Acts of Love, Moments of Love
“‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?’” — Matthew 20:15a.
I have often mentioned here that I have some background as a writer in theater. Also, as many of you know, I am a fan of the composer Stephen Sondheim.
And so, perhaps simply because of nostalgia, wanting to be in touch with my past, I keep tabs on the doings in professional theater. Hence and therefore, I am aware a revival of my favorite Sondheim show, Follies, a production which features the Broadway diva Bernadette Peters, opened this week.
It is a show considered by many to be Sondheim’s seminal work, but one not widely known outside of theater circles. Well known or not, the reviews for this production were glowing.
If one only considers the setting for Follies, it is an intriguing premise. The action takes place in a theater about to be torn down and replaced by a parking lot.
The stage of the old theater is where a review known as The Follies played year after year after year. The story depicts a reunion of Follies girls, chorus girls who have come there to trade reminiscences, have a drink and tell a lie or two about themselves as they enjoy each other’s company, perhaps for the last time.
The action concentrates on two of these former show girls and the men, the stage door Johnnies, they married. As the tale unfolds, you find out the men these chorines married were not the men they were dating when they were young. They each wound up marrying the man the other woman was dating.
One married a sophisticated chap, now a diplomat, and lives on Park Avenue. On the surface that marriage seems cold, bitter. The other lives in the mid-west. She married a regular guy, a traveling salesman, but longs for the excitement she thinks she might have missed out on, living the high life in the big city.
Hence, questions hang over the interactions of these four people as the evening evolves. Did each girl marry the right guy? Or should they have stayed with their first love? How do they feel about where they wound up? Each gave up something in the transaction. What were the trade offs? Were the trades worth the cost? And is love simply a trade off, a transaction, and that’s all?
One character reflectively sings these words: “The road you didn’t take / Hardly comes to mind, / Does it? / The door you didn’t try, / Where could it have led? / The choice you didn’t make / Never was defined. / Was it? / Dreams you didn’t dare / Are dead. / Were they ever there? / Who said! / I don’t remember, / I don’t remember / At all.” [1] (Slight pause.)
Throughout the unfolding reunion party, the audience watching today can see ghost like figures, unseen by these two couples. The ghosts are the younger versions of the older characters. They never speak to their older selves but stand near their counterparts, observing. This allows the audience to see these relationships as trapped in time— trapped in and by the past, trapped in and by the present.
Follies, you see, is a musical not just about a reunion and a theater being torn down. The irony found in the title is that the show addresses human follies, human limitations. And the show addresses life and love and the passage of time and the importance of art and choices and the possibilities of success and failure.
Now, I attended the opening night of the first production of Follies. And just two days later I was sitting in a classroom at New York University where Stephen Sondheim was, personally, offering some thoughts about human follies— thoughts about life and love and the passage of time and the importance of art and choices and the possibilities of success and failure.
By this time Sondheim had written four hit shows— the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy and both music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Company. It was fascinating to hear him address how commercial theater operates. He was blunt.
“You are only as good as your last show,” Sondheim said. “If your last show was a success, then it becomes that much easier to raise money for the next one. A flop doesn’t mean your finished. It does mean everything is harder the next time out.”
He went on to be clear that the intrinsic value of a work of art was not the same thing as commercial success. Sondheim knows what he wants to see in his work. He gave and gives great importance to real value. But in our society, commercial success means works of little intrinsic value and works of great intrinsic value are equal, if they are equally successful.
Decisions are based on return. Hence, there is only one basic question we ask. What is the return for cost? What is the return for cost? (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Matthew: “‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?’” (Slight pause.)
A classic question for our age, world wide, is not ‘what is something worth?’ We do not ask ‘what is the depth and dimension of something?’ We do not ask, ‘what is the value?’ We ask: ‘what does it cost?’ We justify everything by cost, not by value, not by meaning.
We seem to look only at math, only at numbers, when the depth, dimension and the spirit of life entails so much more than that. Asking what something costs while not asking about value may seem like a modern malady. It is not.
This is, in many ways, the problem of the laborers who went into the vineyard early. They concentrate on cost. So they expect to be reimbursed. They expect a return.
But is asking what something cost, is asking what return you get, something we should ask about relationships? How often have you heard the phrase, “How much do you love me?”
I want to suggest that if there is something you’re feeling that you are labeling as love and you can quantify it— as in “how much?”— it is not love. Love cannot be measured. (Slight pause.)
These words from the work known as Jonah have a message for us too (quote): “Is this not exactly what I said would happen, when I was still in my own country? That is why I left and fled to Tarshish; I knew that you are a God who is gracious and merciful, tender and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and abounding in steadfast love,...”
Put another way, Jonah knew God loves. And Jonah knew that love cannot be quantified, love cannot be measured. Love cannot even be confined to time. So, Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. Why?
Deep love, true love is not transactional. Jonah was demanding a transaction. Jonah wanted to see the Ninevehites punished, but knew God is (quote): “...ready to relent from punishing or violence.” (Slight pause.)
And so it is in the vineyard. At the end of the day, the workers line up for their pay. And what is their complaint? Their real complaint is that they are not paid in coin. Their real complaint is with what the landowner chooses to give.
The landowner chooses to give of self. Hence, what the landowner really chooses to give is not a wage. What the landowner chooses to give is love. Love, you see, cannot be quantified. Love is just there. Love is giving of one’s self. (Slight pause.)
As I indicated, we live in a world where we quantify everything, including love. And perhaps that’s Jonah’s complaint and the complaint of the vineyard workers: we do not know what to do with unconditional love, eternal love. But, of course, we think of human love as trapped in time. Is it?
The love God offers is eternal love. It is not trapped in time. The love God offers is unconditional love, love that cannot be broken into transactions. But, if the love God offers is a part of love, even human love, then human love is not trapped in or by time, either.
Indeed, the love God offers transcends human love but offers us a way to see love which is beyond our imagining. And, indeed, the love God offers is, in the words of Paul, love which surpasses our understanding. Still, it is real love. And it is eternal. Amen.
09/18/2011
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “We experience love in specific acts, in specific moments. God, on the other hand, is always loving, and loves all people. I want to suggest that, while we cannot really understand that, this is the theological truth: God loves not just in acts and in moments, but for all time and in all ways.”
BENEDICTION: God surprises us and provides for us. Let us trust God and give thanks. Let us seek God’s will. And may the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Jesus born of our sister Mary, the one who is the Christ, and the Holy Spirit who broods over the world as a mother hen over chicks, be upon us and remain with us always.
[1] The Road You Didn’t Take from Follies by Sondheim.
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