Sunday 17th May 2020 - Sixth Sunday after Easter

Sermon preached by the Dean

So what have you been watching, or reading, over the last eight or nine weeks?  I understand there has been a national upsurge in reading, alongside the perhaps more predictable increase in people signing up for online streaming services enabling them to access a huge variety of films and TV shows.    It intrigues me that while many are unsurprisingly going for escapist viewing and comfort reading, one of the most watched films is Contagion, originally released in 2011 – about efforts to respond to the spread of a deadly infection around the world – and a newly popular book is Albert Camus’s 1947 novel La Peste (‘The Plague’) – about a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran.      

A bit too close to the bone, we might think; but on the other hand fictional accounts like these, showing a variety of characters responding in different ways to a situation comparable to ours, can help us work out our own response to what we are going through.  In The Plague, for example, a journalist visiting Oran makes desperate efforts to leave, before changing his mind and deciding that his own personal wellbeing is not as important as his responsibility to help others fight the disease.  Another character uses the crisis to make money by selling contraband cigarettes and inferior liquor.   Then there is a priest who preaches a stern message of judgement, while also offering pastoral care to a family whose sick child eventually dies.   There is a dedicated doctor who struggles with the tragedy and grief of it all, and a wealthy man jolted out of his usual comfortable life into becoming a volunteer organizer. 

There is much here that speaks directly to our current experience, where some do what must be done at great personal cost, others exploit the situation, while in between these two extremes lie the majority, often unsure about what to think or do. 

The world of The Plague is a world without much hope or signs of resurrection.   It skillfully shows us not only the different behavior of its characters, but also the very different ways in which they interpret what is going on.  In this way it is relevant not only to today’s COVID-19 context, but also to engaging with the significance of the resurrection; there is much to learn from the Gospel accounts of a diverse range of encounters with the risen Christ.

Over the past five Sundays, to give a few examples, we have heard of Mary Magdalen weeping at the tomb, and her encounter with the risen Christ she first mistook for a gardener.  We’ve heard of Thomas, doubting what others were telling him, until he saw his risen Lord himself.  We’ve heard of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who only understand who has been walking with them when he breaks bread at their evening meal. 

From Mary Magdalene’s encounter, we learn of the power of deep love, and how in Christ, grief and loss may be transformed.   Here the resurrection is deeply personal.  From doubting Thomas’ eventual affirmation of Christ as Lord, we learn of the political dimensions of the resurrection, for in Thomas’ world only the Roman Emperor could be referred to in this way.   Placing your allegiance elsewhere was a dangerous thing to do.

Our current crisis also has both personal and political dimensions.  Acutely personal, for those ill and at risk, for medical staff and carers, in hospital and at home, and for everyone whose life has been turned inside out and upside down.   And also political, because there are tough decisions to be made about limiting the spread of the virus, keeping the world economy going, managing the tension between individual freedom and what is best for society, and responding to the fact that the impact of the virus is particularly acute for the poorest and most vulnerable. 

Anthony Cane

A printable copy is available here

As in Camus’ novel La Peste, and the film Contagion, the same reality can look different depending on the kind of person you are, and where in society you happen to be.   So just as Paul, in our first reading, addressed the people of Athens with a message for their city informed by his encounter with the risen Christ, so let us consider what our current crisis looks like through the lens of the resurrection. 

For many, the virus is a story of death and meaninglessness. Whereas Jesus’ resurrection shows us a cosmic story of encountering the light of Christ, from whom nothing in life or death can ever separate us.  For some people, the virus is a personal story of anxiety and despair, while the risen Christ shows us a personal story of trust and hope.  For some people, the virus is a political story of chaos and confusion, while Jesus’ resurrection shows us a political story of confidence and solidarity, if our ultimate allegiance is to what we find in him: the love and truth of which today’s Gospel speaks.   This love and truth are not abstract things, but found in a person, a person who has endured the darkness of death but, in the words of the Gospel, has not left us orphaned.   In the power of the resurrection, we know that he continues to love us, and invites us to love him, and to love the world in which we live. 

We are currently being told to stay alert.  The biblical word is ‘watchful’: to see our world through the eyes of the risen Christ, ‘watchful’, so that we may live our personal and political lives in hope, trust and deep compassion.  Our newly lit Paschal candle is a sign and symbol of our life in Christ, and I pray that even while we cannot gather around it here, we may continue be sustained by his risen life.  AMEN