“Heart of Darkness?”
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A
sermon preached Readings: Romans
12:14-21; Mark 1:21-28 |
Mark
1:27 “He commands even the unclean
spirits,
and they obey
him”
Heart of Darkness
If you know Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”
you will recall the story of Marlow
sailing up the Congo River to find Kurtz,
the company agent who has been turned evil and insane
by the horrors of the heart of the jungle,
the heart of darkness which has destroyed him.
Marlow finds that Kurtz is dead,
The book ends on a despairing note –
Marlow looks at the river which still flows –
Still the river “leading to the uttermost ends of
the earth
seemed to lead into the heart of
an immense darkness”
Grim stuff.
And if you’ve seen the movie “Apocalypse Now”,
you will have seen that same story of Kurtz and the evil
which overpowers him translated to Viet Nam –
Burnt out Captain Willard is sent into the jungle
with orders to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz
(played by Marlon Brando).
As Willard descends into the jungle he is slowly
over taken
by the jungle’s mesmerizing powers.
His crew are gradually killed off one by one,
and as he continues his journey he begins to become
more and more like the man he was sent to kill.
Two
grim takes on the same theme.
For
the heart of darkness is not limited
to one continent
or one century. –
The
book and the film both portray the darkness as
a
universal, inexorable and ultimately undefeatable
force.
It
is a dark dark world we live in –
And
as our headlines move from Korea to Murder
and from Iraq to
space disaster,
Our
newspapers seem to become serials of tragedy.
And
we struggle to find ways to describe it.
Demons and Evil Spirits?
The
New Testament world view describes the dark side of life
in terms of
demons and evil spirits –
Jesus
clearly believed that they were a driving force
behind the evil
of the world.
Some
of you may still accept that world view,
and think of the
devil and his minions as
very real
literal protagonists in the world –
Others
of us would rather see
the talk of the
devil and evil spirits as a vivid metaphor,
a powerful poetic
description of the dark side of human
nature and
society.
That
might be a discussion for some of over lunch.
Light and Darkness
But
however we understand talk of evil spirits
(and I doubt we would all agree)
we
can read this Gospel passage and share together in the underlying good news –
·
our world remains in the grip of darkness.
·
In the face of the light and love of Christ,
that darkness and evil cannot stand -
Literally or metaphorically,
in the name of Christ devils do fear and fly,
and evil spirits are cast out.
Thanks to Nancy and Trevor for their song –
which in its own way reflects our
theme –
it begins with a dark lost
soul –
unfulfilled and imprisoned –
But the song goes on to words of hope –
hope of victory over fear and
dark with new day dawning,
and the freedom of new life.
And
here again is the Gospel for a dark world –
that in God’s power we can
·
be free of darkness and evil and sin
·
find the treasure within
·
and fulfil our human potential to be whole and free.
As we think of the space shuttle crew,
I recall the memorial stone to the Challenger crew,
with the inscription
speaking of
slipping the surly bonds of earth and
touching the face of God.
For
even the shadow of death cannot defeat the power of God –
Fighting
evil
But
that is the ultimate victory over death, darkness and evil– here and now we
struggle on -
and
practically what are we to do in a dark world? –
How
do we fight evil and darkness?
Or
(if you prefer the imagery of our lesson)
how are we to share in Christ’s work of exorcising the demons of our society?
George
Bush and Tony Blair talk of using force against the Axis of Evil
The
Churches remain almost universally opposed to a war in Iraq.
Did any of you see Terry Jones’ tongue in cheek
piece in the Observer last week?
He wrote wondering whether to firebomb his neighbour’s
greenhouse and kill his children.
After all, his neighbour was acting very strangely
and he felt sure he had guns under his bed
and would probably use them
unless he was sorted out –
Bombing his neighbour was surely the best way to end
the hostility
and bring peace and harmony to the street….
Put
at that level, the fight against evil with the weapons of evil begins to look
at best dangerous
at worst downright indefensible.
And
of course it was not Jesus’ way –
Jesus never sought an eye for eye –
For as Gandhi was to say, “An eye for eye”
ultimately leads to a world in which everyone is blind.
The
New Testament is all about God’s dealing with evil –
but
it is not about violent retribution.
Ciaiphas and Pilate colluded in the murder of God, -
yet
there is no record of Caiaphas and Pilate being “taken out”
by
thunderbolts of divine vengeance.
There
is none of that – just a cross and “Father forgive” –
“Forgiveness
seems to be the only thing God wants to do with evil”
(John Hemer, The Cross: Non Apocalyptic Overcoming of evil” New Blackfriars Jan 2003 p12).
The
cross breaks the eternal cycle of evil begetting evil.
Rather
Christ on the cross simply soaks up the evil in loving forgiving acceptance
which finally robs
it of its power and neutralises it.
And
on this Home Mission Sunday
we
are called to mission –
our
mission to take up our cross and follow –
to
share in the task of meeting evil with love -
That way (literally or metaphorically as you wish)
we
share in Christ’s work
of
disempowering the demons of the world.
Home and Abroad
In 1878 HM Stanley wrote his famous book on his Central African travels
“Through the Dark Continent”.
General Booth of the Salvation Army then wrote
another book –
“In darkest
England and the way out” –
in which he simply pointed out that Africa
was not the only dark continent –
there was plenty of spiritual darkness in our land also.
And
nothing has changed.
This
very week at the Mint we are thinking of the darkness of our world –
both at home and abroad.
Fighting
darkness is a very practical affair –
to
do with words, time, money and prayer –
Let
me just pick up a few very practical things for the week ahead here at the Mint
-
As
for Stanley’s dark continent –
·
there is a correspondence at the back of the Church between the Mint
and the England and Wales Cricket Board and Ben Bradshaw MP which you may like
to read –
·
and next Saturday please come to the event to support
the Zimbabwe Victims Fund
set up by our friend Graham Shaw in Bulawayo.
·
And whether or not you can come on Saturday,
please contribute to our special collection for the Zimbabwe appeal next
Sunday.
·
And in your prayers this Candlemas Day pray
for Graham as the candle burns here on the table.
As
for General Booth’s darkest England –
today is Home Mission Sunday,
and
that means we are thinking about how we can help the light of the gospel shine
in this dark land of ours.
There
are many ways we can do this –
·
It was good to have Mark with us talking with the young people today –
as many of you know Mark works with us one day a week
in local outreach and evangelism in the neighbourhood.
But what Mark does is not instead of what we do –
rather he is with us to lead the way and encourage all of us
to do as he does – to walk and talk the Gospel in our neighbourhood.
·
Then there are the envelopes for our national Home Mission funds –
please fill one if you haven’t dome so yet.
The money helps our national work as a Church in inner city areas, in prisons,
in areas of rural deprivation, and much more.
·
And after this service we invite you to stay for lunch.
The lunch has been organized by the students as part of the lead up
to their “Burning Questions” presentation –
which is in aid of the work of St Petrocks with the
homeless here in Exeter.
We invite you to give money for your lunch – and every bit will help St Petrocks.
Candlemas
So
on the Feast of Candlemas let us commit ourselves
afresh to dispelling the darkness of evil.
Candlemas, Feb 2nd, falls on a Sunday this year.
The
is the day when traditionally - 40 days after Christmas –
we
think of the Presentation of the baby Jesus at the Temple–
the
day when Simeon sang of Jesus as a light unto the gentiles - a light for the
nations.
It matters not whether it is Zimbabwe, Viet Nam, Iraq, or England –
In
every time and place the cry goes up
”Lighten our darkness Lord, we pray” –
for
only your light can dispel our demonic darkness
This time last week Liz and I were in Latvia for my
daughter’s wedding –
In the Russian Orthodox wedding ceremony,
the bride and groom are given
candles to hold
and crowns are held over their heads –
to symbolize the light of
Christ
and the rule of love in their lives together.
For
families as for nations,
there is no light like the light of Christ,
no
power like the power of love.
So
it was that in Mediaeval times, Feb 2nd, Candlemas,
was
one of the key feasts of the whole Church year.
If you had walked down Mint Lane towards St Olaves
on this day 600 or 700 years ago,
you would have brought
candles -
you would have brought one
special candle, and a penny –
your contribution to the work of the Church –
you would have presented your candle to be blessed,
and then it would have been stored with everyone else’s
to be used in the Church during
the coming 12 months.
You would probably also have brought other candles
to be blessed –
and these you would have carried carefully home again
to burn in your own home during the
year –
especially in times of need or crisis -
as symbols of the light of Christ in
your life.
As
we leave this Church we go out into a dark land and a dark world.
We
no longer bring candles into Church on Candlemas Day.
But
we do bring ourselves, our hearts, our lives –
These
we can bring to be blessed and used.
Will
you ask God to bless your life today?
Will
you say
“Lord,
breathe on me,
that the flame of the Spirit may burn brightly in my heart,
and
that I may become a candle burning for you in dark times.”?
Then
may we discover the truth of the gospel –
That though the devil be ne’er so strong,
And my light seem but a flickering guttering flame,
We
need fear not –
For
when the light of Christ shines in the darkness,
Even
the very gates of hell itself shall never overcome the Light of the Lord.
Amen.