Colours of Love – Red… loving (Passion Sunday)
Trevor Burt
At last, after seven weeks, we climax at the final colour of love, red. We
have worked our way from the inside of the rainbow, beginning with the
internal reflective colours and we have moved through many moods to the
outside of the rainbow and now we find ourselves facing the world, the
future, and the hope that lies beyond.
Red is such a strong colour, it stirs so many different passions and
feelings. It’s used sparingly in the Churches calendar. Red is the colour
for Good Friday and saints days on the occasions when the saint was a
martyr. All these days carry the image of shed blood. But the red colour
carries the symbol not of weakness, but of power and strength. Women know
more about these things than men, but when a woman dresses in red she is
usually making a statement of power and is asserting her presence.
However, the strength of red was probably overstated in the newspaper
headline that said: Red tape holds up new bridge.
When Santa Clause is portrayed in red I don’t think it is a statement of
power, but rather it’s a matter of the jolly man drawing attention to
himself. Red has the effect of raising blood pressure and increasing
metabolism, so it is no wonder children get so excited when they see the
generous rotund father-figure. Red lips apparently have the same metabolic
effect of raising blood pressure, and so it is probably no accident that
red is the strong theme-colour of Valentine’s Day with its red hearts and
red roses and red cards and red wrapping paper.
Red is also the church colour for Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate
the joyous outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church. Red symbolises the
flames of fire that settled on the heads of the followers of Jesus in
Luke’s portrayal of the event in the Book of Acts. For Luke the day was an
event of great exuberation and empowering, and marked the beginning of the
Christian church.
Red turns out to be a colour of emotion and strength, of passion and
power. So it is not surprising that today is called Passion Sunday,
another red day for the Church. This is the day we remember the passion of
Christ, the suffering of Christ, beginning paradoxically with a day of
great jubilation and joy. In this week, this most holy week, Jesus reveals
his inner strength through suffering. He exposes his profound compassion
through self-giving. He unveils his amazing love through sacrifice.
What kind of love is this? Let me say from the outset that this is not
romantic love. Far from it! This is tough love. As I’ve said before, Jesus
summarised the whole of the Bible into two commands – love God and love
neighbour. Loving God and neighbour is not that easy, as we shall see.
Let’s begin with loving God. To love God is to love what God loves. By
loving Marian I take an interest in what she loves, in photography for
instance. And her passion for photography ignites my interest and so I
begin to love photography as well. I end up spending time doing
photography with her. So also with God – I allow God’s love to ignite my
passion and love for the things God loves, and I end up loving what God
loves.
It makes sense that God the creator loves creation. So we too have an
interest in creation. Now this doesn’t just mean appreciating beautiful
sunsets and magnificent scenes. It means more than that. It means caring
for creation not just enjoying it. There are so many hidden ways we
contribute to the demise of creation, of the environment. Brian Hutchison
has helped us over these last few weeks by bringing to our attention the
way plastic bags damage the environment, and fertilizers damage our
waterways. We cannot love God and continue to exploit or pollute the
environment.
Loving creation isn’t all about struggle though. Martin Buber wrote about
the positive side of loving creation:
“Creation – happens to us, burns into us, changes us, we tremble and
swoon, we submit. Creation – we participate in it, we encounter the
creator, offer ourselves to him, helpers and companions.
Of course, God loves more than the environment, but the environment is a
good beginning point for our reflection.
So we do well to reflect on what God loves and try to do the same.
Next let’s look at the second summary command, love neighbour. We
discovered last week that God is compassionate, and we are to be
compassionate like God.
I saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and I am glad I did. There
is no doubt that in the film the brutality of humankind is brought clearly
into the foreground. While the violence done to Jesus is clearly
exaggerated in the film, yet it reflects a violence that still exists in
the world. We are horrified at how one human being can treat another human
being. How is this possible?
Then we read Jesus’ words: love your enemies, pray for those who hurt you,
bless those who curse you. With our prejudice and hate we contribute to
the demise of humanity in so many hidden ways. We cannot love God and
neighbour and continue to hate our brothers and sisters.
To love God means we are likely to experience the bloodshed of persecution
and the burning fire of passion.
As a forester I was responsible for marking out areas of native forest
that were to be cleared for pine plantations. I protested but came across
a wall of resistance and justification. It was a painful thing for me to
watch rare native animals and stunning native plants being wiped out by
bulldozers. A reminisce now that I did not protest enough.
I have written to senators in WA protesting at the treatment of certain
asylum seekers. My protests have hit a wall of resistance and
justification. The single element missing in all the responses is
compassion. It is a painful thing for me to see fellow human beings being
dehumanised by unjust detention. What more should I do? What more can we
do?
Then I reflect on the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew’s Gospel
(25.31-46), one of our reflections in the Colours of Love last week. Those
who failed to look to the most despised people, the least people in
society, those who failed to satisfy their hunger, quench their thirst,
welcome them, clothe them, nurse them in illness, visit them in prison,
these are judged to have failed to do the same to Jesus, to fail to love
God and neighbour.
This is compassionate love. It is tough love, difficult love. I need the
power of God to be like Jesus. That comes through Pentecost. I need the
support of community to sustain me through the difficult times. That comes
through working together in acts of compassion.
But for now, we will let the Passion of Christ do its work in us. As we
enter Holy Week and walk with Jesus through his last earthly days, we will
see and experience something of God’s entry into our suffering and pain,
and see how in Jesus God lifts us through and out into a new way of being.
At our Parish Weekend at the end of April we will again journey through
the colours, but this time they will be the colours of life, and we will
journey together as a community.
To finish, I want to quote some words from Aristides, a non-Christian who
defended Christians before the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd Century. As I
read it, imagine that this person is saying these things about St
Columba’s:
Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save
orphans from those who would hurt them. If a man has something, he gives
freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take
him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don’t
consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead
through the Sprit, in God. And of they hear that one of them is in jail or
persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him
what he needs… This is really a new kind of person. There is something
divine in them.
To love like that we need to go further than we have ever gone before.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people in the community of Scarborough and
surrounds began saying these sorts of things about us here at St
Columba’s.
Revised webmaster
Wednesday, 16 June 2004