SERMON SERIES WEEK 2-LENT: A TIME FOR LOVE. LOVE DOES NOT ENVY
Would any of you like to guess what colour was in vogue around in the Victorian era (the mid 1800’s) in London and Paris? What if I show you this picture:
Would you like to guess again? Green! Green had risen to breathtaking popularity in England and France since an artificial colourant was first invented in the late 1700s by Carl Scheele. Some researchers suggest this was a reaction to living in the era of the industrial revolution with sooty, smoggy greys dominating the streets. Green wallpaper and paint had fast become the colour of choice for interior décor, drapery and clothing, and it was fashionable to have imitation foliage and flowers as centrepieces and adornments, made from cloth dusted from a powered form of green dye.
Scheele’s green accurately and attractively mimicked natural garden hues, something that was very appealing for those in big cities. It was therefore a highly marketable product, and therefore also a very profitable one.
But the cost of Scheele’s Green wasn’t only monetary. Those who wore green dyed garments experienced skin irritations and open sores. When Dr. Vernois visited a Paris workshop in 1859 and observed employees in an artificial flower studio, he noticed that under their fingernails, on their forearms covered with sores, and in the creases of their elbows, the same bright emerald coloured dust. Employees in the artificial flower workshops were being slowly destroyed from the outside in by their contact with the artificial colourant. Just two years later, an artificial flower maker in London, nineteen-year-old Matilda Scheurer, died.
Scheele’s Green was toxic. It was made with sodium carbonate, copper sulphate and arsenic trioxide—think bright green rat poison. Those working with the powdered form of Scheele’s Green inhaled the arsenic, especially those sitting at tables dusting artificial leaves with green powder to make them appear more lifelike. How ironic, that trying to make something appear more lifelike would be fatal. For poor Matilda Scheurer, her final stages were horrible. The arsenic had reached her stomach, liver and lungs. She vomited green, the whites of her eyes had turned green, and she allegedly told her doctor that everything she looked at was green[1].
Perhaps this close association of green colour with illness and even death is why animators often colour the faces of their character’s green when they are ill!
Perhaps this is also why there is an association of green with envy. Because envy is just as deadly as arsenic poisoning. To be envious of someone is where a person has a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, position of responsibility, success and blessing.
The envious person views the other as a rival, resenting them and leading them to act out in unhealthy, sinful ways, usually involving undermining them, gossiping about them, casting doubt about their accomplishments, avoiding functions that honour those we envy or hoping for something bad to befall them. Envy is sin, the wages of which is death. James partners envy with selfish ambition: “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16). Envy gives birth to hatred and resentment, is poisonous and toxic, because while it seeks harm to the other, it has already poisoned our heart within. Proverbs 14:30 “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”
Biblical examples include Cain being envious because the Lord looked with favour on his brother Abel’s offering and not his. He resented his brother so much that he killed him in the field. Joseph’s brothers were envious of him because of their father’s favouritism and in greed sold him into slavery. David was so desired the beautiful Bathsheba and was so envious of her husband Uriah that he had Uriah killed in the front line of fighting so Bathsheba could be his.
Clearly, envy is not the way of Christian love. As we continue on with our theme verse from 1 Corinthians 13, let’s read together tonight’s verse: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy…” (1 Corinthians 13:4).
As we journey through Lent and focus on the Passion narrative, we hear that envy is, however, at the heart of Lent and Easter. Tonight’s narrative begins with the religious leaders looking for some way to do away with Jesus. They were envious of Jesus—of the following he had attracted. It was because of envy that Jesus would be handed over. They didn’t care at all that he freed people from the power of the kingdom of darkness, that he brought healing help, that he showed mercy and grace to those who were in otherwise hopeless situations, helpless to help themselves. They saw Jesus as a rival to their established religious framework built on human traditions, and hated it that so many had turned to him.
As we progress through the Passion Narrative, we might be shocked to hear that it is not only the enemies of Jesus who display the characteristics of envy. It is Jesus’ own disciples. The setting of tonight’s text is the Passover—the commemoration of God’s merciful and miraculous rescue of his people of old from bondage to Egyptian slavery. A Passover lamb was sacrificed and its blood painted over the homes of those who trusted in God’s promise of deliverance, before he miraculously led them through the Red Sea. Jesus was celebrating this meal with his disciples, but would now do something new—institute Holy Communion so that God’s sign of favour and deliverance would now be given by the blood of Jesus, our Passover Lamb, over the doorway of our hearts, for deliverance from the bondage to sin.
It is with this as the backdrop that the whole sordid affair of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus for money comes to the surface. Looks like what Jesus had said earlier really is true: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Luke 16:13).
Yet as much as the betrayal of Jesus should shock the disciples, they instead use this as an occasion to dispute who among themselves is considered the greatest. Who would do something like that? Would it really be someone among their company? Confusion and perhaps disbelief quickly gave rise to self-assertiveness, self justification, pride and boasting. Who was being noticed more? Who was the most successful? Who loved Jesus the most? Who had the most converts? Who had the best ministry among them? Each wanted to be the greatest. Each envied the other.
Could you imagine if God loved that way—loved from a selfish standpoint, and was envious—ditching people for those who performed better, or looked better, or worshipped better.
Thank God that he doesn’t. We heard last week that God himself is love, and he defines what love is. It is patient, and kind, and does not envy. Envy is all about the self. But true love loves people for who they are, even when it’s hard to feel like loving them.
Jesus brings sharp correction to his disciples, and a reminder to us: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?
Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves (Luke 22:25-27).
Jesus was not envious of others, like the Romans who were in worldly power, or the religious leaders of Israel who were mistakenly admired by so many as learned teachers. He wasn’t envious of those who were rich with the material things of this world, which will one day pass away. But he became the least, humbled himself and became obedient unto death. He did that for all people. He did that for you, to give us treasures in heaven that will last forever.
He did that for you because he loves you, and his Father in Heaven loves you, just as you are. Rather than being envious and hording for himself, Your Father in heaven has opened his storehouse and lavished upon you all his gifts in Christ, so that you have more than we can even begin to imagine. In Christ you are richer than the world’s billionaires combined. You share in Jesus own righteousness, and holiness, and through faith in him you will eat and drink at his table, and sit with him on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Do not be envious of others, brothers and sisters, for your worth and identity as Christians is not in what you do or do not have, not in what you are or are not good at, not in success, popularity, or performance. Lent is not a time for green, but for the purple of royalty as we pay homage to Jesus. It is time for the black of the ashes of our sin and mortality. It is a time for the red of the blood of Christ, shed for you, because of his love for you. Your worth is in Christ alone, who loves you so much he went to the Cross for you, so that nothing could separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. As Wesley wrote in his hymn, on the Cross, God emptied himself of everything but love.
He did not think of himself, but thought of you, and acted, decisively for you, that you would be redeemed by his precious blood and reconciled with God to share in his life forever. He is still here with you again tonight as one who serves. He serves you through his word, that we would have ears to listen to him, eyes to be focused on him, and hearts that are emptied of envy and filled with his love—his own love. For God is love, and he loves you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
[1] Kelleher, Katy (2018) Scheele’s Green, the colour of fake foliage and death, The Paris Review, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/02/scheeles-green-the-color-of-fake-foliage-and-death/ last accessed 21/2/2024 10:34. Cites David, Alison The Arsenic Dress: How Poisonous Green Pigments Terrorized Victorian Fashion https://jezebel.com/the-arsenic-dress-how-poisonous-green-pigments-terrori-1738374597 November 4, 2015 | 4:00pm
