All too well - the Revd Dr Brutus Green

There’s a Taylor Swift pop song which in Millennial self-indulgence drags out the break-up of a relationship over ten long minutes. There’s also a four-minute version for the masses; You might think the vicar should also keep his sermons to four minutes, But for die-hard Swifties like myself, only the ten minute version will do.

The song turns on the phrase “All too well.” I remember it all too well. So the song begins as she remembers him nearly running a red light because he was looking at her (Which doesn’t surprise me because whenever I watch American films I get uncomfortable at how drivers don’t look at the road); Then they’re dancing in the refrigerator light. And she remembers it all too well. And they make their promises to one another, She remembers it. All too well. But then there’s the break-up, she’s running scared, She remembers it all too well. He’s “casually cruel in the name of being honest” – Good line – the repetition is quicker now – And he can’t get rid of her scarf – Because the smell reminds him of innocence and her. All too well. The love remembered was real – She can’t let go. She knows he remembers it too. All too well. The heartbreak – she remembers it. Does he still remember it? All too well?

Running through these repeated memories – Down the stairs, A sacred prayer, Wind in her hair, The first fall of snow; It was rare, She remembers it. Does he remember it? All too well… The song turns on this line. The feeling is different each time: Reverential, nostalgic, bittersweet, just bitter, angry, forlorn, pleading, resigned, desperate. It’s this unequal repetition that gives the line resonance, power, meaning, something like a symbol, A liturgy of heartbreak.

And liturgy it is. Liturgy means “the work of the people”. It’s the steadiness of the repeated responses through all the situations of the world. Think of the intercessions; every time you’ve responded “Hear our prayer”, As we pray for the frustrations and joys of a church, in bad times and good, For peace, an end to poverty, at all times and in all places; For our community, in pandemics and in celebrations, In sickness, In grief.

Children experience repetition as boredom. I used to dread the long drone of the intercessions as a child, the most tedious part of the service. I remember it all too well. Now I experience them as the ritual of making a cup of tea (also boring for a child), But simple repeated actions bring calm, give purpose, create space, focus the mind. I love the Book of Common Prayer for this because the words are always the same, and for me that creates the freedom of letting my mind go where it needs to, because it can anticipate the movement of the liturgy. I know it all too well.

But what I hope is that our services together create that space and resonance. That when you have repeated the familiar words of the Eucharist in the magic darkness of Christmas Eve, with fifty children outside looking for Easter Eggs in sunshine, in memory of a friend at All Souls, Some of you will have heard them as a child in the Second World War, after a night jiving in the 50s, swinging in the 60s, Disco in the 70s, through Thatcher and Blair, after the shock of 9/11 and 7/7, the financial crash of 2008, remotely through Covid; Through school prayers, your first job, your wedding, bringing your children to Sunday School, through standing on the PCC, through retirement; On pews, on chairs, In the Hall when the heating broke, That you come to know these words, these hymns, all too well. And you can bring your joy and your pain, your hope, your regret into this place and find in these words a place for it.

Because the English do not do religion well. We’ve made religion a place for children. And so our children learn stories we do not believe in, and we falsely perpetuate them like the atheist who declares the baptismal promises. Like an unfaithful boyfriend;

We make religion an overly-feminine space – schmaltzy sentimental or twee –

We make religion a place for our Sunday best. respectable rather than honest. jolly hockey sticks and Victoria sponge.

And preachers will try: I can talk about filth and poverty and blood and fear at birth, before we turn to watch the enchanting Nativity Play. I can talk about grief and disbelief at Easter, before the Easter Egg hunt. I can talk about heartbreak in Ordinary Time, before coffee and biscuits and “how was your summer?” But the intensity is there for you to take hold of. One of you today is consumed with grief, one of you is angry at a world that has not given them what they want. One of you is so low they could barely get out of bed. One of you couldn’t and is watching online. One of you is afraid and sick of feeling afraid. One of you is just full of joy and captivated by the beauty of the world. All feelings all of us know all too well.

This is what we bring to church and this is what makes it real, and if we could all see all the myriad colours of our souls it would be easier to be more honest. If we’re British we probably can’t speak all these things to the people we’re sat next to. But we can bring them to God. God is not your friend – If you think that you won’t understand why you received this diagnosis. God is not your father; And your father is not God – he’s just a man who’s probably trying his best. Speaking as one who knows. God is your creator, closer than your skin; He may sustain the weary with a word. God is in this liturgy as the counterpoint to your soul. So find your soul, and be angry, scared, overwhelmed, at peace, joyful, bewildered; The work of faith is to not lose our hope and our purpose.

When the psalmist prayed he whispered: “out of the depths do I cry unto thee” He didn’t intone those words after putting on a tie and jacket, politely holding a cup of tea – Which doesn’t require a metal band to bring authenticity to the words – But it’s the work of our faith to meet our intensity with their intensity. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. To set our faces like flint, knowing that I shall not be ashamed.

You are here to remember who you are. Not who you pretend to be, or have to be, don’t want to be;And if you are anything like me you are overwhelmed with joy at the miracles in your life, and overwhelmed with frustration at the obstacles in your path, and overwhelmed with grief at the pain of others, and overwhelmed with anger at thoughtlessness and carelessness everywhere, and this is now our confession, our intercession, our praise.

It is the work of the people and our liturgy in these words that we know all too well – But speak all too quickly.

Jesus in today’s Gospel is asking his friends who do they think he is. They don’t know. And they don’t understand and Peter even has the gall to tell Jesus who he should be. You’ve probably also known that moment when a well-meaning person tries to tell you who you are or how you should be feeling. The desire to be kings and princesses, to have power and change the world, to receive praise and recognition, we learn as children, we never quite leave behind. Jesus knows who he is and what lies before him, Jesus chooses honesty over banality.

And if you think that Christians shouldn’t be angry or afraid or uncertain, then you’re another of these disciples telling Jesus how to feel, who he was. Something he knew all too well.And when life reaches those low notes – wearing your Sunday best and your plummy plainsong chant voice won’t help you – But the steady words of the liturgy that have carried up to three-thousand years of heart-ache are your best bet in being honest to God. And because I prayed them with my father, as I pray them with my children, and they speak from the Nativity to the Crucifixion, from baptism to the last rites, from cradle to grave, I know that when my mind and body are ravaged by dear old time, I will not forget them. When my heart is broken, or I am no longer at home in this world, Simply because I know them all too well. And like a love affair, running hot and cold, even if I forget myself, I am known – by the one who has created me, the one who redeems me, the one who has shown me what it is to love, despite my enthusiasm, my indifference, my forgetfulness, my distraction, my need, my desire, my suffering, The one who has known me all too well.

O Lord open thou our lips – And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

O Lord hear our prayer. And let our cry come unto thee.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. Understood, all too well. Amen.