There is the hymn “ O Perfect Love” by Dorothy Frances Gurney. It’s a substantial hymn. There is the song by Simply Red “Perfect Love” - that’s not so memorable. The Bible verse from 1 John 4.19 is memorable:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
There is a lot of fear about these days. We hear this weekend from Lady Warsi that David Cameron is adding to the Islamophobia, fear of Muslims by his recent speech. Our Greek friends must be worried about what happens next. And many of us in the Church are frightened of change and wonder what happens next. And we would not be human if we did not have fears for ourselves and our families. We are human after all and we are mortal.
So there is a lot of fear about – at a national level, a church level and a personal level.
We hear today how the disciples are frightened too (Mark 4.35-end), trapped in a boat with their fearless leader in the mother of all storms. Rather insensitively, he says to them “Why are you afraid, do you have no faith ?” But they are afraid.
Sharing a foil blanket
Wendy and I went out with the Rochdale Street Pastors on Friday night. It was a quiet night but not without incident. What I noticed was how precarious and frightening life on the streets is for our homeless citizens. Do you know where they sleep? The car park under the Police station is now closed to them and so a favoured place that is safe and dry is behind the wall near the BT building. Jean and Linda bought some chips for two regulars, and I was struck how willingly they then shared them with another homeless man they bumped into. You see you need your friends on the street, when you are homeless. There is something very practical about loving one another- it helps keeps you safe. Love cast out fear.
Choosing love even if it hurts so much
God does amazing things in the hearts of some human beings. The shootings in Charleston in the USA have chilled me to the bone. Was it racial hatred that drove the alleged murderer Dylann Woof ? It certainly was not love. We can easily imagine the fear of our sisters and brothers in Christ when the shooting began. Some of the victims have spoken at the remand hearing. One said through tears, to the young white man“Lord have mercy on your soul. I forgive you”. There is perfect love here – in the brave faith-full choice of love over hate. God does amazing things when people choose to love although every fibre of them says hate.
Crossing to the other side
We live in our “comfort zones”. Our homes keep us in the part of town we would prefer to live in. To a large extent we choose where we live and who we worship with. Yet, there is for all of us an other side, a place where we do not go. Perhaps there is an other side in all of us too.
The disciples are crossing to the other side, and Jesus is taking them. They don’t want to go, they have heard the stories about how bad things are over there, what those people are like. Jesus has tried to teach them in parables and show them that this other side is where God is to be found but they wish to remain (safe they think) in the myths of the times about baddies and goodies, and clean and unclean. For Jesus it is faith and the search for God’s truth that takes you over to the other side. There is nothing to fear.Notice the lake which they cross is called a Sea by Mark., bringing to mind the Red Sea, that great story of following God to freedom and the story of Jonah who fled from his mission, apparently because he was unconcerned with the fate of those suffering oppression under the imperial city-state of Nineveh (Jonah 4:11). Thus Jonah, like the disciples here, was caught up in a “great storm”. This is a significant crossing, much more than a gale on the Beaufort scale.
The disciples have to be dragged into the boat by their teacher, because God is concerned with bringing liberation to those on the other side. We Western Christians are called to journey over with Jesus in our day too. Out of our comfort zones, from the old to the new. It scares us. But our faith tells us that the other side is not beyond the pale, that love can take you there, that the storms are in our minds.
Pope Francis has given us a great teaching this week in the Encyclical Laudato Si’. He talks about the possibility of a transition to a new world where we can live together in harmony with the poor and the creation. At the moment we are killing the world in which we live, and hurting the poor horribly. In this town and round the shores of the Mediterranean. How much God must be hurting when he sees how we behave. Yet, like the black church going woman in Charleston he says I forgive you. Change! Come with me to the other side.
Let us get into that boat, and may perfect love cast out fear.
PS Check out the Love Greater website