Letter to Jay 7/4/2002

The former Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, died on 10^th November 1940. Shortly afterwards, Winston Churchill spoke the following words about him in an address to the House of Commons. “It fell to Neville Chamberlain, in one of the supreme crises of the world, to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were those wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart – the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour”.

In this speech Churchill was certainly more generous to Chamberlain than many subsequent commentators, yet his remarks remind us all too clearly of the pitfalls that will inevitably confront those who seek peace. Peace of a kind followed the unconditional surrender of opponents at the end of the Second World War, but it has proved difficult to sustain. There have been a number of conflicts since 1945, some of major proportions and duration, such as those in Korea and Vietnam. The violence in the Middle East has become endemic. The events of the last year have highlighted the difficulties of peacemaking, for even though recent conflicts are more limited, they can still be extremely costly in terms of people’s lives and wellbeing.

The problem is not confined to international relationships. Our personal lives can often be marred by the eruption of violence, which can be emotional and verbal as well as physical. The causes of this can vary, but there is little doubt that the sheer pace of life in our society, coupled with the expectations we have, can so easily create the stresses that will disrupt our peaceful coexistence. It is easy to blame such things as drugs or alcohol, yet these are often a response to the insatiable demands of our simply surviving in this world. The problem is not confined to secular life, for the Body of Christ itself is seriously disfigured by similar conflicts, which may often have their origins in tribal and doctrinal assumptions.

We are left to ponder a number of issues. How is real peace brought into existence and sustained? At what cost can it be acquired, and how reasonable is it for us to ask others to suffer for it? How far should the law attempt to impose peaceful relationships between members of our society? Few people – Christians included – would accept that peace can be brought at the cost of justice or human dignity, or that real harmony can be imposed by Act of Parliament. If peace is accompanied by the enslavement of people, it is not real peace at all, but subservience. The doctrine of Just War stems in part from the recognition that there may be good reasons for nations to refuse peace at any price.

Certainly, the peace that Jesus brings us was acquired at a terrible cost. In the Gospel account (John 20:19-31) he shows his disciples the wounds to his hands and his side. Yet, paradoxically peace can be found at the very heart of conflict. Those who were gathered in that room in the aftermath of the first Easter were subsequently to find themselves able to experience that kind of peace in the most unlikely and unpleasant situations. For by breathing his Spirit upon them, Jesus had given them the power to withstand their consequent pain and suffering. They were released from their fear, and were empowered to go out into the world, where they risked stoning, imprisonment, and the wrath of both the authorities and the crowds. Two thousand years later, we can still experience this in our own lives, even when these are lived to the full.

So what is necessary to acquire this kind of peace? The key lies in the second part of the Gospel, which is concerned with Thomas. He was not present on the initial occasion, and his reaction on being told of what had occurred, was to demand proof that the figure whom the other disciples had recognised was indeed Jesus himself. However, when he was actually confronted by the evidence – in the form of the wounds to Jesus’s body – he found that he did not need to put it to the test. He simply made a profession of faith: he acknowledged Jesus to be his “Lord and God”. Thomas was therefore in much the same position as a Christian is today: his simple trust in and willingness to follow Jesus was all that was required of him. Jesus also tells him that whilst his belief arises from what he has seen, those who have not seen but believe will be blessed. And yet in a very real sense, we do see Jesus because we are aware of those who are still touched by him, and who bare witness to that relationship in what they say and do.

We should take some comfort in all this, for faith is not about certainty. If it was like that – as Thomas himself may have recognised – it would not be the catalyst that it is. Shortly before I was confirmed in 1987, I did a Retreat in a monastery. Being concerned whether I was right to make the commitment that Confirmation implied, I asked the Abbot if there was ever an objective test of faith. He thought for a moment, and then said: “No”. He went on to say that he sometimes wondered why he was doing the job he did, and that I would probably feel the same. Faith, as he rightly pointed out, is a gift of God, and we cannot determine it or possess it for ourselves. It comes and goes. Yet we can persevere, and in doing so we may trust that we will not be taken beyond the point at which our faith ceases to make sense to us. It is also our willingness to make our journey in faith that enables us to draw on the power of the Holy Spirit, without which, as broken and fallible human beings, we can achieve very little. As St Paul told the Galatians, peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and it is in the proper ordering of our lives in the context of our faith that we are best able to realise it.

In an earlier part of his address, Churchill had observed that “it is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any real extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong”. We are, he said, “so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations". These words are as true for us as Christians as they are for anyone else, especially if we are true to our vocation, and live our lives not only in service to God, but also on the spiritual edge. Yet “in this you rejoice”, St Peter tells us, “even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith – being more precious than gold, that though perishable, is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour where Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1: 6-7).