August 2006

Chariots of Fire

Although idiosyncratic, William Blake was a passionate man who strongly rejected the abuse of political and ecclesiastical authority. He is best known for the awesome engravings which accompanied his writings, and especially his beautiful poem The Tyger.

More recently, Blake has provided a name for a Religious Art competition in Australia and inspired a name for a band - The Doors. His obscure, enigmatic and clearly aspirational hymn Jerusalem is one of the most popular at Scotch. The combination of its vigorous images from classical mythology and Charles Parry’s evocative music serves to fire the imagination. Like me, older members of the school also recall the 1981 movie with its inspirational athleticism. Behind Blake’s renaissance of romantic/apocalyptic literature is the biblical narrative in the books of the Kings of Israel.

Israel’s kings thought of themselves as the movers and shakers; they settled alliances by marriage, commanded the armies and determined the religious and treaty obligations of the common people. However, the biblical narrative of their times is a profound condemnation of their abuse of power. Like Jeroboam, we are told, Israel’s kings led the nation astray. Repeatedly we hear the refrain: ‘He walked in the steps of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin’. This bleak and unmitigated indictment is only relieved by the interlude of the stories about Elijah, and his successor Elisha. This pair is a potent reminder that a different kind of power will triumph.

On 11th August ‘Fear’ featured in The Age headline. That day our reading in assembly also dealt with fear. (2 Kings 6:8-23). Seeing through the power exerted by kings was no easier then than it is today. Elisha’s servant was totally intimidated by the surrounding Syrian forces. Alone and seemingly powerless, Elisha prayed.

What Elisha asked was that his fearful servant, Gehazi, might see. The result is that, ‘The eyes of the young man were opened and he saw. A wonder! The whole mountainside full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha!’ The word of God provided an alternative vision of another reality.

Things have not changed as much as we like to imagine. Today corporations and power brokers sell their sophisticated weapons and the havoc wreaked by the world’s politicians and warlords is daily brought to our screens. How much bloodshed would be saved if, like Elisha, our leaders could see that ideas cannot be stopped by armies, guns and missiles?

There are men and women who know that the real theatre of life is differently staged. Men and women of faith know that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that Jesus, the Word made flesh, has power to bring sight. The names of some of these differently sighted people are well known to us, Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Catherine Hamlin and Desmond Tutu are the first to come to mind. They held that above all, God is to be reverenced and served. Deo.

Others, like Gehazi, and you and I, have names but are not known; faith has enabled us to glimpse through the materialism and beyond the powerbrokers, to the glory of the Lord. The real drama of our lives is lived in that alternate reality where people do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Imagine that! Those chariots of fire!

Graham Bradbeer
CHAPLAIN

Graham Bradbeer