Childish Wisdom

Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to be nice to be a saint. The argumentative St Athanasius, after whom the Athanasian Creed in our Prayer Books is named, was not very nice. As far as I can see, the only reason why the most recent Anglican church calendars half reduced the celebration of S Jerome, one of the greatest biblical scholars and translators in history, to the status of a mere commemoration, is also because he was not very nice. In fact, if you will forgive me a slightly unseasonal reference, even Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of children who taught Father Christmas everything he knows, was not always very nice, either. in AD 325, at the Council of Nicea, which sounds “nicer” by name than it really was, jolly old Saint Nick punched the heretic Arius in the face for suggesting that our Lord Jesus Christ was not fully divine. 

If you want to get an idea of what a not very nice modern-day saint might look like, you could try the HBO series, the Young Pope, though I will warn parents that this programme really is not suitable for children! Although he is played by the British actor Jude Law, the eponymous Young Pope is the Catholic Church’s first American pontiff, and he presents a rather strange and ambivalent character. The Cardinals elected him because he was young and they thought he would be a push-over, someone they could easily manipulate. No one was quite sure about his political and religious views. But when he came to power, they received quite a shock. His views, it turned out, were marginally to the right of Cardinal Lefebvre, and he was not afraid of implementing them, even when this made him act in ways that one could certainly not call nice: for instance, sending a wicked but old and arthritic cardinal off to an exciting new post in Alaska. He describes himself as vindictive and unforgiving. And yet, it seems that he is capable from time to time of miracles, the greatest of which I'm not going to tell you, just in case you haven't seen the series yourself yet. Suffice it to say that he is not easy to love: but actually, I think this is a far more authentic and credible depiction of sainthood any sentimental hagiography.

So why am I going on about this? What have Saint Nicholas and the young Pope got in common, and what have they got to do with today's readings? The answer is: children. 

Today's lesson from the book of Wisdom speaks of someone who calls himself the child of the Lord and so claims a special knowledge of God, even of his secret purposes; who boasts that God is his father, and who is therefore condemned to a shameful death. Christians have since the earliest days understood Christ as God’s Word and Wisdom Incarnate, and in Saint Mark’s gospel, the Lord reveals that to become great in the church is to be as a child, and to welcome children in his holy name. The divine Word who was with God in the beginning and who is God speaks to us both in the ancient book of Wisdom, and Incarnate in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ to the same effect: it is the child who knows God best.

But I still haven't said what the Young Pope has got to do with children. Nor, you might have noticed, have I mentioned the Epistle, from Saint James. Now James here, alone among today's three readings, does not explicitly speak about children at all; and this is where the Young Pope comes in. There is one episode where he preaches a sermon in a war-torn corner of Africa that really does have an air of saintliness about it; and this is the moment that really stuck out for me when I was reading today’s texts:

“I always say to the children who write to me, from all over the world, think of all the things you like. That is God. Children like all sorts of things. But none of them have ever written, that what they like is war.” 

You see how this connects the Wisdom and Gospel passages with what S James has to say? I think his question bears repeating: 

“What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill.”

Nobody who has children, or who has worked with children, or who has ever been a child – I think that covers all bases! – is likely to say that children are instinctively unselfish, altruistic, sharing and caring, saintly beings. Children do sometimes use violence to try to get their way, and they may well enjoy play fighting, or even playing war games, whether it's pretending to be World War Two aeroplanes in the playground or stuck behind the screen of a video game. But however hard they push boundaries, however aggressively they may guard their plastic horde, however much they enjoy making swords out of the Lego ploughshare kit, you would be hard pressed to find a child who, in their heart of hearts, actually wants to live in a warzone, actually wants their parents to go out and fight, actually likes seeing their parents hit or abuse each other, actually wants their neighbour’s house to be bombed. The desire for war is very much an adult desire.

So where does it come from? We are prone to place the blame on material things, on gold or oil or drugs or whatever. And at first sight, it might look as though James agrees. But read more carefully, and think back to the Gospel readings for the last two or three weeks. When Our Lord’s disciples faced the anger of the scribes because they didn't wash their hands before eating, didn't He say that it is what is inside the hearts that pollutes, rather than external things? When he told us to take up our cross, was he not talking about internal self-emptying, at learning indifference to external riches? Did he not say that it is the love of money, rather than money itself, which is the root of all evil? Likewise, S James here points the blame not at the external things we crave, but at the passions at war internally in ourselves. 

It is a delusion to believe that we can stop war by external stimuli, whether those stimuli a bombs and guns or threats and sanctions. Permanent peace will come only from a permanent transformation of the heart. Above the door of the dining hall on the scenic Ikebukuro campus of Rikkyo University, where I work, are some words in Latin which at first sight might look like a joke about overeating: appetitus rationi oboediant, “let your appetites obey your reason.” Given that Rikkyo is an Anglican university, you might expect these words to be taken from the Bible, perhaps from somewhere in proverbs, but in fact they come from the ancient pagan Roman lawyer and platonic philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero – and while he was famous for his witticisms, this is not one of them. It is solid Platonic philosophy, and while it is quite out of tune with the modern-day priority of appetites over reason, it is entirely in tune with what James calls the wisdom from above, pure, peaceable, and open to reason, that is, logical, because it participates in the Logos, the Word of God whom we know Incarnate in our Lord and saviour. But this reasoning goes far beyond the utilitarian calculation of the “adult” way of thinking, namely that the value of something can be known only by its weight and measure. It is the higher and deeper reason which goes beyond empirical thought, and on which in fact all empirical thought depends, beyond the evidence of the senses, and which is hard wired, grafted as it were into the very warp and woof of our souls, if only we have the inner light to perceive it. S James is not talking, any more than any Platonic philosopher would be, about conforming our passions to the measure of a hard-iron rule from outside ourselves. Rather, it is a matter of seeing through those passions, through the heats of our adult desires, to the deeper cool and balm of the desire for peace, rest, and play, which is hidden in the inner child of every human heart.  

It’s no accident that there is a certain childish playfulness about the greatest of the saints: Francis is perhaps the most obvious example. This is because play does not have any purpose beyond itself. There is no financial reward for it, no utilitarian gain, no calculable benefit. Play is for the sake of play. I’m thinking more of sandpits than football matches here; the play of the youngest children, who don’t know what it is to win or lose. They play because that it what they do, spontaneously, from within. And in so doing, they are icons of God. 

Today, the child of God, the Wisdom from above, is born again among us: this time, in bread and wine. Let us welcome Him in, that we may welcome the One who sent Him, and so be lifted to the secret knowledge of His peace.