Sermon for Epiphany 2A

At the very end of last year, on the 26th of December, Boxing Day, the world lost one of its fiercest and happiest fighters on behalf of justice and reconciliation: The Rt Reverend Desmond Tutu.

When I was an undergraduate, I was fortunate enough to hear Bishop Tutu speak, and while it is long enough ago that I cannot remember much of what he said in his speech, I have retained the impression of a joyful fireball, radiating the heat of truth and the light of hope.

As most of you will know, Bishop Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that followed the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. the TRC represented a dramatic departure from the Nurenberg courts that followed the Second World War, as it was almost completely unconcerned with punishment. Instead, the TRC looked to find a way for South Africa to move forward into a new life without tearing itself apart in the process, a very real risk in the aftermath of the abuses perpetrated by the apartheid government.

By allowing both perpetrators and victims of abuse to speak truthfully about their experiences and their actions, the TRC sought to begin the process of reconciliation the only way possible: by starting from a place of truth. Because only in the face of truth is forgiveness possible, and it is only by way of forgiveness that reconciliation, the restoration of relationship, can be grown.

Bishop Tutu wrote that ‘To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.’

Anyone who has spent more than a moment online will know a thing or two about anger.

It seems at times that anger and indeed hatred are the primary moving forces behind much of what passes for discourse on places like Twitter.

Two years spent mostly indoors, stuck to our screens has surely not helped things — scrolling and scrolling and being fed a steady diet of news carefully selected by algorithms designed to fuel our engagement.

A recent poll found that fully 40% of Americans are convinced that members of the opposing political party are evil. Not just wrong about issues or misguided in their judgment, but evil.

Even the Church, supposedly called to follow a man of peace whose life was formed into the image of reconciliation, is not immune to this impulse. A brief foray into either Christian history or Church Twitter (yes, there is Church Twitter) will reveal seemingly intractable fights on a host of issues, sometimes serious, sometimes incredibly inane.

And what characterises so much of the discourse around disagreement and hurt done and hurts received is a sense that those fighting talk past one another, neither speaking nor hearing with the possibility of being wrong or being changed: a sense that there is no possibility of persuasion on either side, no possibility of understanding, or of forgiveness.

•

No one should ever be instructed to forgive before they are ready to forgive.

This temptation has been used for too long to paper over real injury and division, almost always to the benefit of those already in power, unaffected by the hurt that has been caused.

However, as both Bishop Tutu and the letter to the Ephesians remind us, there is no moving forward in a way that leads to wholeness that does not include speaking the truth in love.

To speak the truth in love is, I beleive, the only possible way to live together in a way reflecting what the Gospel of John calls ‘fulness of life’. Real, un-inhibited human living.

We must speak — when living in community as we do here at Lincoln or indeed as we do in the many communities, large and small, that make up our lives, remaining silent, refusing to participate, refraining from contributing or offering anything to the life of the community, leads to alienation, and ultimately dissolution.

What we speak must be true — without being faithful to our own experience of the world, we cannot expect others to know who we are or what we need, what we hope for, what we dream of. If what we speak is not true, but rather only half-truths or distorted truths, then there is no hope for being truly known. There is no prospect of being truly seen.

And what we speak and how we hear must be conducted with love — Words spoken to wound, whether true or not, will not lead to healing. A relationship fractured by injury cannot be healed by further wounds inflicted. And words spoken with love but received with indifference or suspicion will not truly be heard — the conversation will be over before it can begin.

•

When I was 23 years old, my then girlfriend broke up with me. I was devastated. We had dated for three years, and I was caught completely off-guard. I had recently moved across the country, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but it meant that after breaking up with me over the phone, we didn’t see each other again for many months.

But than, a year later, by long-standing arrangement, I took up a job that meant we would have to work closely together. The prospect was intensely painful, and indeed, for the first few weeks it was like walking on eggshells, knowing that a pit of lava waited underneath. So much had been left unsaid, and instead we tried to pretend that everything was OK.

Some of you will know the internet meme of an anthropomorphic dog wearing a bowler hat, sitting in a room on fire sipping coffee, saying ‘this is fine’.

That was us: the house of our relationship with one another was on fire, and we were pretending everything was fine.

But it wasn’t.

In the end, it all came out over drinks. She handed me a bottle of wine one evening, and with its help and her courage, we were able to relax enough finally to share something of ourselves, something of what we had been through, and something of what we hoped for in the future.

The house of our old life burned to the ground, and we were able to begin building something new.

•

Our life together is precious. Here in college, here in this world that we share. May we all be granted the courage to speak the truth as we know it, with love, and with an eye to hope and a joyful life to share.