York Minster

Passion Matters

Date: 17th May 2009
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Dr Jonathan Draper

Not since I was a parish priest have I had the joy of preaching four weeks in a row. Now I know that some of my colleagues might describe my good fortune in other ways, but they needn’t worry: I will be liturgically silent for quite a while now, which I know will be greeted by silent cheers and raised glasses later on. 

I have also had the immense privilege of having sequential readings for Evensong, consisting of the messages in the Book of Revelation delivered to four of the seven churches of Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamumand today Laodicea; that’s almost a series, almost a full set. Perhaps next time round I can have the other three and then publish a small book on the messages to the seven churches of Asia.

The contrast between our two readings, this evening, however couldn’t be more stark. In our first reading from the Song of Songs – which is a frank and sensuous love poem – we have the famous lines about love being as strong as death, and passion being as fierce as the grave; about how many waters cannot quench the flame of love, and about how it is of more value than anything. And then in our second reading from the message to the church in Laodicea – which was written at a hard and uncompromising period of persecution in the church – we find lukewarm faith, love that is neither hot nor cold, a complacency borne out of wealth and ease; and we also have the threat of God’s disgust. In one we have the kind of overwhelming passion about which Freud wrote with such perception; in the other we have the stern-faced condemnation of those for whom faithfulness might well mean death.

In many periods of Christian history there has been a bit of embarrassment about the Song of Songs and its inclusion in the Bible. Never mind the so-called ‘Catholic Karma Sutra’ recently written by a celibate Franciscan monk, the Song of Songs is written by one on the inside of passionate physical love who knows its longings, its expressions and its power. Its sheer physicality and frankness have caused at least some Christians to see it as un-spiritual, and they have gone to extraordinary lengths to argue that really it is an extended allegory about the love of Christ for his church. It is nothing of the sort, though of course you can use it that way if it helps you. But just because the words ‘love’ and ‘death’ are used in the same sentence, and we believe that Christ died for us out of love for us, doesn’t mean that Solomon, or whoever wrote it 500 to a 1000 years before Christ, meant it as that kind of allegory. It really is a celebration of physical love between a man and a woman. And like the Rabbi Akiba, writing at about the same time as most of the NT was written, we should rejoice in it for what it is. Akiba wrote, ‘all the ages are not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel , for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies’.            

This passionate celebration of human love seems a million miles away from the kind of complacent blandness of the Christians of Laodicea, as expressed in our reading from Revelation. Here are people who thought their material, and perhaps even their spiritual wealth, meant that they didn’t have to try very hard; they didn’t have the same material problems, the same need to struggle, perhaps their church wasn’t under the same kind of threat as the others. They are so complacent, so sure of their position, that they have no idea that they are actually penniless, blind, naked and spiritually wasted. God would have them repent, be clothed in faith, rich in grace, and recover the passion of the love they once had. God offers them this opportunity; he stands at the door and knocks and hopes that they will open themselves to him once again.

That image – of Christ standing at the door and knocking, hoping to be invited in – has become a famous image of the process of salvation. Christ knocks of the door of your heart with the offer of salvation, of life in all its fullness: will you open the door and let him in? It also led to a famous painting by William Holman Hunt in 1854 of Christ carrying a lantern and knocking on the overgrown door of a cottage where the only door handle is on the inside. The painting is called, ‘The Light of the World’ and stands as an image of the offer God makes to each of us, the offer of table fellowship, of intimacy and of love. Here the offer is made to the Laodiceans: open your hearts and minds to me and I will re-kindle the fire of your love and you will conquer with me.

Now I don’t want to get too un-Anglican about this, but the message here is that God really does want us to care about our faith and the impact it has in our world. Our faith is only in a secondary sort of way meant to be for our benefit; primarily it is meant to be a way of shaping and re-shaping our world in the light of God’s love and to the benefit of everyone. The Laodiceans, like too many others today, thought it was all about them.

Amen.