FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Swords

Rant Number 350 19 May 2009

An enjoyable clip on YouTube shows Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah meeting Benedict XVI in the Vatican. White-robed Saudi princes and black-cassocked, Arab-speaking monsignors buzz about, like bluebottles in a jam jar. One gift the Pope gets from his host is a sword. Not just any old sabre, no. A precious, diamond-encrusted affair. You hear the Pontiff thanking Abdullah, in soft Italian: ‘Che bello! La spada di San Paolo.’ St Paul’s sword.…Fair enough. Christian iconography represents St Paul holding a sword. (Same Pauline emblem turns up in the City of London’s coat of arms.) Neat Biblical symbolism. Goes back to a passage in the Apostle’s Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 6. Gorgeous stuff about spiritual warfare and spiritual weaponry. ‘The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’ Best weapon in the world, if you ask me, yep.

The Saudi flag too displays a sword. ‘I don’t know what it means’, averred a charming Saudi student I met the other day in Londonistan. Conversely, my erring son, cocky young Linus, had no doubts. ‘Of course, dad! It is the sword of Islam, what else?’ he chirped. ‘Jihad, that’s it, isn’t it?’ Groan…a cross the priest has to bear. Offspring with islamophobic tendencies, no less. Must be a punishment from my sins…Regardless, the hoary Orientalist cliché should be resisted. Historically, Christians and Muslims alike have hardly recoiled from what the Vikings called ‘the sword’s water’, blood. Islam is no religion like the Quakers, sure, but neither is mainline Christianity. Conversions to the Crescent did not, on the whole, take place at the point of the sword. And a prophetic hadith makes it clear that Muhammad did not favour the sword. Fighting is primarily that of the spiritual and preaching variety. St Paul would have agreed.

‘Put your sword back into the scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup my Father has given me?’ Jesus says in St John’s Gospel. A text Christian pacifists have taken as normative. In disarming Peter, Jesus would have disarmed every soldier. Yet, as a shrewd Jewish correspondent once reminded me, Jesus did tell the apostle to go and buy a sword. Gospel truth. Just look up St Luke, chapter 22, vv. 35-38. The Lord is addressing the disciples ‘…and he who has no sword, let him sell his garments and buy one...so they said “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And he said to them: It is enough’. Bit of a shocker, eh?

A scholar urged interpreting these pronouncements as ironical. Jesus is teaching the disciples about their mission after his ascension into Heaven. Had he really meant them to fight their powerful enemies, what use would a couple of swords have been? Rather, he knew that Peter and another follower already had swords. Naturally, as they journeyed through regions infested with bandits and robbers, some disciples would have carried weapons. To defend themselves and especially women in their midst from violence. A point immediately grasped by my Saudi student. Semites understand these things better than effete Aryans... So the Messiah first told them how divine providence has protected them in the past and then ironically suggested that now perhaps, as he was about to leave them, they’d better go and buy arms. On being told about the two weapons, Jesus’ words seem to convey irony, a dismissal, maybe even a certain sadness: ‘Enough of this!’ Then, when Peter wounded the servant of the Jewish High Priest with a sword strike, the Master promptly rebuked him. How sensible.

Aye, too sensible. The fact remains that Jesus commanded his disciples to buy swords. To arm themselves. ‘The sword suggests resistance against the Evil One’ a commentary notes. Sure. But you can buy a real, material sword, not a spiritual, symbolic one. For one thing, you need money to buy the former, unlike the latter. Western commentators don’t like the enigmatic or disturbing elements in Jesus’ teachings. The menace we sometimes perceive in his language: (‘The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and men of violence take it by force.’) The Zen masters of Japan would have had no such difficulties. Deshimaru Roshi, a roguish, hilarious Zen teacher, once told me: ‘Frank, you must never forget that Jesus was a king. That is the most important thing about him.’ Back then, as a callow youth, it bothered me. ‘King? What king? Wasn’t he a carpenter? Another koan, another cussed riddle’ I fretted. Now I think I kind of get it. Kings and swords go together, right? However, if you visit the Tower of London, amongst the Crown Jewels you’ll admire the royal sword called Curtana. Look at it. The blade’s point is broken. That sword isn’t good for killing. It is a sword of mercy. A king too should be just but also merciful, like The Merciful. Hmmm...I suspect old Deshimaru would shake his head. ‘You still haven’t got it, Frank’. Too bad. Zen masters are like that. Hope I get it, one day.

St Paul of course had no problems with the real sword. In Romans 13 he pulls no punches: ‘If you do evil, be afraid.’ The ruler, he says ‘does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.’ Oh, well, the City of London Corporation surely must relish this warning. Capitalists all over the world would applaud. But, come to think of it, so would many old ladies in South London crouching in their little flats in fear of hooligans and muggers. And a few scoundrel financiers, like Bernie Madoff, would tremble. Yes, St Paul, a wise old bird, knew it all.

Linus sticks to his guns. A film maker in Sweden, the boy threatens to shoot a documentary ‘exposing the inborn violence in the Crescent faith.’ With Job-like patience, I point out to him how, if the sword really was emblematic of Islam, my nice Saudi student would have recognised it straightaway. (In Saudi they have a sword dance but that’s simply Bedouin, not Islamic.) In fact, he did not. But Linus is undeterred. Stubborn as a mule, he displays the true insipience of youth. That excuses him, partly. So I don’t think his father will excommunicate him. Well, not yet.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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