Christian Patriotism: a Sermon on S George's Day
The Tyndall Sermon for the Armourers and Braziers Company preached at the church of S Margaret Lothbury on the Feast of S George, 23 April 2024
The Will of Roger Tyndall, Citizen and Armourer, 1589:
… and also to procure yearly, on the feast-day of St. George the Martyr if it be not a fish-day, and if it be a fish-day then the next Sunday or Monday after that, a godly sermon be made in the forenoon of the same day in the parish Church of St. Dionise Backchurch [Now in S Margaret Lothbury] by a godly learned preacher of King's College in Cambridge, [or some other godly preacher] at which sermon the livery of the said company, or the greater part of them, to be present in their liveries, they to give the said preacher for preaching the said sermon 6s. 8d., and also to have him with them from the said Church to their common hall to dinner if he will go.
John 1:46 Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?
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| Many images of S George placed in churches after the First World War were, like this one, portraits of soldiers who had been killed |
Nazareth! Can anything good come from there? We don’t know the tone of voice in which Nathaniel made his remark. It might have been the happy rivalry of good friends: as Armourers and Braziers might wonder if anything good can come of the Blacksmiths. Or maybe it was a bit more freighted, as when they ask in Tottenham if anything good can come from the Arsenal. Or was it altogether a different thing, as when Kyiv asks if there is any good in Moscow, or when Theran glowers at Jerusalem.
Roger
Tyndall’s bequest gives us the opportunity to seek out a Christian
patriotism – to learn that it is precisely by a healthy love of our nation that
we can learn better to fulfil the command of the Lord to love our neighbour.
Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph. This passage of Scripture is from the fist chapter of S John,
the opening part of which we read at carol services: In the Beginning was
the Word – through Him all things were made and without Him was not anything
made that was made… and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. … and the chapter then follows on to our text: Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph.
God, the Creator of all things, came among us in a family, in a place. Remember
the little moment in the passion narrative when the servant girl from Jerusalem recognises
Peter by his regional accent – surely you are one of them; you speak with a
Gallilee accent. Then Peter replies, we may imagine as it were in broad Yorkshire, I don’t know th’ man.
We all have
our settings, our places, our networks; and we are proud of them, because they
contribute, for good or ill, to who and what we are.
The Lord
came to us as we are. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”. His
work was to offer Himself in sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. He did
so as a Galilean; the titulus over the cross says as much: Jesus of
Nazareth King of the Jews. But already this is widening the locus of
His offering: King of the Jews. What was the vocation of Israel but to
be the means of salvation of the whole world? This is the burden of those
readings from Isaiah we have in the nine lessons and carols: unto us a Son
is Given, and the government of the nations will be upon his shoulders. His
sacrifice is for the sins of the whole world. But it is made specific, more
direct, more personal, because He who prayed for those who nailed Him to the
cross was a Nazarene praying for Roman Auxiliaries. This salvation offered to
all the world encompasses the realities of our little, local, mortal loyalties.
True patriotism will lead us on from love of our own family and association, love of our own nation and people, to love of the neighbour we do not know, to love of the one who is not like me.
Another time
or over lunch we can have a happy discussion about the history of S George. Maybe
he was the martyr of 250s listed in a seventh century chronicle; or the
Christan Roman Tribune martyred under Diocletian in AD 303; or, as Gibbon claims with splendid invective in the Decline and Fall, actually a
heretic Bishop of Alexandria whose corruption upset everyone and who was lynched
by an angry mob in 359. It’s all fascinating: but for now the significant thing
about having George as our patron is that he encapsulates the point that when it
is conformed to the Christian love of God and neighbour, love of one’s own
nation widens to love of others.
The legend
of the dragon is that George was passing through what was to him a foreign
country, and was doing a service for those not of his own community when he conquered
the evil personified in the beast with the sign of the cross and his own
courage – doubtless protected by fine armour.
George came to
us likewise: though he might have been Syrian or African or Roman he was
certainly not English. He came to us, foreigners as we are to him, with the
armour of Jesus of Nazareth and His cross which George had on his flag and
which we took as our banner. His general fame in the Christian East meant his
devotion came to us from Cappadocia or Georgia well before the conquest. He
grew in our affections as a result of a vision of him at the liberation of
Antioch in 1098; and because of the devotion of Edward III and Henry V who were seeking his patronage as much in order to be Kings of France as of England. Then in
the 18 Century we had Hanoverian monarchs who shared his name to
whom we showed our loyalty by dedicating our new churches to their eponymous
patron. So George, our English Patron Saint has always been for us a reminder
that true patriotism leads us abroad.
And not just abroad, but to the true patria – the home which is for us all, the home in heaven. For as Sir Cecil Spring Rice’s great hymn which we have just sung reminds us, if we love our own country with the sacrifice that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best, then we will be led to another country, whose armies we may not count and whose King we may not see, whose ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace. Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see.
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