In the last week, we have again witnessed the world focussing on the terrible events of last year’s September 11th. The peoples of many nations have paid their respects to those killed in, and those affected by, the events of that fateful day: a day – and events - surely etched into the memories of an entire generation. Millions of people in our own country observed the one minute’s silence on Wednesday, in tribute to those whom most of them will never have know, about events that happened in places that many will never have visited. Yet, still, people chose to remember. “Why”, we might ask, “did we keep those observances, if we knew neither the people nor the places involved?” Whilst some might argue that their own participation in these things was to show solidarity with the United States, others might say that they did so as a visible sign of their own revulsion of terrorism. Many others may have kept the observances because it was “the right thing to do”, joining in with their colleagues, families, fellow shoppers; others still will have done so as a “sign of respect”, others still for the empathy and hurt that they feel at such outrageous and pointless killings. How many would say, I wonder, that they kept the observances purely out of love?
The Story of Father Mychal Judge
Those who know me well know also that I am often extremely pedantic: I like to be very precise in things that I either say or do. Imagine my surprise, then, when I read that the first person nominated as having died in the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, was a person who was neither on the aeroplane that struck the North Tower – the first of the two to be hit – nor was in the Tower. A Franciscan priest by the name of Father Mychal Judge has, nonetheless, been identified as “Victim 0001”.
Mychal Judge was the Chaplain to the New York Fire Department. Whilst thousands of people tried to escape the Twin Towers, hundreds of fire fighters rushed the other way. With them went Father Mychal Judge. He went into the building to help the injured and to pray with the dying. Father Mychal, having removed his safety helmet to administer the Last Rites to one of the victims, was hit by falling debris and died during the collapse of the South Tower. Since his death, there has begun a movement in America to have him canonised by Rome. To many who witnessed the scenes of that day, and also to many, many others, Mychal Judge is viewed as “sainthood material”. Judge did what he was ordained to do: to minister to the sick, the injured, the dying. In doing so, his life was ended.
Mychal Judge will have known well the words of the Gospel of Saint John: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15: 12-13).
However, there exists a problem. The day after Mychal Judge’s funeral, it was revealed that he was gay. A spokesman of the pope has since not only refuted any future claim to Judge’s canonisation, but has also called into question the validity of Father Mychal Judge’s priesthood. The Vatican’s insistence that practicing gay men cannot be called to the priesthood again rears its head.
Graham Satchell from the BBC interviewed Tom Moulton, a spokesperson for the gay Catholic organisation, Dignity. In this interview Moulton said: “…they can’t hide it any more that a gay person can be good – a gay person can be saintly.”
What is Love?
The root of the word ‘love’ is the Greek word, agape. In fact, the early Christian used the word, ‘agape’ to also describe a feast in token of fellowship, as well as a commemoration of the Last Supper.
It seems to me that, in the modern world, the word ‘love’ is used altogether too lightly, and is bandied around in the most trite and trivial of ways. We might say things such as, “I love your new suit” or, “I’d love to see that film.” We even use it too lightly when we address people: “Hello, love”, “Thanks, love” are common enough expressions used almost daily to those whom we may not actually know – let alone – love, at all. We talk of “making love” to describe sexual acts. The word has become debased, made almost valueless, by its societal usage.
Completely changing perspective, we may also talk of having “fallen in love”, or “being in love”, or the love of one family member for the others, or the love of a Christian for her fellow sisters and brothers in Christ. But here, only the word ‘love’ will truly suffice to convey how we feel, for this kind of love is more of an intense, all-consuming, internal feeling that is not easy to communicate. This, though, is the purest form of the word, ‘love’. Paul knew this when he wrote that love is patient, kind, ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and, especially, to endure.
The love that we share for one another as Christians, as partners, sisters, brothers, parents or children, is a love that does not fail. Long after the suit has been admired or the film has been seen – and that particular expressed form of love has withered or been fulfilled – the love that we feel for one another will continue to burn brightly. Even relationships that have floundered will have been built on love and that love, once given, is not something that is ours to recall or to revoke, it remains what it always had been: a Gift of God.
Love is something that brings us into fellowship with each other. It is something that bonds and binds us together. Love is the one, common link that every human has to every other person who has ever lived. It is, in effect, our single, true, and ever-lasting communion, and it is this form of love, which Paul speaks of.
Many here today will be people who have found the road to, or back to, Christ a difficult one to follow. Many will have been castigated by the church of their adolescence, or will have abandoned those churches for fear of ridicule, for fear of feeling threatened, or for fear of being unloved, once it is know who they truly are. Some of us may still find it difficult to believe that we are able to come to a church as straight people, divorcees, lesbians, gay men, transgendered or transsexual people, and to be loved for whom we are, not whom ‘society’ would have us be. Yet, here we all are, fully participating in the Communion and love of Christ and the communion and love of one-another.
In fact, we are actually following the central commandment of Christ more fully than most other churches would even consider: “I command you to love one another as I have loved you!” Jesus did not make any exceptions to this central directive; he did not allow prejudices, bigotry, intolerances and hatred to be built into his commandment. Whilst others – including Saint Paul – claiming to speak for Christ, may declare that we are unworthy of Him and His promises, they speak entirely without His authority, serving only to show their own ignorance and to refute His primary demand.
No Greater Love/The Love of Father Mychal Judge
Mychal Judge followed Jesus’ primary commandment to the letter, even though it ultimately cost him his life. It should be of no importance to the Vatican that he happened to be gay, nor, in my opinion, should they have retrospectively called his very priesthood into account. The man died a more Christian death than any of us could wish for: he died showing and giving his love and the love of God to the people he was ordained – by God – to serve.
We mourn the passing of the innocents killed on September 11th last year; we pay our respects to them with our minutes of silence but, more importantly than respect, we show and share our mutual love for them, and for all those whom we have loved and lost. Our tears are a testimony to this great love, a love that cannot come from ourselves alone, but which is expressed through us, by God. Only by showing and sharing this love, will we ever be able to claim that we are, indeed, followers of Christ.
“In the end, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love!”
Amen.
(John Stanway)
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.