Second Life !

I was listening to the radio this week, and one of the guests was talking about an internet website called ‘Second Life.’ On the site real people actually live out a virtual life – buying and selling property, shopping, going to restaurants, arguing, getting married, even having affairs all in a virtual world.

When the guest was talking about the site he made the point that many people are really not totally happy in their lives, and that this provided a way out for them, where they could be what they wanted to be and do what they wanted to do. I looked at the site to get some more information, and there were very nearly 3 million people registered – apparently there are also similar sites offering this escape from reality as well.

There are real places and even a Reuters news agency. Also on the second life site there are a number of churches – there is the Church of the night, The Pirate Church, The Church of Doug, The Church of Elvis, as well as some more conventional Churches.

I’m fairly sure that a lot of people on the site are just doing it for fun, but I wonder how many are actually searching for something to make their life a little bit better, or more interesting. The ideal world for most people would be a comfortable lifestyle, with no money worries, a nice car and house perhaps, but more importantly good health, good relationships with people, and perhaps a more peaceful and just world.

There’s a poem written by a 10 year old girl which reads :-

“I had a little paint box

but it didn’t have the colour red

for the blood of the wounded,

nor white, for the hearts and faces of the dead.

It didn’t have yellow either

For the burning sands of the desert.

Instead it had orange

For the dawn and the sunset

And blue for new skies

And pink for the dreams of young people.

I sat down and painted peace.”

Ultimately that search for peace and happiness is one that a majority of people make in their lives – the search for contentment, the search for joy, for hope – for love…

And this search is very much the issue that Paul is addressing in the very well known passage from his first letter to the Corinthians (13:1-13). This passage has been described by many as the most perfect definition of love that there has ever been – it is regularly used at weddings and funerals, and it remains one of the most fundamental instructions to every Christian on how to live our lives.

There’s a story about the time of Oliver Cromwell where a young soldier had been tried in military court and sentenced to death. He was to be shot at the "ringing of the curfew bell." When she heard this, the man’s fiancée climbed up into the bell tower, several hours before curfew time and tied herself to bell's huge clapper. At curfew time, when only muted sounds came out of the bell tower, Cromwell demanded to know why the bell was not ringing. His soldiers went to investigate and found the young woman cut and bleeding from being knocked back and forth against the great bell. They brought her down, and, the story goes, Cromwell was so impressed with her willingness to suffer in this way on behalf of someone she loved that he dismissed the soldier saying, "Curfew shall not ring tonight."

And sometimes that is what love is about – doing huge things for a person or for God. The willingness to suffer and die is the greatest test of love can have, but more often than not love is actually only about doing many small things both for other people and for God – it is doing the mundane, for example this week watching the romantic film ‘The Wedding Crashers, when I should be watching the boxing film ‘Rocky Balboa’ !

In this letter to the Corinthians Paul very much concentrates not on a theory of love, but on reality. He writes of people saying good things with beautiful language, but meaning something totally different, he writes of people having great wisdom and knowledge, even great faith, but adds that without love they are nothing and they have nothing.

He then goes on to write what love is really about – it is patient, it is kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful – it doesn’t insist on its own way, or rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Above all it lasts through all the trials of life and never ends.

And that is the love to which we as Christians are called – the love of Jesus… With no boundaries, no limits, no prejudice, no conditions… the epiphany season is about the manifestation of God in our lives, and to the world at large. It is a season, not like lent or advent when we think of how we have failed in our task as Christians, but a season to look forward with the certainty of God alongside us. It is a season to make sure that we are following God’s call as his servants.

The call to love in the way God loves is one of the most difficult of all to follow – it means laying open our lives to the service of God, allowing him to work through us. It means listening to God’s call, learning about his word, following his will. It is an incredibly difficult calling.

Yet this feeling of difficulty is not the one that Paul writes about – and after reading his interpretation of love you realise why… He has seen and felt the power and love of God in his life to such an extent that he knows that that love can never be broken or undermined. He has dedicated his life to sharing that love of God through his words and through his actions every moment of every day.

He has so fallen in love with God that he is determined that nothing will ever stop him from telling people what good news God has for people. In Church countless sermons are preached about love, about fellowship and unity, and about harmony, because those things are the things upon which the Christian Church must be built.

Loving can be difficult, but the rewards of real love are so immense that they are worth working for and fighting for – in Jesus we have a Saviour who has given everything for us. He calls us to offer the same for him and for each other.

When William Gladstone announced the death of Princess Alice to the House of Commons, he told a touching story. The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria. The doctors told the princess not to kiss her daughter and endanger her own life by breathing the child's breath. Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death. As the child was struggling for her life, the Princess tenderly kissed her. She got diphtheria and some days after she died… Real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love doesn't count the cost. The great demand of our faith is that we share that love not just with those we love, but even those we find it difficult to even like.

When we think of web sites like second life, and lots of the films, tv programmes, magazines, songs and so on, we see the human need for love very clearly. It is as great a need, perhaps more so, than even for food or water. It is fundamental, and it often seems to be in short supply. Our broken, war-weary world cries out for love and does not seem to know where to find it. But there is a higher love. It is the love that truly makes us human, creations made in God's own image. It's the love that Christ demonstrated and enables us to have… If we do not have this real love, we have nothing. AMEN