by CCW | 11 November 2018 15:00
It is one of the most extraordinary passages in the Scriptures and perhaps in the history of religious philosophy. It belongs especially, it seems to me, to the rich tradition of the literature of consolation. It teaches us something profound and wonderful about the real meaning of the ethical principle upon which our lives radically depend.
Against a utilitarian or consequentialist view of ethics which merely looks at the consequences real or imagined that arise from certain actions, the outcomes, as it were, we have with the words of Jesus the very principle that shapes and informs our actions. This passage is read on The Feast of St. Barnabas (BCP, p.227[1]) who is sometimes called the son of consolation. Here is our real consolation and comfort in the face of the great evils of our world and day. Jesus’s words reveal to us the great ethic of sacrificial love as the real defining principle in our lives. It can only be about that principle in usas this passage makes clear. “Ye are my friends,” Jesus says, an outstanding claim. The very idea of a friendship between God and man is almost unthinkable for ancient philosophy and religion, the distance between God and man far too incommensurate. And yet, Jesus says, “I have called you friends.”
But only if we do whatsoever he commands us. Our friendship with God in Christ depends upon his Word being alive in us. And that means our knowing, each according to our own capacities, what God seeks for us in our lives. Somehow this passage strengthens us in the face of the great evils of the world, particularly the evils of war.
Today we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ending of the First World War. We are only beginning to begin to understand and to come to terms with the evil of our humanity. Remembrance Day marks the ending of the First World War; yet the significance of this is so great that it is on this day that we also remember the Second World War, itself an extension of the first, as well as remembering a multitude of other wars and their human cost. Somehow we remember them through this remembrance. We contemplate the dark horrors of the twentieth century unleashed by our humanity upon our humanity in unprecedented ways. We confront the deadly and destructive capacities of our technocratic world. That we try to remember, that we can remember at all, is the signal virtue of this day.
It is a kind of secular All Souls’ Day in which we remember sometimes and in some places, such as at the King’s-Edgehill Cenotaph, by name those who have died in the service of their country. On All Souls’ Day in some churches there is the reading of the names of the community’s faithful departed. We are recalling within the embrace of the Feast of All Saints the equal truth and reality of our common mortality. The point is that the golden thread of grace runs through the common grave of our deaths and so too, through the wretched and vile horrors of war. What we are contemplating is the potentiality and actuality of evil in our own hearts. Yet that is the great good of this day.
Christ’s words signal that we are to know that we are the friends of God. That concept challenges all of the folly and the foolishness of the sad divisions and animosities in our souls, all of the sad follies and evils of our world of wars. Jesus says this to us in the face of his impending sacrifice on the Cross. He teaches us about the radical idea of sacrifice, of living for God and for the good of one another. He teaches us that living for others and living for the principles that are greater than ourselves is our truest freedom and highest dignity. “Greater love hath no man than this,” he says, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Such words adorn a thousand cenotaphs in a thousand communities throughout this continent and beyond. Why? Because they capture something of the depth of commitment that belongs to our lives together, a commitment to principles that are greater than us by definition, principles for which we give of ourselves completely. This goes far beyond the ethics of utilitarianism or consequentialism which measures actions only in terms of their outcome and ignores the animating principles that dignify and adorn human life even in the worst of situations.
To know this is to begin to know what Jesus wants us to know. And so it will not do to try to steal a cure from Jesus unawares like the woman in this morning’s gospel. She sought a healing from Jesus. “If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole,” she thinks. It is a wonderful insight into the truth of Jesus for us but it is also radically incomplete. Our real healing only happens when we are face to face with Christ, when we enter full knowingly into his full knowing love for us. Grace does not come to us without God’s awareness. The wonder in the Gospel story is the wonder of the divine friendship that Jesus proclaims. It is about the radical meaning of his turning to us so that we see him and he sees us face to face. Such is the knowing love of God. Such is the true condition of friendship.
“God is love,” you have commonly heard, “and he that abides in love abides in God and God in him.” Aelred of Rievaulx in the early 12th century translates this as “God is friendship.” He is drawing upon the great Gospel of Consolation where Jesus calls us his friends. But like the healing miracle in today’s Gospel that requires us to enter knowingly into the knowing love of God for us, each according to our capacity to behold. This is the wonder which upholds us in the face of the many and great evils of our day, the many and great evils, too, of our own disordered hearts. Jesus turns to us and calls us his friends. Only so can we face the disorders and disarray of our violent world.
To remember is itself a kind of sacrifice. It belongs to what we do in the Holy Eucharist. We enter into the Son’s thanksgiving and giving of himself to the Father in the bond of the Spirit through our remembering.. Our remembering is “our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.” It is our healing. We come seeking him face to face. He turns to us and calls us his friends and gives his life for us in the sacrament of his body and blood. Such is the radical meaning of the divine friendship. Such is the radical meaning of our remembering.
Fr. David Curry
Trinity XXIV, Remembrance Day
November 11th, 2018
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