“THICK DARKNESS BROODETH YET”
[Sweeney Todd and the Mission of the Church]

A sermon preached at the Mint Methodist Church, Exeter, by the Minister, Rev Andrew Sails at 6.30 p.m. on 16^th May 2004, 6^th Sunday of Easter [World Church Sunday] Readings: Isa 59:9-15, Mt 28:16-20 Back to Sermon Index

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn 1:5)

While visiting the mountain village of Nabutautau in Fiji in 1867,
the Rev. Thomas Baker,
a Wesleyan Methodist minister serving with London Missionary Society,
removed a comb from a chief's hair.
Baker, previously unaware that touching the head of a chief was strictly forbidden,
was promptly set upon and murdered.
The villagers ate all of the unfortunate missionary except his boots,
which they evidently found too tough.

On World Church Sunday we do well to remember those
who may have been foolhardy in matters of Fijian etiquette
but who nonetheless were quite literally prepared to gives their lives for the Gospel.

There was of course another less happy side to Victorian missions –
there was a largely unexamined assumption of superiority and arrogance,
an assumption that we had the truth the Gospel and the culture,
that our land was a land of light whilst others dwelt in darkness.

It was indeed in 1867, the very same year that Thomas Baker
was eaten by Fijian Cannibals,
that a Victorian Rural Dean from Hertfordshire called Rev Lewis Hensley (1824-1905)
wrote a missionary hymn which was to become very popular.

The hymn pointed out clearly where the darkness was in the world –
it was overseas on the “mission field” –

In the words of the final stanza -

“O'er heathen lands afar
thick darkness broodeth yet:
arise, O Morning Star,
arise, and never set!”

Thankfully most modern hymnbooks (including Hymns and Psalms)
have made a brief but crucial change to this verse,
which now reads in our books as

“O’er lands both near and far,
thick darkness broodeth yet”

Stanley and Livingstone spoke of their travels in “darkest Africa” –
it was quite deliberate that William Booth of the Salvation Army
spoke of his mission to “Darkest England”.

And as we struggle with the shame of a Western world
which has overthrown Saddam Hussein only to replace his evil with evil of our own,
we would do well to remember that the darkness
is not just the preserve of one Continent or nation, but of all, not least our own.

30 or so members of the Mint theatre group
went this week to the Northcott Theatre
to see a stunning production of “Sweeney Todd”

For those who didn’t go and don’t know the story,
in a nutshell, Sweeney Todd is a victim of an unjust society,
wrongfully transported to Australia, but he returns to wreak vengeance,
murdering people in his barber’s chair and selling the resultant meat pies.

Sweeney Todd has been to Australia and back,
but declares in the first scene that there is no place like London –

He is not however saying that London
is the most wholesome and perfect place on the globe - quite the reverse.

There is no place like London, he sings -

There's a hole in the world
Like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world
Inhabit it
And its morals aren't worth
What a pig could spit
And it goes by the name of London…..

I too
Have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
For the cruelty of men
Is as wondrous as Peru,
But there's no place like London!…..

Sweeney Todd could easily have sung,
In the words of the modern hymn,

“O’er lands both near and far,
thick darkness broodeth yet”

He knew that the darkness of sin and ignorance
was and is to be found as much in this land as in any foreign clime.

Sadly his response to the cruelty is to repay violence with his own barbarity –
showing how even cannibalism is at home in England,
as he makes meat pies of his victims

What should our response be to such a dark world???

1. HUMILITY

O’er lands both near and far – from London to Fiji and back –
our history reminds us how men have always preyed on each other.

And even when they have not descended to the dark depths of cannibalism,
still have they destroyed each other.

Whether we are talking pompous Victorian missionaries
or sadistic alliance troops in Iraq,
once you lose humility,
once you treat others as lesser beings,
once you demonise them,
treat them as animals,
then you risk perpetuating the rule of darkness.

2. PENITENCE

Last November the villagers of Nabutautau
invited the descendents of Rev Thomas Baker to a ceremony
in which they apologized for eating Thomas Baker.
They even returned the boot.

So must we confess our arrogance and thoughtlessness
in our treatment of the developing world,
not only in the Victorian age, but also –
here at the end of Christian Aid Week –
in our modern age.

3. PARTNERSHIP

Mission means working with those of all cultures
to share in hearing the good news from each other.

Which of course is why we have replaced talk of “missionaries” with “mission partners” –
recognizing that we have as much or more
to receive from other Christian cultures and traditions as we have to give.

Here in this Church we seek to give to our sisters and brothers of other cultures –
from Korea and elsewhere -
but we know that we receive as much if not more than we give…

And so, thank God for modern hymn writers like Michael Hare Duke,
whose hymn we have just sung, with the words

“Now as partners in one mission,
we must share across the earth..”

[“Sons and daughters of creation”]

4. HOPE

By the end of Sweeney Todd it is a bit like a Jacobean tragedy –
virtually all the cast have been murdered in the barber’s chair
and turned into meat pies.

And the mood is deeply pessimistic –

It is a dark world, we are all part of it,

We are all potentially damned.

Members of the cast point all around the auditorium –
where is Sweeney Todd they ask?

He is there and there –
in other words we all have something of the demonic within us –

And – the play implies –
maybe we are all damned as a result –

“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd!
He served a dark and a hungry god!
To seek revenge may lead to hell,
But everyone does it, and seldom as well
As Sweeney, as Sweeney Todd,
the Demon Barber of Fleet...
Street!”

That is the play –

But it is not the Gospel.

But we are not all doomed!

Yes - Whether we be in Fiji or London or Exeter or Iraq,

Be we in this age or any other,

We find ourselves surrounded by a dark and often demonic world.

But we are all called (Mt 28:19) to heed the great commission,

- To preach to that dark world,

- To preach the Jesus whose love and life and light
defeats the hate and death and dark.

- To preach the Gospel words of hope – (Jn 1:1,4-5):

^“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God……
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.”

So in penitence and partnership, in humility and hope,

Let us heed the great commission,

Let’s be God’s mission people,

Lets share his light in our dark world –

The darkness may be all around us,
but the light will never be extinguished!

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