Perhaps is it easy to say that the beginning of Harry Potter begins with a mark. A mark that will last forever, but one which begins in a most curious of circumstances.
I remember while writing this that the band dashboard confessional wrote an album titled “a mark, a mission, a brand, a scar.”
And perhaps this is the truth of Harry Potter. Scared, branded, marked for a mission that would take his very life, the beginning of Harry Potter can not be overlooked.
When one reads of the great stories of the world, we think not just about the ending but about the beginning.
When J.K. Rowling mentioned to her audience that the finals chapter of the Deathly Hallows had been written for 12 years waiting, I began to examine the moments of the beginning of the story and compare them to the end of the story.
The flow of this series is perfection, almost constantly reminding the reader that there is a defined ending, even if some of the chapters and even a book or two become extremely tedious.
The story of Harry Potter is a book that brings about imagination like few can do. It is like Theologian Walter Bruegemann says about the Bible being “an act of faithful imagination.” The Bible, just like Harry Potter, is an act of faithful imagination, and one that allows us to live faithfully into the imagination and reality of the world around us. The lessons are real, authentic, and magical, even if they never truly happened.
And what becomes real for Harry from the beginning is the fact that he is a marked and scared person, and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps it is the same for us. Why are we the way we are? Why do we carry the traits we do. Why do we act in the way we act? As we grow older, some of this is a simple realization that we are the people we were raised to be. But there are other components that present to us a greater depth that must be probed.
For Harry, the scar’s mark is because of his encounter with Voldemort, or perhaps we should consider at this early stage to call him, “he who should not be named.” When Harry encountered this mysterious and hate filled soul on that fateful night, the killing curse reflected back. But no one is capable of surviving the killing curse. As Barty Crouch’s polly-juiced induced imitation of Mad Eye Moody in book four attests, only one person has ever been know to survive it. And of Course that’s Harry.
But one thing is important. Harry didn’t survive it alone. This is where Harry’s mother of course becomes inseparable from Harry himself. The protective spell Lily cast upon Harry saved Harry’s life, and thus the interaction of the world (Voldemort) and that of the nurturing of a parent (Lily) is what created this mark, this definable characteristic about Harry.
And so, we ask the question of what is this scar. What does is mean that Harry encounters this scar. Ultimately the scar comes from the confluence of two great situation in life: Love and Anger/ Hatred. Every day of our lives, love and anger/ or hatred scar people throughout the world. We have been left with scars from old girlfriends who break our hearts, from parents who say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or from our own harsh words said to another which later we are sorry for… Scars are made every day.
But for Harry, his scar was something more. Something that brought together all the love and anger in the world and it became a symbol of a world’s struggle to recapture a sense of peace and wholeness.
The gospel is full of stories of love and anger being released, battling and ultimately love winning, albeit sometimes after great challenges and loss of life. This is the story of Harry. A boy who lived, a journey he took not to become the greatest of all wizards (we see this very well with the destruction of the elder wand at the end of the deathly Hallows) but rather to overcome perhaps the greatest of all wizards (depending on how you see it). Voldermort was able to become strong, to become the greatest except perhaps Dumbledore, but he did so built on an idea of intense anger, hatred, and a lack of wholeness.
Harry on the other hand was filled from love, less concern for himself and more for his friends. If you read the books, watch the movies, consider every situation Harry gets himself into, rarely is he truly trying to hurt anyone. He instead frees Dobby, which in book 7 is multiple times viewed as one of many ways Harry is “not a normal wizard.” In the final book, as the trio of Ron, Hermoine, and Harry escape Gringotts, the dragon is truly freed to live because of the actions of the three. They could have killed the dragon, kept it for their own use, but they freed it. Other examples of such love and care can be shown through the treating of Grawp, Fang, (the Hippogrif) in book 3.
Love is truly what sets Harry apart. Surrounded by love, Harry survives. But he didn’t have to choose it. The sorting hat is of course a great reminder of the choices that we as human beings are given a choice. Harry could have made a great slytherin, but chose openly to be in Dumbledore. Why would he have been a good slytherin… well later we realize it probably has to do with Harry and Voldermort’s inseparability. He could have chosen to travel down that road, but Harry chose a route that lived more fully into his Mother’s spell than Voldemorts.
So what is a scar. For Harry Potter, and for us, it is the interaction of a society. We all have scars, and we can choose to take those scars and turn them into love, to reconcile and make the world a better place, to let go of the frustration as Harry has to that he is who he is. It’s like Tolkien’s Frodo once remarks to Gandolf.. “I never wanted this to happen…Neither to any to which true duty is required…. Harry embraces the scar, turns it into hope, and figures out how to do it. The only wizard he truly kills is Voldemort, and even that is a defense charm against the avrada kadavra. In book six, the figure of a Loving Harry tells Voldemort that ultimately he will lose out and that he can no love in his life and Harry “PITTIES.” him. I pitty him too, because if he had just seen the ability to love more than himself, he could have saved himself and others all together.
Harry Potter is a book that requires faithful imagination. It requires that be live into the imagination of the fantasy world while still taking the pieces of truth. In this case, and in this sermon series, we might do well to understand how Harry’s life exists because of, his life is lived out as, and his ultimate defeat of Voldemort is all built upon a simple premise that we all can learn from: Love All, Let go of the past, and take the scars and make the choice to do good. And that’s how Scars and Sorting Hats tell the story of Harry Potter.
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