Vulnerable God

A VULNERABLE GOD

In the September edition of the parish magazine of St Paul's, Worcester in 1914, the Vicar, full of enthusiasm, encouraged every able bodied man to volunteer for military service. He himself set an example by volunteering to become a Padre in the Army.

However, at the end of the Great War, that same Vicar wrote in his parish magazine "When I went I believed that the war would end to the benefit of mankind. I believed a better order was coming for ordinary man, and God help me, I believe it still.

But it is not through war that this order will be brought about. There are no fruits of victory, no such thing as victory in modern war. War is a universal disaster and, as far as I’m concerned, I’m through.”

The name of that Vicar was Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, and he knew from first hand experience what he was talking about.

He was born in 1883, the son of a Leeds clergyman. After completing his education at Trinity College, Dublin, he worked for a short time as a schoolmaster at West Kirby in the Wirral.

However, it was not long before he felt called to follow in his father's footsteps. He was ordained and served a curacy at a church in Rugby. There he gave generously of himself, his wealth and his own material possessions to alleviate the suffering of the poor.

His down to earth style of preaching attracted large crowds. He once said that he would like to take a great sledge hammer and smash every stained glass window in the church and then celebrate the Eucharist in a field with a teacup and plate.

He obviously felt that church buildings tended to stifle the effectiveness of the Christian Gospel.

Again, he once said: “Nobody worries about Christ as long as He can be kept shut up in churches He is quite safe there. But there is always trouble if you try and let Him out."

Given such an attitude towards the established Church of England, it is hardly surprising that he readily and enthusiastically volunteered to serve as a Padre in the army.

Here he soon found himself on active service at the Front on at least three occasions. He had suffered from asthma for years, and the appalling conditions in the trenches resulted in many sharp attacks. Nevertheless, whatever the conditions, he insisted on sharing them with the soldiers. He was gassed and nearly blown up by a stray shell.

During the heavy fighting he tended the sick and wounded, and in one engagement, when the supply of morphine ran out at the dressing station, he volunteered to fetch some more. He had to dash from shell hole to shell hole across territory under heavy fire, but returned safely with fresh supplies of the painkiller. After that he was out again, helping to bring in three wounded men. For that day’s work he was awarded the.Military Cross for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty”.

It was not just his courage, but also his personal care of the soldiers - the listening to them, the writing of letters home for them and the sharing of his own innermost thoughts with them – that made him such a popular padre. His liberal distribution of cigarettes to the troops earned him the nickname of "Woodbine Willie".

Yes, Studdert Kennedy knew what he was talking about when he returned home from the war, because he had been there, in the thick of it.

And so I ask myself, why did such a courageous and popular padre, who had been so enthusiastic at first, return to Civy Street so disillusioned? What made him write those words in his parish magazine, "War is a universal disaster, and as far as I am concerned, I’m through”?

Initially he had been inspired by the pious cant of people like Winnington-Ingram, the Bishop of London, who said: "I think the Church can best help the nation first of all by making it realise that it is engaged in a Holy War, and not be afraid of saying so. Christ died on Good Friday for freedom, honour and chivalry and our boys are dying for the same thing”.

Like so many people of his day, Studdert Kennedy believed it was his Christian duty to be involved in the war and that God was on his side.

But as the casualties began to mount, and he saw the suffering of the soldiers, as he moved from trench to trench to comfort the dying and bring medical assistance to those in need, he began to become angry with a God who appeared so indifferent to the suffering. It seemed as if God did not care.

He sought to express his innermost thoughts in simple verse, often using the soldier's language.

In a poem High and Lifted Up Studdert Kennedy denounces the God of power who appears to sit idly by, whilst those on earth suffer.

Seated on the throne of power with the sceptre in Thine hand,

while a host of eager angels ready for Thy service stand.

So it was the prophet saw Thee, in his agony of prayer.

While the sound of many waters swelled in music on the air,

Swelled until it burst like thunder in a shout of perfect praise,

‘Holy, Holy, Holy Father, Potentate of years and days’…

But I stand in woe and wonder; God, my God, I cannot see.

Darkness deep and deeper darkness – all the world is dark to me.

Where is power? Where is glory? Where is any victory won?

Where is wisdom? Where is honour? Where the splendour of the sun?

God I hate this splendid vision - all its splendour is a lie.

Splendid fools see splendid folly, splendid mirage born to die...

Preachers give it me for comfort, and I curse them to their face.

Puny, petty-minded priestlings prate to me of power and grace...

All their speech is drowned in sobbing, and I hear the great world groan,

As I see a million mothers sitting weeping all alone…

And I hate the God of Power on His hellish heavenly throne,

Looking down on rape and murder, hearing little children moan…

One can almost see Studdert Kennedy shaking his fist in anger at the aloofness of God.

No wonder his poems had such a popular appeal at the time. They expressed the innermost feelings of others besides more of himself, and, I suspect, of others in subsequent years, who have found it hard to reconcile their image of an all-powerful God with suffering caused by war.

Such experiences can cause one to doubt the very existence of God himself, As Studdert Kennedy later wrote: "Every man, whether Christian or not, must sooner or later stand in the last ditch face to face with the final doubt. I know that last ditch well. I have stood in it many times”.

And I am sure both you and I have also stood in that ditch of doubt when God appears to fail us.

But has God failed us, or is it that our image of God has failed us?

You see, like Studdert Kennedy, I still cling to a belief in God, though often I can see little evidence for doing so, and often, the evidence that does exist points in the opposite direction.

And this makes me very angry. I don’t like to hear people mocking Him, criticising Him, abusing Him, or scoffing at Him or, at worst, denying His very existence simply because He fails to live up to their expectations.

I am not just angry at His critics. I am in fact, if I am honest, angry at Him because I want Him to defend Himself. I want Him to call up His heavenly spin doctors who will gloss over His apparent impotence to fulfil our personal expectations.

But perhaps this vulnerability is another side of God which we have yet to recognise?

After all, when God chose to reveal Himself in the form of a human being in the person of Jesus, He allowed Himself to become a helpless infant.

And at the conclusion of His earthly life, He allowed Himself to be arrested and tried and never once, by word or action, did He seek to defend Himself,

And finally, upon the Cross, He allowed Himself to be crucified whilst "those who passed by derided Him, shaking their heads and saying ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross!’

"In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes were also mocking Him among themselves and saying. ‘He saved others: He cannot save himself. Let the Messiah. the King of Israel come down from the cross so that we may see and believe’.”

Here indeed is an image of a vulnerable God. A God who chooses not to live up to other people’s expectations in order that they may 'see and believe'. But a God who, in His vulnerability, identifies Himself with our own vulnerability. A God who knows what it is like to be wounded and hurt.

If the two World Wars of the twentieth century and the countless subsequent conflicts since have taught us anything about God it is that He is a vulnerable God who knows what it is to be wounded and hurt and therefore one who understands our human predicament.