Pentecost/Proper 12, Year C
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Genesis 18:20-33; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 11:1-13
And so, as of Midnight last Saturday, we entered a new age - not A.D. but A.H.: "After Harry", as in "Harry Potter."
Anyone here read any of the Harry Potter books? All of them? Including the last one?
But even if you haven't read them you know about them, right? Have you heard that some Christians are worried that all the references to magic threaten our faith?
Did you also know that J.K. Rowling - the author of the seven "Harry Potter" books - is a Scottish Episcopalian?
Similar concerns were raised back in the late '40's by another series of fantasy books written by an Irishman - also an Anglican, like Rowling - anyone care to guess who that would have been?
Clive Staples Lewis - better known as C. S. Lewis. And the books were the "Narnia" Series, beginning with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe".
Both of these authors were and are Christians - and not in name only, either. Both are, in an important sense, ours - they're both Anglicans.
That no doubt explains why in Rowling's and Lewis' books there are profoundly Christian motifs. Harry Potter and Aslan the Lion are clearly "Christ figures", willing to die for others, unwilling to use violence, for instance..
And some of the connections are even more obvious, I discovered a few weeks ago: C.S. Lewis' book "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is based very closely on an early medieval Celtic document called "The Voyage of St. Brendan".
More fundamentally, though, both Lewis and Rowling present us with literature that ties us into what, in post-modern philosophy, is called a "meta-narrative", or a "grand-narrative". A meta-narrative is a Big Story that encompasses and explains all other 'little stories' of our lives.
When soldiers on a battlefield sacrifice themselves for their comrades that little story immediately reminds us as Christians of the Big Story of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. When a monk like St. Francis gives away all he owns and devotes his life to serving the poor that reminds us as Christians of the Big Story of Christian servanthood, and discipleship.
Both "Harry Potter" and "Narnia" tie us into the Christian story. And so they will, inevitably, raise for us some of the issues that our own faith raises. In both these series of books one theme comes through loud and clear: the struggle between good and evil.
I suppose that shouldn't surprise us - that struggle's what Carl Jung called "archetypal" - the great pattern on which all else is based.
And isn't a part of that struggle always about what our attitude should be toward those who have fallen short of the "good"? Should all Germans be punished for the "Final Solution", for the acts of the few truly evil individuals and groups?
Today's Old Testament reading brings that question out in spades. Abraham is struggling with this same issue of collective responsibility and collective guilt, an issue made more powerful because behind this biblical story is a strong sense of community.
In Abraham's time Orthodox Jewish belief said that if some members of a community were guilty of some transgression then all had to shoulder the responsibility. All family members bore the guilt if one was caught stealing. All members of a tribe shared responsibility if some transgressed the Law of Moses. All inhabitants of a city or province -such as Sodom and Gomorrah- were responsible for the actions of some, even if that some were just a few or were the majority. So really the question of the guilt of Sodom which Abraham addressed should have been a "no-brainer" for any Jew- they all were responsible.
This should be no surprise to us, since all this comes from the same folk who invented the scapegoat!
Abraham's questioning of God is, in that light, very unusual - and, in fact, quite radical. In the history of Judeo-Christian theology this is a significant turning place. Ultimately what Abraham is getting at is the need for forgiveness to temper judgement.
No one person or community is totally evil or exclusively good. As the Book of Daniel reminds us, we all have feet of clay.
And no individual or community is ultimately beyond redemption. That's the centerpiece of Abraham's prophetic challenge.
C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling are, no doubt, nodding vigorously!
They're nodding because this is the pivotal message of the cross, that instrument of torture and salvation that lies at the very heart of the call to discipleship.
There is a challenge here for all of us. Our challenge is to be that community of disciples that Jesus talks of - that community which stands up for the poor, that community that seeks to transform the world of which we are a part for justice, and mercy and goodness - for God. AMEN.
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