For much of my adult life I have lived with the image of a man with a sword between his teeth. This is not because I come from a family of pirates. It is because I was ordained in the diocese of Chichester and have worked in that diocese for more than half of my years as a priest. The diocesan coat of arms is not like that of other dioceses, emblazoned with keys or crowns, mitres or fleur de lys. Staring out from every diocesan communication, handbook, or service paper is a man seated on a throne with a book in his left hand, his right hand raised in blessing and a sword between his teeth. The Chichester diocesan coat of arms is of course based on this evening’s reading from the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, and its image of ‘one like a son of man’ out of whose ‘mouth came a sharp double edged sword.’ I am not sure what effect that image is likely to have on the Bishop, clergy and congregations of that diocese or for that matter on this diocese whose shield is emblazoned with crossed swords implying either that the clergy have a penchant for verbal duelling or that in our ministry we should fight the good fight.
The author of Revelation clearly has in mind the words of the servant of the Lord in Isaiah: ‘He made my mouth like a sharpened sword.’ Or again ‘with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.’ Those words imply the extraordinary power of divine speech; and that idea is taken up by the author of Ephesians, who speaks of ‘the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.’ And again in Hebrews we find, ‘ the word of God sharper than any two edged sword, which penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit and discerning the thoughts of the heart.’ And just to complete the picture the image recurs again in Revelation in the image of the Rider on the white horse, whose name is the word of God and out of whose mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.’
It is an image about which me must feel some nervousness on Remembrance Sunday; the same nervousness not to say repulsion which was felt by Woodbine Willie. That name both teasing and affectionate was given to one of the most popular chaplains in the trenches of the first war. He distributed cigarettes to the troops hence the name which stood in for the rather more impressive but less easily pronounced Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy. Studdert Kennedy also wrote war poetry, but his collection, The Unutterable Beauty, is never remembered in the same breath as the poetry of Owen or Sassoon. His style is much more old fashioned and explicitly religious, but in places none the less dramatic. That war was the first seriously to challenge the Church of England, its bishops, its theology and its credibility. Studdert Kennedy’s theology was transformed when he tripped over a dead German boy soldier in a wooded copse on June 17th 1917. As he looked.’it seemed to me that the boy disappeared and in his place there lay Christ upon his cross.’ And he heard the words, ‘In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my little ones you have done it unto me.’ ‘From that moment on I never saw a battlefield as anything other than a crucifix.’
In a subsequent poem he wrote fiercely about the traditional images of God on a throne, wielding the divine power and glory. ‘God I hate this splendid vision, all its splendour is a lie,.. Platitudinously pious far beyond all doubts and fears God, the God I love and worship reigns in sorrow on the tree, Broken, bleeding but unconquered, very God of God to me.’ Such a rejection of traditional images of God is not now as shocking to us as it was then. We have absorbed the message of the war poets. And yet we have still not resolved this difficulty that there is so much imagery of war in Scripture and hymnody. We live with it there as much as we live with it in our world. On Remembrance Sunday the ambiguities of war still haunt us. For we are bound to remember not only the waste of human life, the cruelty and guilt, but also the courage, self sacrifice, and power of friendship forged in war in the most unlikely people. And we are bound to remember also that we are at the moment ‘at war’ in Iraq and in a difficult contest with terrorism. And although the wars we remember today are principally the two world wars of the last century the period since then has not exactly been one of peace. It is equally appropriate today to think not only of war but also of what we really mean by peace. For the peace we are said to enjoy is far from the peace of which Jesus speaks of to his disciples in the Upper Room before his betrayal;’ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’ The man with the sword between his teeth speaks of a peace which the world cannot give it is confusing, but how are these ideas to be reconciled?
In the current spat between the government and the former ambassador to Washington, over the latter’s recent autobiography one criticism has so far struck me more than the rest; and that is the apparent lack of concern for detail of which the prime Minister is accused, in comparison with some of his predecessors. In any walk of life there is always a conflict between detail and decision. How much detail do you need before you make a decision? How many decisions have been mishandled through being over-encumbered by detail? Would the war in Iraq have been fought at all if someone had been more concerned for the details? Would the war in Iraq have better served the Iraqi people if there had been more detail in the planning? Clarity, precision, determination, perseverance, and deep discernment are needed to maintain this knife-edge balance between detail and decision. It takes the skill of the master surgeon, or the wielder of that double edged sword which penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; which judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.’
The sword of the spirit, the sword which is the word of God, is the sword which alone will make sense of the senseless, reveal reality in place of illusion, and distinguish between responsibility and innocence. The sword is the judgement of God which alone sees all the detail and the pattern in the detail of all that we remember today. And that sword is held by the one who was the victim of a cruel miscarriage of justice, a lack of concern for detail, a bargain between men of power. Pilate and Caiaphas could not see further than the desperate attempt to preserve their own power at all costs and were themselves victims of the system they lived to administer.
When Mary and Joseph and their baby encountered the old man Simeon in the Temple, Mary is told that a sword will pierce her own soul too. She is to share in the fate of Israel that her son will implement, whereby the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. She is to share in that testing which shows that none of us can in the end make sense of our experience and our memories. We can never fully understand the intricate detail of responsibility and innocence, goodness and sin, failure and achievement, The sword pierces her as it pierces us all, as it pierced Israel and all our nations. And yet this is the one sword in the world which we are not to fear. It is the one sword wielded without violence. It the one sword which puts an end to all misunderstanding, fear and suspicion. And all because it is the only sword to be wielded by unconditional love – the unconditional love of Woodbine Willie’s ‘broken bleeding but unconquered God.’ And therefore it is the only sword which can truly judge our history of war and violence. And therefore in the dioceses of Chichester and London we should keep this image of the one true sword, for without it we can never hope to learn to beat all our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks, on that day when the nations will not learn war any more. Amen.
Stephen Tucker