We gather on this day of solemn and national remembrance with the storm clouds of war gathering across the world. On this day when we mark the end of war and the commitment to peace, we find ourselves surrounded with the news and stories of conflict all around us.The two-year old war in Ukraine is calcifying in a stalemate with a fifth of that country still occupied by the armies of Russia. In Israel and Gaza the simmering tensions of that place have, in the last two months, erupted into bloody and cruel fighting.
As we seek to make sense of, and understand more fully, the reality and nature of these conflicts we find our vision blurred by new and competing factors. Instead of the receiving a steady supply of information filtered through recognised means, the news we hear comes from many and different sources. Grainy images and videos on mobile phone, self-appointed online experts, and most worryingly of all, images altered and manipulated by artificial intelligence, compete with the traditional forms of media as we seek to understand of the truth of this intense and complex conflict.
Added to this are the ways in which these conflicts have become mapped onto the political and cultural touchstones of our own society. Strong opinions are voiced and sides are taken which can struggle to hold the decades and centuries of relationship and difference at the heart of this conflict. Passionate claims about the brutality of one side and innocence of the other are painted in such bold and vivid colours that it can be hard to discern the nuance and meaning, let alone truth within this terrible conflict.
In the face of all this complexity I have found myself again and again drawn to the wisdom of the twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who famously said that “what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”
When faced with the seeming complexity of human conflict there is biblical precedent for turning first to silence. In the account of Jesus’ trial and cross-examination in the Gospel of John we find Pilate seeking from Jesus’ clarity of who he truly is against the claims and counter-claims of his accusers. Here is a story of someone straining to find and discern the truth through a cacophony of noise. In this passage Pilate asks Jesus a series of questions and after failing to extract from Jesus a satisfactory answer Pilate remarks – as we might faced with the complexity of our own age – “what is truth?” And to this final question Jesus responds to with silence.
As we search for truth, and faced with such deep and seemingly intractable complexity, there is a simple eloquence in silence. A simple eloquence which we will all share in today. The tradition of holding a time of silence in the midst of remembrance is one which is yoked to the commemorations of this day. Although it is not clear who originated the idea of a time of silence, it was already common in the final months of the Great War for daily times of silence to be held to remember those who had already died. The idea was then taken forward with the encouragement of King George V who, in preparation for the first anniversary of the Armistice in 1919, called for “locomotion [to] cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance.”
I encountered the simple eloquence of this yesterday on Armistice Day. Meeting someone in the hustle and bustle of the Cathedral Café suddenly and gently peace and silence broke out at 11am. Without announcement or fanfare the few dozen staff and customers gathered there held a time of remembrance and silence.
It would though be wrong to think that that silence is a retreat from the complexities that we face. In silence we are drawn to two important truths. The first is that in silence we can look beyond our own concerns and prejudices. Another philosopher, this time the French seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal, reminds of this truth when he stated a little provocatively that: “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” In silence we learn to get out of our own way and find the space to recognise the deeper and more complex truths the world presents us.
The second truth is that, within the Christian tradition, it is in silence that we most clearly hear still small voice of God’s love. Silence stands at the heart of the writings of another great philosopher, this time St Augustine, on whose traditions and teachings this Cathedral were founded. For Augustine it is in silence that we hear the deep truth of God. As he wrote: “If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love.”
This is the silence that Jesus presents to Pilate, this is the silence we share in today, this is the silence that speaks to us from the silence of the cross. In this silence, the truth that Jesus draws us to is that against all the hatred and bitterness of the world, amongst all the self-serving statements and bitter recriminations which mar this and every age, stands one clarion truth revealed through the silence of the cross.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The truth we hear through our silence – whether in Pilate’s court, or own prayers, or as we hold before God the names and memories of those who have died in time of war – is the truth and power of love to change and transform the world. It is a truth that convinced St Paul that:
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is this truth which binds our remembrance of past conflicts to the challenges of this present time.
It is often said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I am not always convinced by this idea. What I do know, though, is that whatever the future holds, whatever means there might be to remake our broken and fractured world, it will never succeed unless it is built on the truths and peace and sacrifice and love which we will hear if we tune our ears again to the silence that lies at the heart of this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment