Sermon Archive
His 'sentiments were those of a Christian'
Sermon preached by Kenneth Boyd at Holy Communion on 19 March 2006
Exodus 20:1-17 ; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ; John 2:13-22
Afghanistan and its neighbour Pakistan are countries we often hear about in the media today; and most of us, I think, could find them in an atlas. But where and what is Frangistan? No, it's not one of the former Soviet Central Asian republics - Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and other 'stans' I won't risk trying to pronounce. So where and what is Frangistan? Well, not far from here, there is a man, often seen walking in Princes Street Gardens, and even now seated there, who can tell us.
The man, if you haven't already guessed, is Sir Walter Scott. He is now, of course, cut from a 30-ton block of Carrara marble, and with his deerhound Maida at his side, seated under the canopy of his great Gothic steeple in Princes Street Gardens. But a hundred and eighty years ago, in January 1826, he was walking in the same Gardens, deep in conversation with his close friend James Skene. Skene, a gifted man 'with a wide range of interests encompassing science, history, literature and the arts', had designed the layout of the recently completed Gardens in which they walked. For his pains, Scott noted, Skene had 'undergone much criticism, the usual reward of public exertions'. But to Scott's mind, the Gardens' design was highly satisfactory; and he found their historic setting, 'beneath the grim old Castle… a place to cure one of too much sensation over earthly subjects of mutation'.
Such a cure, undoubtedly, was very much what Scott needed on that January afternoon. Only a few days earlier, he had learnt of what for him was a particularly painful 'earthly subject of mutation' - the financial collapse of his business partners and his own impending bankruptcy. His debts would not finally be paid off, from the proceeds of his subsequent literary exertions, until after his death six years later at the age of sixty-one - a death hastened, many thought, by those very exertions. But nothing less, perhaps, would have satisfied him. The blow was great: but Scott was down, but not out. Within a few weeks he was engaged again in politics, with his Malachi Malagrowther pamphlets in defence of the Scottish banking system, an historic initiative which did much to prevent Scotland sinking further into the obscurity of 'North Britain'; and his novel Woodstock was also on its way to being completed. In his walk with Skene, the Princes Street Gardens cure was beginning to work.
But the cure also came from deeper springs. In his private Journal, on the days before his walk with Skene, Scott recorded and reflected on the fateful reversal of his fortunes, but ended with the words: 'Naked we enterd the world, and naked we leave it. Blessed be the name of the Lord!' And Skene, recalling their conversation on the same subject while walking in the Gardens, wrote this about Scott. 'The sentiments of resignation and of cheerful acquiescence in the dispensation of the Almighty which he expressed were those of a Christian thankful for the blessings left, and willing, without ostentation, to do his best.'
His 'sentiments… were those of a Christian'. Let me come back to that in a moment, but first return to the question we began with. Where and what is Frangistan? And what has it to do with Scott? Well, if you have read the last novel Scott wrote before his financial troubles, again you may already have guessed. The novel was The Talisman, a romance of the 12th century Crusades; and Frangistan, or the land of the Francs, was what the Saracens, or Islamic Arabs, who resisted the Crusaders, called Europe. What Scott tells us about Frangistan, in other words, is that we don't really need to look for it in an atlas, because it's where we live. The Talisman, interestingly, receives honourable mention in the one of the best modern Islamic histories, Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples. In The Talisman, Hourani writes, Scott made the great Saracen leader Saladin 'an epitome of mediaeval chivalry'. And not, we might add, without good historical cause. For while the Christian Crusaders were notorious for having killed all the many Muslims and Jews they found when they conquered Jerusalem - an atrocious case of 'ethnic cleansing' - when Saladin retook the holy city, not a single Christian was killed. Saladin had promised the Christians that he would take the city peacefully and he kept his word. "Christians everywhere will remember the kindness we have done to them", he said.
So, of the Muslim Saladin, as of the Episcopalian Scott, might it not justly be said: his 'sentiments… were those of a Christian'? Well, that, of course, depends on what we mean by the word 'Christian'. According to the dictionaries, the word has at least six different meanings. One of these, now rare or obsolete, is 'a variety of pear or plumb', so we can get rid of that right away. But the other five are interestingly different. Two of them refer to membership and three to behaviour. The two referring to membership are first, 'a member of the religion of Christ or an adherent of Christianity'. This very wide meaning could include all members or adherents of all Christian churches, or indeed, as the recent census suggests, the majority of people in countries which were historically Christian. But the second, 'a member of a particular sect using this name' is much narrower. It would include, for example, Christian Scientists, or members of those sects or denominations, or of the American 'Christian Right', who exclusively deny the name 'Christian' to the rest of us. Saladin clearly wouldn't fit in with any of these, nor perhaps, with the first of the three meanings related to behaviour: 'a person who follows the precepts and example of Christ'. But the two remaining meanings may be more promising: first, 'a person of genuine piety', and second, 'a (civilized) human being' or 'a decent respectable person'. If that is what being a Christian means, then Saladin, much more justly than the Crusaders who opposed him, deserves to be called someone whose 'sentiments… were those of a Christian.'
But that, of course, is unlikely to have been how a good Muslim like Saladin would have wanted to be described; and stretching the term to include a Muslim might not have appealed to our European forebears either. 'You're a better man that I am, Gunga Din' was probably as far as most of them would have ventured. That is not to say, however, that the European habit of using the word 'Christian' to refer, approvingly, to 'a person of genuine piety' or even 'a decent respectable person' necessarily was mistaken. Part of the historical role of Christianity, as of Islam, and before them of Jewish religion, has been to encourage law-abiding conduct, and indeed the virtue Saladin called 'kindness', especially among our Northern ancestral tribes, who were often cruelly unkind, savage and generally lawless. And that may be part of the reason why the Ten Commandments, which we heard in our first reading this morning, continued so long to be emphasised in the Church's teaching. Although originally delivered to an ancient people, who were, for example, polygamous, and saw no objection to killing their enemies, the Commandments were, and often still are, seen as a good way of summing up the moral basis of any civilized, or decent and respectable society.
To be 'Christian' in that historical sense then, was to behave like 'a (civilized) human being' or 'a decent respectable person'. But the problem with that, of course, is that it may appear a very culturally prejudiced way of putting things. As Sir Walter Scott's contrast between the noble Saladin and the ignoble Crusaders reminds us, and as our growing awareness of other faiths now forces us to admit, Christianity has no monopoly of human decency or genuine piety. Nor has Christianity in Europe always succeeded in becoming more than skin deep. If being a Christian is understood to mean being 'a decent respectable person', then perhaps that is something. But so were the Pharisees, decent, respectable people; and if we ask why so many people in Europe no longer care for the Church, one of the reasons may be because they perceive it as a haven of outdated, and for them stifling, respectability. That view, we may of course say, itself is outdated. But old prejudices take a long time dying.
Scott hinted that there was more to Christianity, perhaps, when he introduced into The Talisman the weird figure of the desert hermit, Theodorick of Engaddi. Theodorick, with his extreme austerities and penances, may be a caricature of the Christian desert saints. But his spiritual zeal for the Christian faith, in such strong contrast to the worldliness of its official representatives in the novel, is a dramatic reminder that Christianity is about more than making people civilized, decent or respectable. If anyone doubts this, we need only recall our second reading this morning. Jesus' cleansing of the temple was not very 'civilized'. It was shocking to the Jewish religious authorities who witnessed the scene, and imagined that when he said "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up", he referred to the building in which they were standing. But it is embarrassing too, to our modern sensibility, especially if we imagine that the best we can hope for is a civilized, decent or respectable life in a democratic society. Christ's resurrection, of which we have no historical record except the New Testament, is perhaps even less credible to a modern than an ancient secular world view. Surely this life must be all there is, surely the human longing for ultimate happiness must simply be a desire to return to the bliss of the womb. But what historical or scientific evidence is there for those 'musts'? For minds not prejudiced by those 'musts', mustn't the question of Christ's resurrection remain a genuinely open one?
How shall we answer this question? Words, on their own, are not enough. "I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." Yes, but beyond those words there is a mystery, and our best response to it may that of the desert hermit in Scott's novel: "I [am] humble in my ignorance… [but] not hopeless". What we need to answer the question Christ's resurrection puts to us, is not a theoretical but a practical answer. An answer made not with our lips, but with our lives, here and now, in the challenges, personal and political, which life presents to us. Sir Walter Scott's sentiments then, perhaps are not a bad example for us to follow: to respond to life's challenges with the 'cheerful acquiescence in the dispensation of the Almighty… of a Christian, thankful for the blessings left, and willing, without ostentation, to do [our] best'.
References
'Carrara marble': Gifford J et al., The Buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1984: 314
'with a wide range of interests': Byrom C, The Edinburgh New Town Gardens Edinburgh: Birlinn 2005:112.
'undergone much criticism': Tait J G (ed) The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd 1950: 78.
'Naked we enterd': ibid:75.
'The sentiments of resignation': ibid: 79 fn.
'an epitome of mediaeval chivalry': Hourani J A History of the Arab Peoples London: Faber and Faber 2005: 300.
'not a single Christian was killed': Armstrong K A History of Jerusalem London: Harper Perennial 2005: 293.
'dictionaries': definitions from the The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary 1993.
'I [am] humble in my ignorance' Sir Walter Scott The Talisman (Holyrood Edition of The Waverley Novels Vol XX) London; The Gresham Publishing Company. n.d.: 307
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