The Gospel according to Cinderella
A Sermon on Mercy and Envy
Be ye therefore merciful
Cinderella loses one happy mother and gains two unhappy ones: the human stepmother and the fairy godmother. The human stepmother is earthly and concerned with what today’s Collect calls "things temporal;" the spiritual or faery godmother, with "things eternal:"
The stepmother is unhappy because of Cinderella's beauty, the love she enjoys from her father, and the noble simplicity of her character: in short, because of Cinderella's good fortune. So she punishes Cinderella, condemning her to a life of drudgery and cruel mockery.
The faery godmother is unhappy because she sees this punishment. Where the stepmother is unhappy at Cinderella's good fortune, the fairy godmother is unhappy at her misfortune.
In their respective unhappinesses, these two characters characterise the virtue exhorted in today's Gospel (Lk 6.36-), and the corresponding vice against which the Epistle (Rom 8.18-) warns: mercy and envy.
Can the blind lead the blind?
The faery godmother, a creature of spirit, sees Cinderella’s suffering with spiritual insight that the stepmother lacks.
The word “mercy” comes from the Latin misericordia, meaning a suffering heart. That is, when the merciful person see someone else's misery, she shares it. When we describe ourselves in the Confession as "miserable sinners," it does not mean that we are grumpy or despairing, but that we are the objects of God's mercy. Compassion and sympathy are similar, both literally meaning "suffering with." And this "suffering with" is at the heart of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, who not only dwelt with us but suffered with us, showing the infinite depths of God's loving mercy.
The fairy godmother, being a creature of spirit, shares this spiritual trait of God. She has the imaginative power to share Cinderella's suffering, and this awakens in her the desire to help her. But the human mother lacks that imagination. We see this in her entire attitude to life, and "things temporal," the material things of this world. She marries for money; she can think of nothing better than showing off her jewellery and finery at high society balls; beautiful things for her are not gateways to the divine beauty, but barriers to it, things to be taken and hoarded in their own right: and any beauty she cannot own she must destroy. Such is the plight of Cinderella, victim of her stepmother's envy.
Both the stepmother and the godmother are unhappy, then, for different reasons: one out of envy, and one out of mercy. But the story of Cinderella shows that these two species of unhappiness have very different ends.
Thanks to the mercy of the fairy godmother, Cinderella is clothed in something much like a wedding gown, gleaming white; she meets her groom to be at the feast; she walks on slippers of glass, which conjure something of the glass sea before the throne of God, and the image of baptism. Thus she becomes a type of spiritual union with the Prince of Princes, and all because of loving mercy she receives through the fairy godmother. She gains the greatest happiness of all.
But look at what happens to the stepmother. When the Prince puts the slipper onto Cinderella's foot, her unhappiness is even further compounded by Cinderella's joy. Her envy is multiplied and comes to fruition in her daughters. Mercy requires the ability to see as others see, “to put oneself into their shoes,” as we say. Corrupted by their mother, the ugly sisters, whose physical ugliness signifies the ugliness of their souls, cannot get their bloated feet into Cinderella’s slipper. It hurts when they try. They cannot rejoice at her joy any more than they can sympathise with her suffering. Their envy drives them to despair.
Conversely, the unhappiness of the fairy godmother, because she is merciful, and shared in Cinderella's unhappiness, is transformed into joy, as she becomes a guest of honour at the wedding.
Judge not
“Judge not,” says the Lord. When we truly put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, it is harder to be judgmental. Imagination feeds mercy.
When we hear the word "judge," we may be tempted to think of a figure in a wig and gown with a gavel, passing judgment. The biblical judges of Israel were not like that, though. They were the leaders, wise men and women who made "judgment calls" between people who came to them with trouble. Their task was taken on by the kings: Solomon’s advice to the two women arguing over a baby is one famous example.
This, I think, is the link between Jesus's words about judgment and about the blind leading the blind; He is telling the disciples how to lead the Church wisely. The answer is to become "perfect" as their "master," Christ our God; and God is the supreme imaginer, who creates all things out of His loving imagination. To be most godlike is to open the imagination to our fullest capacity, becoming a channel of divine love, shaping that love as mercy and forgiveness.
Imagination lets you see the world not as so much stuff to own – from a ballgown or glass shoe to a resented stepdaughter – but as a mirror of the divine glory which invites us into the creative, upbuilding Love who is the Holy Trinity.
The beam in our eye
When we, like the stepmother, lack that imagination, we are suffering from what Our Lord calls a "beam in our eye."
Today’s Epistle (Romans 8) expands on this. St Paul calls the beam “vanity,” which blinds us to the true value of temporal things, and keeps us chained to them. Those pearls and fine cloths which could beautify the stepmother, sisters and Cinderella together are transformed by ugly and possessive souls into gaudiness and vulgar show. The sisters attend the ball which could bring them to blissful union with the Prince and reduce it to a sordid fancy dress party, an opportunity to show off their negligible charms. Some modern celebrities might take note.
Like Cinderella, her stepmother and her stepsisters, we are invited to a great ball. We are invited not at some distant point in the future, but now. It makes no difference what finery we own; it is the fineness of our souls which dictates how we accept the invitation. This world is good and beautiful, and can lead us to the Good and the Beautiful Bridegroom; if only we had the imagination to see beyond the world, and to treat it with mercy and compassion! Not, as St Augustine regretted in his Confessions, to fall upon those beauties and ravage them in lust and envy, but to see them truly: as rungs on the ladder to God.
Yes, the world is in pain, the "travail" of which St Paul, himself beaten, shipwrecked, lashed, was entirely aware. But these are birthpangs of something greater than even we, the most imaginative of God's creatures, can dream of. It is a place at the great feast of the Sons of God, who are the Angels, and who surround and work among us even now, like the faery godmother of the old tale. They work among us today, at the Altar, that foretaste of the Feast, carrying up our sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, and bringing to us the Angelic Food which is the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
If we can just have the imagination to see the merciful Presence of the Crucified One, the Compassionate One here in bread and wine, to see through things temporal the things eternal, then by the grace of God, we may yet grow in mercy.
To Him be all glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.