This sermon was preached in the Anglican Church of Bucharest by its Chaplain Father Nevsky Everett on Sunday, December 8.
Universul.net is publishing the homily in its entirety to show how priests can contribute to a dialogue of tolerance and peace at a time when some Orthodox priests have been rebuked for stirring up division and nationalism and fueling the rise of the far-right, while praising fascist Legionnaires in Romania.
“I have been haunted this week by an image I saw online. It was of a woman, probably about my age, smartly-dressed, holding a young child on her hip –while her other arm was raised in the fascist salute.
This was not an image from Berlin in 1940, but taken last Saturday, some thirty kilometers north of Bucharest.
On the eve of Romania’s national day – and on the eve of the parliamentary elections –a memorial service was held for Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the violent fascist group known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, along with their paramilitary branch, the Iron Guard.
Codreanu was assassinated in 1938, and whilst the commemoration and glorification of fascism is illegal in Romania, just north of Snagov, on the road past Tâncăbești, there is a large wooden cross where he is remembered.
In the context of growing far-right extremism across Europe, it troubled me to see men and women, young and old, openly displaying fascist insignia and giving that salute which evokes the darkest days of our history, marked by violence, terror and genocide.
People have long sought to reshape society in their own image, often through violent means and oppression. Codreanu and the Legionary Movement are not unique in that.
From Nazism and the Holocaust, through the long legacy of communism in Eastern Europe, authoritarian leaders with their cults of personality across the globe, history shows us what happens when political power is used in this way, is used to ‘remodel’ society.
The church is not immune to this.
Both Nazism and Codreanu’s fascism were marked by a quasi-religious quality. And we need think only of the violence of the Spanish Inquisition, Colonialism, or even the Church of England’s complex legacy of Establishment which stamped out dissent by force, to see that the Church has much to repent of in this regard.
Whenever we try and make society, or our communities, ‘more Christian,’ churches become controlling: we see spiritual abuse, safeguarding scandals, even violence.
We are not immune to the desire to reshape society in our own image…‘Prepare the way of the Lord…’
We might think it would be better if everyone was like us -but if Christians want to bring about the Kingdom of God, it is not through force, violence, coercion.
We cannot ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ by crushing dissent and enforcing conformity.
There is no compulsion in the Kingdom of God. We cannot yield to our authoritarian instincts, our desire to control, because at the heart of the Christian faith
The freedom won for us on the Cross and through which we are co-heirs of the Kingdom with Christ. God has made us free.
Our free will is not an illusion, or simply a question for philosophers: our free will is a gift, part of our unique nature, like our reason and our potential for love.
Every human being has the capacity, the freedom, to choose, to accept, or to reject. As soon as we start forcing people to act, speak, or even dress in certain ways – as soon as we take away their freedom to choose – we take away their dignity as a beloved child of God.
The Kingdom of God will not be ushered in by conformity, or by following a set of rules. We cannot ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ through legislation.
So, how? .
Our acts of faith, hope and love – whether as individuals or as a community – are signs of God’s coming kingdom. One of the ancient hymns of the western church, used on Maundy Thursday has the antiphon, Ubi caritas:
Where there is charity and love, God is there. It is in the love we show that the Kingdom of God breaks through the darkness of our world. Through a small act of kindness or generosity, an encouraging word, in the pursuit of justice, the valleys are filled, the mountains made low, the crooked made straight and the rough ways made smooth.
I’m under no illusion – love can be hard work. We know that in the context of our families and friends, even in the life of the church. We need grace to open our hearts to another person, to give our time and energy.
Love may even be uncomfortable: Love requires a radical honesty and openness – but it never means to coerce or force. Love demands we respect the freedom and the dignity of another person, that we see them as God sees them.
In our reading from the Letter to the Philippians, St Pauls says, ‘This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and all insight to help you determine what is best…’
That is the mission of the Church, to be that vessel of overflowing love –poured out and loving people into the Kingdom.
The voice that cries ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,’ does not call us to create the perfect society, and any voice that promises salvation and deliverance is deluded and dangerous (particularly if they have a flag and a uniform…).
For we are saved by Christ. The Kingdom of God – the coming Kingdom – will not look like our ideas of worldly power. In the hymn, I vow to thee my country, we see this clearly:
‘And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.’
This is what the Kingdom looks like, and one day, our world will be transfigured at Christ’s coming again. We see glimpses of the Kingdom coming among us in friendship, cooperation, justice, care for the poor, in our freedom as children of God.
We cannot ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ through force, coercion and authoritarianism, but only through love. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
