Sermon - Time to kick off our ruby slippers

Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), Le Chemin jaune, Châteauneuf-du-Faou

A sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist at St Anne’s Soho on Sunday 18th February 2024 (Year B) Lent 1. Based on readings from Genesis 9:8-17 and Mark 1:9-15. You can listen to an audio recording of this sermon at this link.

“Somewhere over a rainbow, way up high,

There’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby.” 

 

According to an influential American magazine, one of the most famous songs of all time. First sung by Judy Garland in character as Dorothy Gale, about five minutes into the classic 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz’. 

 

Dorothy’s dog Toto has just escaped from the clutches of Miss Gulch, who has obtained a sheriffs order to put down the dog, after she claimed that it bit her. 

 

Dorothy is trying to tell her Aunt Em about what really happened, but Em tells her to ‘go and find a place where you won’t get into any trouble.’

 

It is in the process of imagining where such a place might be - a place free from trouble - that Dorothy bursts into her famous song. 

 

The music, by Harold Arlen, with its rocking quavers inspired by the exercises children use to learn to play the piano, emphasises that sense of youthful desire. 

A yearning to find a place beyond the unsettling world that Dorothy finds herself in.

 

Her tempestuous circumstances are symbolised by the coming tornado - alluded to in the opening verses of Yip Harburg’s libretto for Over The Rainbow, which didn’t appear in the movie but you can hear in later versions of the song, including a fantastic recording by Ella Fitzgerald:

 

“When all the world is a hopeless jumble 

And the raindrops tumble all around, 

Heaven opens a magic lane.

 

When all the clouds darken up the skyway 

There's a rainbow highway to be found, 

Leading from your window pane.”

 

An enticing image and one with which I think many flicking through the pages of today’s newspapers will identify – stories of the dark clouds engulfing the world on every page. If only there was a magic rainbow highway along which we could hop, skip and jump into a place free from trouble - a technicolour - and far more fabulous future!  

 

A few years ago during the Covid pandemic, when life seemed even more of a “hopeless jumble” than it is now, the rainbow symbol adorned windows across the world in support of healthcare workers. A symbol of solidarity. 

 

 

In our first reading from the Book of Genesis, a rainbow appears after Noah and his family have spent forty days and forty nights locked-down with the animals, travelling over the choppy waters that God had sent to engulf the earth. A flood to wash away all the corruption and violence - the sins of humankind - and a chance to remake the world anew through the contents of the Ark. 

 

Here, the rainbow is a sign of God’s new covenant that “never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 

 

A symbol of God’s solidarity with us. But also a symbol of hope - because of that covenant. 

 

 

An curious piece of film trivia is that before Arlen and Harburg had written ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’, another song had been planned for that point in the screenplay. A jaunty melody in which Dorothy sings joyfully about her home in Kansas, rather than a rainbow highway to another place. 

 

Perhaps in the end it was felt that the forward looking ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ - was more appropriate at that point in the film - before Dorothy dons her ruby slippers and begins her famous journey along the Yellow Brick Road.

 

 

In this first week of Lent it is very tempting for us to look forward - to the end of the rainbow, if you like. To look forward to the remainder of those forty days and forty nights ahead. We are doing this when we find our thoughts and conversations about Lent dominated by the new commitments we have made to better our physical, mental or spiritual health. 

 

And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But there are other commitments which, perhaps might usefully be on our minds too. Commitments that the scriptures and our liturgy today help us to recall.

 

Commitments without which all our rainbow gazing becomes mere optimism - not true hope. 

 

The commitments are those we made at our baptism. 

 

 

 

From the earliest days of the church, Lent has been a time when candidates are prepared to be baptised.

 

For the first pagan coverts, this meant a lengthy period of study – the systematic deconstruction of their worldview - their understanding of the powers that shaped their lives - and coming to terms with the new moral and ethical order of God’s kingdom; and how they were, individually and collectively located within it. 

 

This period of preparation would culminate in the rite of baptism, when candidates publicly “repent” - or “turn away from” the false gods of the world - and towards the one true God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

 

There are some who suggest that as pagan culture gave way to Christian culture in the global north, the predominant understanding of baptism started to change.

Seen not first and foremost as a manifestation of the covenant we were invited to enter into with God – but as a badge of allegiance or solidarity. 

 

Like the difference between the rainbow after the Great Flood and the rainbows on those NHS posters during the Covid pandemic.

 

Those who hold this view often call for a return to that early Christian practice of instruction or ‘catechesis’. While there are others who say that any sort of “preparation” for baptism is unnecessary - an attempt to control or restrict the work of the Spirit. If someone feels moved to present themselves for baptism who are we to stand in their way? To question God’s will?

 

I have some sympathy with both points of view. 

 

As someone who was baptised as a baby, who had no capacity to understand what was going on, I wonder how reasonable it is for me to expect others to attend a baptism class before they are permitted to receive the rite. 

 

But I do also think it is important that we spend time contemplating the meaning of our baptism – that foundational covenant – and an important and ancient Lenten theme. 

 

This desire is not motivated by some longing to recover the past – which can for some become a magic rainbow highway all of its own – but a desire to recover a sense of who we really are. 

 

In our Gospel reading at the baptism of Jesus we hear a voice from heaven saying “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

In our baptism by the Spirit we are united with Christ and brought into this same relationship.

What does it mean for God to be pleased with us – for us to be recipients of divine pleasure?

To remain within but promise to turn away from the chaos of this world? To be related – joined to - that which is perfect love, perfect justice, perfect bliss.

What does it mean to each of us to be children of God? Heirs of his Kingdom?

 

 

Just as Jesus’ wilderness experience began with his baptism, looking back and re-engaging with our baptismal promises - the covenant we were invited to enter into with God - is as important as thinking about any new promises we are hoping to keep during the weeks ahead. 

 

Without looking back and exploring the life-changing event of our baptism, no future promises, longing or desires can have any meaning. They become mere optimism and not true hope. 

 

We cannot use this season of Lent to reset our lives as God’s children - without going back to think about what that means.

The scriptures today are pointing us to a truth which, in the film, it took Dorothy Gale until the end of her journey along the Yellow Brick Road to comprehend. 

 

That there is no place like home. 

 

And that the way to that home - that Kingdom - that hope which lies at the root of every possible desire - is not to be found by escaping along a magic rainbow highway. But step by step through the hopeless jumble of this contingent reality - guided by a deep, lived experience of who we really are. The beloved children of God. Recipients of divine pleasure.

Because that land that we heard of – that land free from trouble - is not somewhere over the rainbow. The Kingdom of God has come near.

This First Sunday in Lent is then a time for us to kick off our ruby red slippers and say goodbye to the yellow brick road. And to walk in the footsteps of the one who “didst tread this earth before us.”  


Image : Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), Le Chemin jaune, Châteauneuf-du-Faou