"Whoever gives their life for Christ, will find it"

When I visited the Czech Republic in June I spent an interesting Sunday afternoon in a Jewish Synagogue where there was a photographic exhibition of  wartime in the East – fascinating because we tend, naturally, to concentrate on what it was like in Western Europe.  It was, in many ways, quite a shocking exhibition because it showed what it was like for many who had their homeland devastated. Pictures of Warsaw, for example, showing its gradual reduction to rubble. A once vibrant city reduced to what looked like a demolition site.

But one section was particularly harrowing – and that was the immediate post-war photographs of Berlin.  Children, the old, and the despairing sat amidst the rubble of a once proud city as people came to terms not only with defeat but also with the lie of Nazism that had ruled their lives for so long.  It was quite an eye-opener for someone who had been brought up in post-war Britain, in the days of austerity, and in a climate of rebuilding.

Londoners who had suffered the Blitz are perhaps among the few who could understand what Berlin was like in 1945 but, perhaps even they could not engage with the despair of defeat, the dejection of losing absolutely everything because amongst the things they lost was hope – and that was never absent in war-torn Britain.

Of course, they deserved all they went through is a view of many and, certainly, in those post-war years I was brought up on a diet of hatred and anger at what Germany had subjected Europe to.  The Europe of today, however, is very different; much more united and, for those who believe in the European dream, facing a great future. A view, I know that is not shared by all.

A friend of mine is about to become General Secretary of the Council of European Churches, an organisation which is dedicated to bringing  Christians from many denominations and countries together in a forum of reconciliation and mutual co-operation. He is very excited for the future of European Christianity and believes it to be a force for reconciliation of differing traditions and cultures.  Reconciliation is something that was much needed in the post-war era in War-torn Europe. Those pictures that I saw of Berliners struggling against famine, disease and homelessness brought home to me in a very stark way that, no matter what tears people apart in war, when eventual peace comes, it needs a generosity of heart to forgive and be reconciled.  Such hearts were, of course, to be found, even in the darkest days of the European War.

When Roger Schutz left his native and neutral Switzerland in 1940, at the age of 25, and travelled to the homeland of his mother, he carried with him a dream of building a community where ‘simplicity and kind-heartedness would be lived out as essential Gospel realities.'

He knew that whatever the outcome of World War II there would be a need for a re-building of a very different kind to bricks and mortar – a re-building of a spirit of trust and reconciliation which could only be achieved under God’s care and with a true generosity of heart.  Arriving in the little village of Taizé where the demarcation line between Nazi occupied and the unoccupied part of France was but a few miles away, he set about creating a haven where those who had been displaced by the War could find shelter, and even, maybe hope.

Some of those Brother Roger welcomed were Jews fleeing Nazi persecution but others were simply those who had been caught in the crossfire of human conflict.  For two years, the house he opened, became a place of reconciliation  but then his work with Jews was found out and he had to flee back to his neutral Switzerland.  The dream, however, did not die and, in 1944, he was back in Taizé and this time for good.  Also, this time, no longer alone. Others had been captivated by his vision and the Taizé Community was born.

Since then, of course, it has been the centre of reconciliation and hope for much more than those displaced in war-torn Europe.  Young people, in particular, have flocked to experience the simplicity and kind-heartedness which ruled a community and provided it with a Gospel vision.  A vision that, in its attractiveness, won hearts the world over.  Through its music and special prayer form the Taizé community reached out beyond the millions who have visited the tiny French village. Few of us have been untouched by the haunting and awesome spirituality which has come from that place.

Brother Roger’s vision for a reconciled Christianity and a reconciled world has become something that many have shared and longed for.  Central to this vision was a love that came directly from Christ and Brother Roger pleaded time and again that all we have to do is open our hearts to this love in order to change the world.

“A heart determined to love” he once wrote, “can radiate goodness without end, “ because “its great concern is to relieve the torments of others.”

In some ways Brother Roger’s vision could be regarded as simple, even naïve. In so complex a world as ours the message of love that Roger promoted flies in the face of the evil that is so often perpetrated in this nation or that, this people or that, this community or that.  It is an idealism that, whilst attractive to the young, may seem impossible to the jaded.  But Brother Roger refused to lie down with the despairing or the cynical. He insisted that: All can be transformed by love.

This simple message is not as simplistic as it seems for we know that such love is costly. We follow the Christ of Love who died on the Cross, who spent himself in a sacrificial love that, despite all the darkness of each passing age, refuses to be quenched.  Reconciliation of people is no easy task and it always demands costly Christ-like, Loving service.

Not surprisingly, Brother Roger forged a special bond with that other great Twentieth Century Saint, Teresa of Calcutta. Together they shared the same vision and for Teresa it was a vision formed out of the destitution she found in Calcutta where, in the most practical way possible she put into action a thought of the 16th century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross –

“Where love is lacking, pour it in and you will draw love out.”

That thought could well sum up what both Roger and Teresa did in their differing but equally complementary ways.  And, in that, of course, they drew their true inspiration from the Cross and from the Lord of the Cross who , in his self-offering, poured love where love was lacking.  The message of this Cross for Brother Roger was that Christ never stops loving and never abandons us. No one is excluded from his love, nor from his forgiveness, nor from his presence.  How can Christ abandon those for whom he was prepared to pay the ultimate price of love – death on a Cross?

We cannot do anything to prevent that love from flowing just as, in today’s Gospel, Peter could not prevent Jesus from embracing his divine destiny. “Get behind me, Satan” – not even through the unwitting lips of his trusty disciples could the devil prevent Jesus from doing what his Father asked of Him – which was, and still  is to love all into the Kingdom – regardless of the cost.”  But if Jesus is prepared to pay that cost then, so too, must his followers.  If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me.”

That, it seems, is the only way, and people like Brother Roger and Mother Teresa knew it to be so.  In a, now prophetic, prayer, Brother Roger prayed in 1995:

Jesus, Risen Lord … Your Gospel brings with it such hope that we would like to give ourselves to the very end in order to follow you: And we welcome your words: ‘Whoever gives their life for Christ will find it.”

Today, in the wake of Brother Roger’s funeral we know that he has demonstrated the truth of that prayer. Not only has he given his life but in the eternal love of God he has found it.  Of course, the vision Brother Roger took to France in 1940 will live on. How can it do otherwise?  We know, too that the work he began in war-torn Europe has to go on being done – not just by the Taizé community, nor by the Mother Teresa’s of this world – but by us, the ordinary yet quite extraordinary People of God.

This extraordinariness is not reserved for the few. It is displayed by any who, in obedience to Christ’s Gospel words this morning, deny themselves and take up their cross, and follow me.  For that is all that Brother Roger did.

And what he achieved can be achieved by us all.  As his friend Mother Teresa once said:

“We do not do great things, but little things with a great love.”

That is what makes them special and it is, or can be, what makes us special.

A life dedicated to love, to reconciliation, to forgiveness, to peace is a special life because it is a Christ-like life. A costly life but a true life.  We are called to make a difference – maybe not in Iraq or Palestine or Africa or even Europe – but here, in Epping, and now in our community.  That is what God in Christ is calling us to do - for as Brother Roger once said:

God deposits a gospel treasure in the clay vessels which we are.

Let us always lovingly share this treasure with others.