I don't do this often, if I've even ever done it, but I was kind of chuffed with a recent sermon of mine, and seeing as some (though very few) have asked to read it, I thought to post it up here.
Christmas Day 2021
A week or two ago, I saw on Twitter that there was a radio adaptation of one of my favourite books, Howl's Moving Castle, so one evening when I was too tired to even watch television, I got a hot water bottle, a blanket, and a cup of tea, and I just listened to the story. It was a lovely hour, and afterwards I said to my partner, “I don't really know why I love this book so much”, and his instant response was, “love story of redemption”. And I was just stunned, first by how well he knows me and as I will explore, being truly known is a cornerstone of love, but second by the totemic and fundamental nature of that phrase. Love story of redemption. That’s an integral understanding of our faith. That's four words that sum up the gospel. And from an agnostic!
So if you don’t know it, Howl's Moving Castle is a fantasy novel about Sophie Hatter, a young woman full of grace and truth who has an astonishing power – her words can breathe life into the world. She inadvertently speaks spells over the hats she makes, and draws the attention of the villain, The Witch of the Waste, an incredibly vain woman who has given her heart to a fallen star in exchange for power, and who is threatened by Sophie’s magic. She curses Sophie to appear to be an old woman.
Sophie doesn’t think it’s too bad, but it does mean she has to leave, as she can’t tell her family about the curse, and they won’t recognise her. Once she heads off, she ends up at the titular moving castle, which floats over the hills around her town. She enters and finds Michael who is the apprentice to the castle’s owner, the Wizard Howl, and she also meets Calcifer, a fire creature stuck in service to Howl in a contract that Calcifer persuades Sophie to figure out and break. He promises in exchange to lift her curse that he has been able to recognise. When Howl turns up, he accepts Sophie as a live-in housekeeper, and she starts to get to know him.
Howl thinks he is literally king of the castle, but really he’s a mess. He’s overdramatic, spends hours getting ready in the bathroom, and he pursues young women until they fall in love with him, at which point he scarpers. Sophie describes him thus: “he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical. Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he’s alright but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him, only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, he's a mess.” A prophetic moment is when Michael says that he'll know when Howl is truly in love when Howl doesn't bother to primp and preen before going out.
Now here come some spoilers, but luckily I can’t possibly sum up the whole book, because there’s a whole series of storylines that all wrap up together at the end, so please, do read it if you haven’t already. Sophie realises she’s fallen in love with Howl, but resigns herself to being invisible to him. The Witch of the Waste wants the punish Howl because she is one of the women he dumped, and so sets up an elaborate trap. Sophie falls for it, thinking there’s an innocent woman to save, and in an act of sacrifice for Howl, Sophie is captured in the Waste. Howl comes tearing across the country to save her, unshaven, clothes a mess, dirty and dishevelled, his complete focus on Sophie causing him to ignore his own appearance. Sophie finally works out that Calcifer is a fallen star who has Howl’s heart to stay alive, so she takes Howl’s heart from Calcifer, a heart blackened and shrivelled, and breathes new life into Calcifer, before putting Howl’s heart back in his flesh and dispelling its darkness. She finds she has been transformed back to a young woman, and it turns out that Howl has been falling in love with her in return. They defeat all the baddies, Calcifer decides to stay, and the three of them with Michael become a happy little family.
So. It’s a love story of redemption. What I see is relationship, existence, and identity. What I see is the Christmas story, at least from the cosmic perspective, from the perspective of John’s gospel. It’s not a huge surprise as the author, Dianna Wynne Jones, attended lectures at Oxford by both JRR Tolkien, and CS Lewis.
Relationship, existence and identity, exactly that I see in the John reading. It's all there. How do you know love? How do you see it? How do you choose it?
The villain is ego, diverting our resources towards power and control, and making snap judgements based on appearances and fear, manipulating the world with aggression and duplicity.
The hero is unassuming, devoted, kind, compassionate, and very brave. Words, which are both rational and creative, see through the dazzle and the lies. The truth is brought to light, and life is breathed into the world, where even the wastelands would break forth into song. To persist, to see, and know, and love, that is what wins, a sacrifice that might not be requited. That is what leads to a tidy home, the end of evil, and a disparate household that becomes a united family.
The protagonist – look, I’m afraid in this analogy, we’re the wizard, humanity is Howl. On his own, he is an absolute mess, without eyes to see, not living a true life. His heart is confined by bad habits and destructive ways of thinking. He resists love at first sight, even at second and third. He needs light to see and truth to know. And he can’t do it on his own. It is only when he begins to take responsibility that he runs towards what is good for him, that he devotes himself to the right relationship, not power, that he starts to leave behind that which was sucking the life out of him. It is only when he is honest about his need for the one who loves him that he starts to participate in the work that will truly redeem both himself and his world.
But even once he has made the right choice, it is the one who is the word of life who must give him his new heart, his new flesh, the ability to love truly. She came to him, to be with him, and she saw him, the truth of him, and she loved him. Being known, truly, is a cornerstone of love. He was blind at first, but then he saw, he chose, he changed, and no longer king of the castle, he became hers. The relationship shifted, deepened, and his heart newly recreated beat with intimate access to the cosmic reality that is true love.
Relationship is our purpose, the ability to love truly.
Existence means nothing with power, but everything with love.
Identity is dynamic, chosen and given, seeing and knowing and devoting.
God sees us, and knows us, and sought us out even as we built our illusions and castles in a world forlorn. God persisted, even as we did not know him, born in a backwater, little tiny heart beating for the world in his little tiny chest. He loved us into existence, his purpose in being born was to invite us into relationship, and in choosing love he gives us our identity, he gives us a heart of flesh, the gift of true love. A love story of redemption
