May 12 | “Ring them Bells,” (Sermon, May 11th, 2016)

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. ¹²While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. ¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

John 17:11b-19

Some of you may remember our Lenten Bible study in 2015, where I taught you about how the Gospel of John was written in code, and how in seminary we learned to spot the lines of code with the use of a bell, which we rang every time one of those code words came up.

Well, that’s not what I’m using this bell for today, mostly because this passage is so loaded that ringing it would leave us all with migraines. But I did want to talk about bells in general, and why I thought of them when I read this passage.

This is a small bell but still has many of the parts of a larger church bell. It has a crown, a shoulder, a waist or skirt, a sound bow, and, of course, a mouth and a clapper. Church bells, of course, can be mounted to beams to swing back and forth, although the largest ones must be struck, because they are so big that swinging can damage the towers.

Bells are complicated to make. Two molds are made using a stone model – one for the outer bell (called the cope) and one for the inner bell, or core – and, once they are fitted together, are laid in a casting pit, and finally liquid bell metal is poured in and left to cool. This requires much care, since too much moisture can leave the bell susceptible to cracks. Some large bells can take up to a week to fully cool! Once it has cooled it can be lifted out and put to use. Since we have not always had trucks, the largest bells once had to be made on site, with casting done inside the church itself or outside in a pit in the earth. Sometimes the bell tower was built on top of the pit!

Learning all this, I think the Fourth Evangelist might welcome the bell as a metaphor for the Jesus the Word’s journey into and out of the world. I think the Evangelist would love that image of those huge Medieval bells lowered into a hole in the earth. Talk about descending to live among us. Talk about incarnation. Talk about an empty tomb and a rising again once the work is completed.

The incarnate Word as church bell: a heavenly thing calling us to worship, telling us what time it is – remember that Johannine refrain, “The hour has come!”

And a bell is the perfect metaphor to illustrate the paradox of Jesus’ life, proclamation, and death.

In today’s reading, we hear Jesus’ words as he prays for his disciples. These verses are at the heart of his long farewell to the ones he loved. And he asks God to do three things.

First, in the verses just before our reading, Jesus asks God to glorify him, in order that he might glorify God. Second, Jesus asks God to protect the disciples, “so that they may be one.” Third, Jesus asks God to sanctify the disciples in the truth.

If we believe that God will give Jesus whatever he asks, then these three commandments can interact with each other in a highly intimate way.

Remember there are two molds required to craft a bell, because a bell has the outer cope, and the inner core. What if the cope was our glory, the glory with which God glorified us, Jesus’ beloved disciples? And what if the core was our sanctity, a space held open for God deep within us, like how the hollow emptiness of a bell is, paradoxically, the necessary ingredient for sound?

For the Evangelist, glory and sanctity are intimately tied up with sacrifice, with a pouring out. They are the things that clothe sacred emptiness. In Pentecost we are clothed with fire and wind. The metal must be molten, and must rest in the earth before it will be ready.

Once it is lifted up, even mere wind howling through a big bell is enough to make a song. But it needs more than just wind or breath to do its true work.

So, finally, what if the clapper was the tongue of every Christian, who, having received protection through Christ, has now been made one, and is commissioned to call out to the world, in order that the whole world can be made one?

What if all Christians, fashioned by the unending love of God, cast with molten sacrifice, laid in the earth and risen again in baptism, have become bells?

If that is so, friends, with apologies to British rock band The Kinks, I say to you:

“Shout out, ring the bells. Shout out, tell the world you’re in love.”