A sermon by Jet den Hollander on Love

This sermon was preached at the chapel of the Ecumenical Centre on February 8 as we were praying for Belgium, the Netherland and Luxemburg


Next Sunday is Valentine’s day,
and even though in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands this is not a big tradition, as the preparatory group for this morning’s worship we decided to take our theme from this: “All you need is love”
- Hence the Beatles
- the “sweet hearts” in the basket (please take some when you leave the chapel)
- the candles in the shape of a heart.

As we were brainstorming on love and Valentine’s Day, I remembered an evening years ago in Cuba. I was staying with Carlos Ham and the family and we were going out for the night. First to Che Guevara’s cabaña – in a fort on the harbour where he used to work when he was a government minister in Castro’s revolutionary government. Not a big place but full of Che’s stuff: his doctor’s kit, books, binoculars, diaries, cigars, photos of his wife and children.

Then it turned towards 9 pm and we had to rush outside for the - what Carlos called – “the cannonball ceremony”: an incredible spectacle because Cubans dressed up as the 18th century Spanish soldiers - complete with wigs and lances - marched up to the large cannon. And, as it has happened for three centuries, commands were shouted and the cannon was fired to tell the population that the harbour – and in the old days the city of Havana – was now closed.

Just then across the harbour a large tourist boat floated by, illuminated - here in revolutionary Cuba - by a huge red heart of lights.

Three worlds, three completely different realities in the space of an hour on that same square next to Che’s cabin –
- The Cuban Revolution – with its vision of justice and opportunity for all, though with its own inherent problems
- The colonial period - with all its pomp and privilege for a few, and exploitation and harshness for many - that in a real sense provoked that revolution
- And the Valentine’s Day cruise – that symbol of commercialism that has found its way into our many societies, and yet, for all its play on the market (I understand chocolate factories in Britain have their biggest turnover of the year between Valentine’s day and Easter) that inspires a lot of thoughts of love.

Which one is the real Cuba? Or are all of them together the real Cuba?

The same question can be asked of my own country, the Netherlands, or of Belgium or Luxemburg for which we pray today.

Three rather small countries, yet within each of them there is such a diversity,
- of landscapes and architectural traditions;
- of norms and values and ways of life: for instance certain ways of doing things may be rejected in the Randstad in the west of the Netherlands but still linger on in the rural parts in the East near Germany,
- a diversity of languages and dialects; even in the Netherlands there are two official languages (Dutch and Frisian) but then there is a great variety of dialects, not to mention the many languages spoken by the "allochtoon" part of the population.
- Even that word itself points to two different realities: “allochtoon” means those originated from a foreign land; "autochtoon" means “of the land itself”, so, the immigrants and the “indigenous Dutch”, each have an often quite different view of what is Dutch reality today.
- And then of course there are the many different ways of believing, speaking of God, experiencing God in our highly secularised societies

Last week Jane described the experience of even your own mother tongue becoming unfamiliar. I recognise that. Each year the Dutch identify a new word that has become accepted into our language. In 2009, the "Word of the Year" was "ontvrienden", a Facebook term that means "de-friend", when you no longer "want to be friends" with someone on Facebook. What kind of a society choses this cold concept as "Word of the Year"? Jane talked of the sense of alienation and confusion and conflicting realities in a world that you thought you knew but turns out to be Babel, the place where we do not understand each other anymore. I think it’s an experience that is very widespread today, and yet – an experience that is probably of all times.

One theologian who has done a lot to help people to grapple with that experience of multi-realities all criss-crossing in the same space was Edward Schillebeeckx, who died on 23 December after a long and – in his own words – happy and fulfilled life.

Schillebeeckx was born in Belgium in 1914 but lived for most of his life in the Netherlands and so as Dutch and Belgians we can both claim him as “ours”. He was a Dominican priest, a radical thinker, a prolific writer and a great interpreter of the theology underlying Vatican II. From the early 60s he was the moving force behind the renewal in the Dutch Catholic church province – liturgy, priests who married, rethinking the sacraments, etc.

His books are not easy, but he led Protestants and Catholics alike back to the sources, and made faith transparent again, often through pithy concepts like:

 God is new every day
 God is “ons rakelings nabij”, so close to us we almost touch
 Jesus, the story of one who lives

And then there was, already in the 1970s, his book: Justice and love, liberation and grace.

Schillebeeckx used the word “love” seldom “sec” but always in context and often in combination with that other concept that for us today is so important: justice. Which brings us back to 1 Corinthians 13: love.
"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude." 1 Cor 13.4

Love that comes from God, and shines through us, focussed on the other. That love for God, for others and for creation came through in what Schillebeeckx said and wrote. It’s good to know that he, in a unique combination of making things clear and yet keeping the mystery, now has the privilege of seeing God no longer as in a mirror, but face to face.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor 13: 7
But is that real? Do-able? Isn’t it sometimes unwise, unrealistic ....

(poem Erich Fried - read by different voices)

It is what it is: Love
Do-able because Jesus did it.

May that love be concrete today in what we say, how we speak to each other and deal with the issues on the table. May it be God’s love that shines through us today.

Amen.

Copyright (c) Jet den Hollander WARC