[1Pe 5:10,11] But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. +
[Note: In reading the following, one needs to know that my parish observed the Octaves of Corpus Christi and Sacred Heart, with the liturgical colour being white for the last two Sundays. I realise many or most other parishes in the ACC have been green already for one or two Sundays.]
We have green again
for the first time again in a long time. I want to talk to you about
the church's colours today, and what they signify for us. The verse I
quoted from the Epistle connects to all 4 of the common liturgical
colours, as it happens.
Grace: Red.
Symbolises blood and fire. Christ's blood poured out is grace,
"undeserved favour or blessing". Blood washes us from sin,
so represents mercy. Fire represents the Holy Spirit, who is called
in Scripture and the Prayer Book, the Spirit of grace. Red reminds us
of both sacrifice, including in the Martyrs, and our need to be
living sacrifices to God. Red also speaks of God's overwhelming power
for us and in us.
Glory: White or
gold. The joy of Christmas and Easter, the powerful virtue of Christ
and his Saints, and the related Feasts. The colour of celebration and
of swimming happily in the Light of God's presence. The glorious
colour indeed, as we enjoy God.
Suffering: Violet or
purple. The sombre colour of bruised flesh. The colour of
self-discipline and penitence. Advent and Lent. We prepare for glory
by taking stock of our lives, minimising distraction and luxury, and
turning from sin.
Establish and
settle: Green. The colour of nature, the colour of steady growth. The
normal colour. It takes up the majority of the year. What does this
tell us? The Christian walk has times of intensity, of joy, power and
enthusiasm, of suffering, penitence and sacrifice. (The red, white
and violet.) But for most of us, most of the time, the reality is
steady, even slow growth. Much of the battle is patience, as I have
said before. We cannot always live either in the sweetness or the
sorrow. We learn a lot just by long experience and persistent effort.
The Church, wisely,
reflects this balance, and teaches us of it through the colours. But
many people want to live their lives only in excitement or
radical change, forever in a state of flux, always looking solely for
immediate solutions or immediate satisfactions. They immerse
themselves in thrilling pleasures if one sort of person, or
programmes supposed to quickly change themselves if another sort of
person. They become addicts of one sort or another, even if only
addicted to forever finding something new. Whether its addiction to
drugs, consumerism, entertainments, or to new age gurus selling
self-help, such an approach to life leads to instability,
unproductiveness and discontent.
Yet Christians can
take this approach to the spiritual life too. There are Christians
who look down on the traditional balance represented by the colours
of the Church's year. They are always seeking the buzz, the rush of
the miraculous, the confronting, the obviously powerful. They
criticise predictability in Church services and desire the overtly
supernatural and the radical transformation as often as possible. The
problem is that this isn't reality. "God normally works
normally" as I've heard even Pentecostals, wise Pentecostals,
say. The result of this unbalanced approach is sometimes pretence or
delusion. Let me quote parts of a song by a Christian hip-hop artist,
John Rueben, who has clearly experienced just this foolishness in
churches.
[“Freedom
to Feel”]
...
I
can't force a happy face or makeshift you a smile
I can't deny
what I see, what I feel or what's in front of me
So take your
world of precious moments of make-believe
They never made me
believe in anything
But left me with nothing to hold on to
Your
quick fix and magic tricks can only disguise what I was going
through
And now I'm thinkin' it was when it wasn't
And now I'm
tryin' to rationalize what just doesn't
Come together and somehow
doesn't make sense
But God, how can I convince them when I'm not
even convinced?
Everyone
is thinkin' it, but nobody's sayin' it
Everyone's sayin' it, but
nobody's feeling it
Everyone's feeling it, but nobody's seein'
it
So how am I supposed to know what's real?
False
sense of happiness
My security wrapped up in this
…
No
time to be ugly
Don't trouble them with your doubt and fears
Shout
for joy little boys and girls
You brokenness ain't welcome
here
Well excuse me while I bleed through and my life becomes
see-through
Don't ask for transparency but reject what you see
into
…
Can
somebody tell me how am I supposed to know what's real
When I was
told and controlled how to feel?
So, let us be honest
about our Christian walk, and never undervalue the ordinary, gentle
ways of God, or the value of patience and perseverance in our
spiritual growth. Yes, God will do extraordinary things at times, and
we should expect this, being willing to climb the mountain heights
and slog through the valleys when required. But the ordinary means of
grace found in the liturgies and sacraments of the Church, as well as
in personal prayer and reading of Scripture, are our staple diet, and
there is nothing wrong with that. I will finish with a quotation from
Tolkien's Silmarillion, which I feel symbolises this
contentment very beautifully. It speaks of the reaction of immortal
angelic beings to the first verdancy of the Earth, to the "mere"
normalcy of natural beauty.
“And there upon
the Isle of Almaren in the Great Lake was the first dwelling of the
Valar when all things were young, and new-made green was yet a marvel
in the eyes of the makers; and they were long content.”
Truly, the ordinary
means of grace are also a marvel, an abiding place of great
beauty. +
