power is dispersed in mutual service; when the vision for our community is bigger than the vision we have for ourselves. May the Holy Spirit stir up in us a passion to be with others as God in Christ Jesus was with us.
God has saved our beautiful world.
Love dwelt with us, and the darkness did not over come it.
The closer you get, the more you see light deep within.
© Julie Gittoes 2017
