14 May, 6th of Easter: Acts 17:22-31, 1 Peter 3:13-end and John 14:15-21
Tennyson wrote his epic poem In Memoriam following the sudden death of his friend Henry Hallam. The section called “Ring out, wild bells” captures the intensity of his feelings of loss Ring out the grief that saps the mind; but also the hope that the turning of the year and its seasons would mark a fresh start Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring happy bells, across the snow.
“Bell Sunday” is a new initiative - offering us an opportunity to give thanks for the contributions of bells and bell ringers in the life of the Church. Long after St Dunstan, their patron saint, began experimenting with forging bells in the 900s, they have rung out to offer praise and call people to worship; marking moments of personal and national significance at times of sorrow and great gladness.
Here in Hendon, one of our bells carries the inscription: Gloria in excelsis Deo - glory to God in the highest. As the psalmist puts it, bells join with harps and voices to sing out a glorious noise to the Lord.
Tennyson goes further, suggesting that the ringing out of wild bells echos the call to proclaim the good news of Jesus - the call to repentance, the commandment to love and the nearness of God’s kingdom.
Ring out, wild bells… ring out the false, ring in the true…
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, ring in redress to all mankind.
Wild bells are to ring out strife, want, care and sin; the faithless coldness of the times.
They ring in a nobler mode of life, sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slader and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Our wild bells ringing in the love and obedience of which Jesus speaks: If you love me, he says, keep my commandments.
It is such a simple and memorable command; yet how often we struggle to embrace it fully. To love makes us vulnerable and invites us to trust. That’s hard when we’d prefer to sit with our own preferences or suspicions. It's hard when the world seems to be bent towards slander and spite, rather than common love of good.
Love flows over the margins and blurs the edges when we’d sometimes prefer neat boundaries of the ability to control what happens; love remoulds us and brings change, when we’d rather not deal with the disruption or effort.
Jesus invites us to love one another as he has loved us: with honest engagement, with a depth of compassion, with a generous invitation and patient, persistent challenge. Even when we see ourselves as most unlovely or unworthy, Jesus rings in love of truth and right.
And don’t we at some level yearn for this - for the common love of good which rings out strife, want, care and sin?
At some level, we yearn for a love that gives to food banks and shares cake with those who are alone; a love that draws people together in their diversity and stops to ask if someone is ok.
Jesus’ words form us into a community centred on God’s all-inclusive commandment to love: to love beyond our preferences and friendships; to love beyond what feels manageable. His call to love is to be pulled towards a fierce hunger for the other, for justice, for compassion. To love until our heart breaks.
For love to become part of the muscle memory of our hearts and minds, we need to practise love as diligently as ringers learn to handle a rope and learn a method.
Ringers begin with one stroke at a time; getting the measure of the weight and movement; they ring in rounds, sensing when to pull off and when to hold back. They embody technique and get to know rope and bell.
In the same way we learn to love: practising charity as our heart changes, expands; until we love friends, companions and then the stranger or those we disagree with.
Ringers model for us how to move into new patterns and changes; they remind us that we don’t do all the work of learning and loving by ourselves. That would be too much to carry. Whereas they practise and trust, learn and build their memory, with dedication and discipline, so do we. Together.
We do so not only in the company of a human band of ringers, but with one who is our advocate, helper, comforter and encourager: the Spirit who lives in and moves through us. The Spirit is a gift from the heart of God to abide with us.
Such a Spirit is inexhaustible - taking root in our hearts and helping us to be more fully who we are. The Spirit abides in our hearts and minds - allowing the possibility of love in each thought, breath and gesture.
The Spirit rings in truth in us, rings in remembrance of love and calls us to abide and rest. Peals of bells are all our attention because they spring forth after times not only of practice but of rest. Here we abide: around one table, one food - for the sake of one world.
Our lives, like the wild bells ringing out, have times of movement and rhythm, rest and stillness. Perhaps we can listen to them and be reminded of God - the one, as Paul quoted another poet, in whom we live and move and have our being.
What we see in Paul is someone caught up in the Spirit. When he encounters those outside his own frame of reference and experience, his speech, as Jennings puts it meets divine desire. Then the Holy Spirit will tell you [him, us] what to say in order to create the new in and through your [our, his] words. That new is a relationship aimed at a marvellous joining.
Paul sees the idols as signs of distorted hope - made by human beings and reflecting human longings. However, he does not condemn but rather finds a point of connection which speaks of God’s love for them. He finds a way of bending them towards what they do not know to be enfolded by God - showing them that they are loved and wanted.
It is why, as with the wild bells, the call of love rings out sin, selfishness and separation; and rings in truth, love and peace. The ringing out of wild bells expresses something of God’s love and the claim that love makes on us - a claim that changes us. Which is why, to quote Jennings again, God demands of all people the turning-toward that is repentance. A habit for individual, churches and communites.
The love of God in Christ stands between life and death. In baptism, as Peter reminds us, we die in the flesh but are made alive in the Spirit. Here we find gift and grace; here our hearts are set on fire with justice. This is the hope of love that we are to be willing to give an account of: the call to repentance and the gift of new life, for the sake of the world.
Ring in… the larger heart, the kinder hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
