How Things Really Go

A sermon by Andrew Colman   

Last week I was struck by Jamie’s reading of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes, by the sublime, that offering of a cold cup of water by Esmerelda to Quasimodo while he was locked in the stocks.

Let me remind you of this stunning scene. Q. was nearing the end of his time being locked in the stalks for having tried to kidnap Esmerelda the previous night. Remember that he had been manipulated into this act by the Archdeacon who had a fancy for her E.

A crowd, a mob, had gathered to mock and jeer him, to throw rotten food, broken water jugs and sponges soaked in the gutter in response to his cries for a drink.

All of a sudden, Esmeralda breaks through the crowd and makes her way up to the stalks. Q. can only imagine that she is coming to take the final blow at what if any, dignity he had left. He was so afraid that he wished that the power of his eyes would act as lightning and strike her down as soon as he saw her. As she climbed the ladder he writhed in vain to get away from her. What happened next was one of the most beautiful acts of grace and mercy I’ve ever heard.

Not only did she offer her assailant a draft of water when the world was against him, she transported the whole of the scene into a place of Goodness for just a split second. It says in the translation that I found that she “pouted prettily with impatience” in his response to forgetting to drink the water at first offer.

That little detail reveals something of her heart. She did not disdain him for turning down her grace and gracious offer; no, it was a true grace and gracious offer so much that she found space for beauty and a touch of humour in front of the jeering crowd on a pillory that had at least one gutter soaked sponge.

Not only was Esmerelda offering a cup of cold water to one of the least of these, but that it was to the one who had tried to kidnap her makes her a kind of Christ-like figure. Forgive them, Lord. They know not what they do.

                            Truly a sublime scene.

But what really struck me was what happened next. Let me read it once again:

When he had finished, the hunchback puckered his dark lips, no doubt to kiss the kind hand that had brought such welcome relief; But the girl, perhaps remembering the violent assault of the previous night, quickly drew back her hand with the same start of terror that a child does when he is afraid of being bitten by a beast. The poor fellow then fixed on her a look full of reproach and unutterable woe.

From our reading from Romans tonight: “So I find it to be /a law/ that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”

If you look, there is not one act of goodness in the scene that is not met with evil lying close at hand.

Esmeralda moves through the crowd and up the ladder only to be met writhing for distance and the wish of her death by Q. His forgetting to drink because of joy met a pretty pout and a touch of impatience instead of an understanding smile. The offer of thanksgiving by way of a kiss met with her terror and his heartbreak.

                   And still, the scene was sublime.

So sublime, in fact, that the mob embraced E.’s gesture of grace.

The very next sentence, “The people themselves were moved by it and began clapping their hands and shouting, “Hurrah! Hurrah!”

                    Goodness, not evil, had taken root.

But Hugo could not let that fantasy stand for long; he continues to tell the story by telling it how it is how it really goes,

“It was precisely at this moment that the recluse perceived from the window of her den the gypsy on the pillory and pronounced on her that bitter imprecation—“Curse you, gypsy woman! A curse upon you… Esmeralda turned pale and with faltering step,”descended from the pillory... “She’s in one of her moods today,” said the people, grumbling, and they did nothing else. - Women of her /class/ were then deemed holy and revered accordingly.”

Both Paul and Victor Hugo with these two passages are telling us how things really are. How the world really moves day to do. That is in fact what all of the great works of literature do: they tell it how it is. And so often that where goodness takes hold, evil lies close at hand.

Paul comes at it from a different angle than he usually does in these 10 verses of Romans.

We were used to hearing Paul writing in fairly technical terms. Asking questions and answering them so his hearers might know how it all fits together.

But this section is a little different. Paul changes the voice he’s writing with. He moves from /we/ to /I/.

Verse 13-14 - “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! We know that the Law is spiritual” Question and answer

-to-

Verse 15 - “I do not understand my own actions” A personal monologue, one that we all probably know well.

One where we tell ourselves, and tell God, that we know what the right thing to do is, and for some blasted reason we just can’t seem to follow through on it. That for some reason the power of the flesh always seems to win out over the power of our will. Even though we come to church and Love God, and feel invigorated by the sermon and the Eucharist to dooo better on Sunday, by Wednesday the world has worn us down the shine has come off and we fall back to our old ways...

just can’t seem to manage...

That’s just how the real world moves... but it not how it ends.

Its not how this passage ends and it not how our story ends!

The end of our reading today goes like this “Who will deliver me from this body of death/ this life of sin? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! And continuing For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Paul gets caught up in the Spirit and offers a cry of praise just like so many of the psalmist!

That move from question and answer - from we to I is an important one.

Paul changes from theory to experience.

He moves from teacher to psalmist, and gives us a psalm.

Granted, a very Pauline psalm, not void of formula and run-on ideas, but language for us when we have none of our own.

Language to use when we’re at a loss with own actions.

He helps us tell it how it is.

Just like we do every week in our confession and absolution. Each week we are laid bare, all of our mistakes named or unnamed are known by God and time and time again we are forgiven.

We tell God how it’s gone and God responds. Each time the same Forgiven - that’s how it really is.

It was William Faulkner that said “the most important subject in literature is the conflict of the human heart.”

In one way or another that conflict something we all hold in common. It transcends all barriers of race, class and religion. When we find stunning examples of it like in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and in Romans. Those examples become mirror by which we can see ourselves and the world clearly.

But not only mirrors - also companions.

Traveling in back pockets, read time and time again until they’ve fallen apart, these works remind us that we are not really that special. That we are in good company, and not so good company that we are not alone. They help us feel known and seen.

And, at least at the end of the most important one of these books we hear that despite our best efforts, and despite the best efforts of the evil that lies close at hand - we are brought home - into the loving arms of God again and again and again - so that we might find new ways to tell and live into the story of the way God brings us home.

Amen