BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC
SERVICE AT THE LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL
Sunday 6th May 2001
A few years after the end of the Second World War my father was posted to Singapore. As a young family we sailed out to the Far East on the Empire Trooper. It was my baptism into a service way of life that would take us around the world and me and my brothers to a military boarding school, the Duke of York's in Dover.
We had military training as part of the curriculum, wore battle dress for our school uniform, marched to meals to our own military band and even our free-time was compulsory! My father was in the services from the age of 17, worked his way up through the ranks and retired as an officer.
The principles that inspired him were those captured and celebrated by Rudyard Kipling in his poem 'If'. He often recited it, I think, in the hope that frequent recitation might instil them into me and my brothers!
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
Fitting words for the heat of the battle
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much.
Fitting words for those called to leadership especially in the services.
Kipling's poem came to mind when I read Admiral Sandy Woodward's memoirs of the Battle of the Falklands in which 100 British ships and 25,000 personnel saw action.
One reviewer commented:
"Not since Lord Nelson revealed his own doubts and fears in private correspondence two centuries ago has any senior naval commander described so frankly the loneliness of high command."
There was one episode in particular that caught my imagination. After the Sheffield was attacked and the crew had been ordered to abandon ship its Captain Sam Salt arrives on board the Hermes. The Admiral sees that he is close to tears but deliberately ignores his emotions because he cannot let the situation get out of hand and he has a battle to fight and win. Woodward is searingly frank about 'having to suppress many ordinary human feelings' and putting on a 'stone face'.
This, of course, is what arduous naval and military training is all about - the times when you have to tighten the valve on the emotions and get on with the job you've been trained for. There comes a time to loosen the valve, to release the emotions but that's not in the midst of a battle or when you're navigating a ship through a force 10 gale. It is the discipline of the services that teaches people the value of emotional restraint and control,. It's a virtue that we need to recover in a culture that has gone the other way and sees public figures freely display their emotions at the drop of a clapperboard!
And yet there does come a time for sailors and soldiers and airforce personnel to let their emotions speak especially when they cherish the memory of comrades who've fallen in action. One of the most beautiful laments in the Bible is from the lips of one of the greatest military heroes. David says soulfully of his love for Jonathan who was closer to him than a brother and whose love surpassed that of a woman:
"How the mighty have fallen. And how the mighty wept."
It is in services such as these when we are given sacred times of remembrance that it is fitting for the valve to loosen and for the emotions to flow. I remember on the 50 th anniversary of VE day listening to a veteran in a wheel-chair tell me about his medals. He broke down as he spoke of rescuing his mates from the furnace of the engine-room on fire. He recovered his composure. And said, "We just got on and did it." And then added that this was the first time in fifty years that he'd cried.
Yes, there's a time to give voice to that word-less language that is universal and needs no interpreting. It's a language that God himself speaks and understands. Jesus was no stranger to tears and wept openly when his own friend Lazarus died. Jesus brings us face to tear-stained face with the God who weeps. But he also shows us and commends the military commander who, moved by the plight of his dying servant, comes to Jesus for help.
This officer knows what it is to give orders and is quite prepared to take orders from Jesus. He's given the commands to his soldiers "Go", "Come", "Do this" and they do go, do come and do do his bidding.
When the commander tells Jesus that he is placing himself under Christ's authority in the same way that his soldiers serve under him, Jesus is astonished. He describes such a find military attitude in simple terms as "faith". "Never have I found such faith".
Faith is the stock-in trade of all service personnel. They're trained to have faith, to put their trust in those who are trained to lead and to serve. Those who hold rank can only do their job if they have faith in those they lead. The services function only if there is mutual faith.
That is why coming to a Cathedral for Maritime Sunday and the Commemoration of the Battle of the Atlantic is so fitting - this is supremely a Citadel of Faith even the Headquarters of Faith, declaring to the world that the only way to live is by faith - by trust in one another and by trust in God.
It is in such a faith-inspiring building and service that we continue to hear Jesus speaking to us through that faithful commander "Come "Go" "Do"
If he says "Come and worship" we will come
If he says "Go and serve" we will go
If he says "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" We will do it.
As people of faith who know what it is to give and take orders we will obey.
That is our training
That is our calling
That is our life
There is no other way to live.