Readings: Exodus 3: 1-15; Romans 14: 1-12; Matthew 18, 21-35
I was sitting in the dentist the other day getting a clean, which I have to say is worse than getting a filling, and the therapist had the radio on. Now normally it is usually a music station but in this case she had the ABC on. However, in the half an hour I was there I was subjected to a litany of violence, war, depravity and grief, from places such as Libya, Somalia, and the Middle East that made me wish for some music no matter how modern. Each report seemed to get worse. On top of what we have experienced on our television in the past few weeks, from London to Norway to violence in Northbridge it leads one to wonder about the world and society in which we live. And what we can do to change things.
So after pondering this sermon for some time, I am not going to concentrate on what is wrong in the world but rather I am going to talk about what is needed. And what is needed is love.

A famous philosopher once said, `For in truth, in this world hatred is not appeased by hatred, hatred is appeased by love alone. This is the eternal law.`

We can find, if we look hard, places where hatred is being appeased by love. One extreme example came to me when watching a documentary about a man called Todd Willingham on the TV a couple of weeks ago.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three young daughters thirteen years earlier. He always claimed his innocence, and the arson investigation used to convict him was questioned by leading experts well before his death. Since 2004, further evidence in the case has been acquired. This has led to the inescapable conclusion that Willingham did not set the fire for which he was executed and was innocent of the crime.

However, that is not the whole story. The story is also about compassion and love. Once Willingham was convicted it took the energy and persistence of one woman, Elizabeth Gilbert to bring his case to the attention of others. Elizabeth started out as a pen pal to Willingham, but later, convinced of his innocence, became his most ardent supporter. After many years on death row, he wrote in his diary that `She may never know what a change she brought into my life, for the first time in many years she gave me purpose, something to look forward to.`

Together they pored over clues and testimony, finding the trial was filled with omission and deliberate fabrication. Willingham was portrayed as a sociopathic individual based on an inaccurate portrayal of his petty criminal record, witnesses that were unreliable and of Iron Maiden posters that were misinterpreted as satanic material. (For those who don`t know Iron Maiden is actually a rock band.) Finally they contacted Dr Gerald Hurst, an acclaimed scientist and fire investigator, who took up the case. Unfortunately Texas is a place for executions and not clemency and so the conviction stood, even after Dr Hurst proved categorically that the fire was an accident.

Elizabeth Gilbert felt she had failed Willingham. That all she could give him was her friendship. He told her that it was enough `to be a part of your life in some small way, so that in my passing I can know I was at last able to have felt the heart of another who might remember me when I have gone`. He added, `There is nothing to forgive you for.`

On the day of the execution Elizabeth Gilbert was involved in a car accident and was paralysed from the neck down. While she was in intensive care her daughter read her a letter that Willingham had sent her, telling her how much he had grown to love her. Gilbert who spent years in physical rehab gradually regaining motion in her arms and legs says `all that time, I thought I was saving Willingham, and I realised then that he was saving me, giving me the strength to get through this. I know I will one day walk again, and I know it is because Willingham showed me the kind of courage it takes to survive.`

Here we have a story of love given and love received, and lives changed forever.

But where does love come from? Not the romantic love of our television screens but a love that engages the mind and will, and that seeks out the other even when there is a huge cost. This kind of love requires great courage and compassion and is much more than a flutter of the heart. It leads us to care and support others, show them compassion and even at times protect and save them regardless of our own safety.

Bruce Sanguin, in a recent sermon, suggests we have been told by many, including our own religious traditions that humans are naturally sinful. That we are by nature violent, self centred and greedy and that our genes are geared only for survival regardless of who we hurt in order to live. The father of modern psychology Sigmund Freud concluded that the human being was basically little more than a pleasure seeking organism, using others for our own purposes. And Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism believed that the economic system was fuelled by little more than self interest. It relied on the belief that we have a selfish instinct that will override almost everything else. The British philosophers Thomas Hobbs once said that the `life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short`. As Sanguin says, not a great picture of our modern day society.

The problem, as we well know, is there is a great deal of truth in these statements. We live in a society where the gap between rich and poor, either of people or nations is huge. We live in a society where we are fearful of difference and protective of our money and possessions. We live in a society where it seems that violence is endemic and is seen as the only solution to personal and global problems. And amongst all of this the environment remains a punching bag that is forever dropped to the bottom of the list when the topic of jobs and productivity is raised.

When we see violence and hatred, and the outcome of such things, the grief and heartache and despair that they generate we ask ourselves what many, religious or not ask. Is there any hope for a better more just world, a world where love rather than hate rules?

Bruce Sanguin would argue that there is, if you take into account the God factor.

This God factor is not from a remote deity, that intercedes occasionally, but from a divine presence at the very heart of all creation.

More and more we see there is a different story to the story that says we are determined by our genes and our quest for survival, and by our psychology to be violent and self centered. Rather current research in evolutionary biology has revealed that cooperation and connectedness, rather than selfishness can and do drive the development of a species. There seems to be a new science of empathy emerging, as Bruce writes. Barbara King, who is a Professor of anthropology, has written a book on ape and monkey behaviour. She suggests that religious instinct has its evolutionary origins in the impulse to belong. To feel as though we belong we need an other, a caring mother or a nurturing community to love us into being, to show us we have a place in the universe. While other observers of apes and gorillas see only an aggressive instinct she sees elaborate nurturing rituals that represent the first religious impulse.

Again Bruce Sanguin summarises it beautifully. The need to belong, to connect, to become one with others, through rituals of love is what seems to be built into the fabric of our evolutionary being. Life it seems may not be solely about the instinct to survive. Rather it is about the sense of belonging and being connected. And it evolves, both in the universe and in us. From the moment the universe was born God is at its heart driving even its most basic elements to connect. God is the one who holds us, nurtures us and nourishes us into being. The one in whom we belong, and who drives us to belong to others. In this way God is life and love for all and gives us hope for the future.

Tragedy and suffering and violence seem part of the story about what it means to be human. But it is not the full story. And it`s not inevitable. Because there is also the story of love. We are hard wired for love, (a great line from Bruce), we seek it, we give it away and when we do, we connect to the most basic and beautiful element of the cosmos, God. Life means nothing without love. Life means nothing without God. This is the God I believe in, in whom we live and move and have our being. Marcus Borg makes it clear that the social form of God`s love is justice, fairness and equity for all regardless of race or religion or gender. Everybody and everything is encompassed within God, held in love. The Christian life, accordingly, is about developing a relationship with God that responds to that love and transforms us and those around us into more compassionate people.

But if we are not careful this love can and does get lost in our modern world. Stories get mixed up; suddenly we become confused about what is important. Suddenly we have no hope that things will be different or that we are any different. We need a light in the darkness, a call from the wilderness of commercialism, violence and injustice. Jesus is that light. Jesus is calling us, calling us to take up our cross and follow him into the heart of God, a God who transforms the world with love. And if we do we are told that those who lose their lives for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel will find it. How true that is. And while his path may entail great cost there can be great joy and great hope. Because you can`t kill love, no matter how hard you try. So while Todd Willingham`s life may have ended, the love that surrounded him, the connections he made and the influence he had lives on in those who follow.
Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, where love is to be crucified. But as Bruce Sanguin points out, you just can`t kill love. It rises up and sends us out to be the resurrected heart of God for the world. This is our story and we are sticking to it.

Acknowledgements
Bruce Sanguin sermon - `Idle tale or love`s testament`.
`Trial by Fire`, The New Yorker, September 7, 2009.