For the love of a narcissus

Sermon for Quinquagesima

As spring approaches, we begin already to see the flowers starting to come up. In particular, in March you will see the daffodil and the narcissus start to come out in the flower beds. The narcissus, you may already know, has a particularly sad story behind it according to the Greek Myths.

In this particular myth, we see a handsome young man who deals very cruelly with the women who fall for him. Once such is a nymph called Echo whose love for him is so strong that, even when Narcissus rejects her, does not stop loving him. She mourns and pines away until only her voice is left, doomed only to repeat the last few words in the sentences she hears. As a punishment, Narcissus is doomed to fall in love with his reflection. In this way, Narcissus suffers precisely what he inflicts on others: he cannot receive his own love and eventually he, like poor Echo, wastes away until all that is left is the flower that bears his name.

This is all very well, but is this Christian?

[PAUSE]

As Christians, we are to be in the world but not of it. We may observe the story told about Narcissus and ask ourselves, “is this true? Is God telling us something through this story?” Indeed He is, and He uses St Paul to explain it to us in one of his most famous pieces of writing to us.

He tells us quite clearly: we can be expert communicators, we can be the wisest scholars, we can be the most generous person there is yet, if we do not have love, then we have already become nothing. Like both Narcissus and Echo, if our love is not really the Love that God is, we have already wasted away. What has gone wrong?

[PAUSE]

Looking carefully at what St Paul says, the work that we do to become expert communicators, wise, and generous people is not true love because any love that we are showing is being directed inwardly towards ourselves. We can give up everything we have for the sole purpose of gaining respect and affection of others. Some people do indeed do that. They are prepared to make sacrifices so that they can manipulate others through some form of respect and admiration. If our motivation is not from true love, then everything that we do, and everything that we are actually becomes nothing. It will all pass away when we die, and we shall die indeed because God is not there.

Much of the problems in society come about because people think they know what love is. They will demand the right to love whomsoever they want and express that love however they want. Yet, if we look very closely at their language of rights and love, we see that they are motivated only by a ghost of what love is. Many people behave like Narcissus and spurn true love in favour of a love that bigs up their own achievements or even their own beliefs about who they say they are. They reduce themselves to just being a communicator, a wise man, or a “nice guy”, or something else and expect us to love only that aspect of them. It’s like writing your name on a piece of paper and telling people to love that paper rather the real you, the you that really is, not a nothing that really isn’t.

What is this love, then?

[PAUSE]

It’s very simple. God creates us. God wants to create us. God has no need to create us. He does so out of no desire for Himself, but rather that we should be. This is His love and it is directed out from Himself to us, not back in on Himself.

Our love for others needs to be directed out from ourselves. This is why St Paul says, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.”

People who suffer for the good of others and are kind direct their love out from themselves. People who envy, or puff themselves up, or behave in an unseemly fashion, or get irritated, these are concerned only with something about themselves.

[PAUSE]

The trouble is, we now face the Joey Tribbiani question. Is there anything that we human beings do that isn’t actually selfish in some way? Possibly. Possibly not. However, one thing is clear: we cannot be anything unless we have love and draw that love from God Himself. Lent is about an examination of our relationship with God and working on turning to Him as our Creator. As long as we are looking to Him and to Him alone, whatever we do doesn’t matter for it will always be done with Love.

Come May, the narcissus will be gone, wasted away into itself. Will we?