Mutual Space
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Mutual Space: Remembrance Sunday: 14 November 2010: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson
- Micah 4: 1 - 5
- John 15: 12 - 17
Early in 1993 the Bishop of London decided there was no point spending more money on the tiny St Ethelburga’s Church. Once the biggest building in Bishopsgate in the heart of the City of London, it withstood the ravages of the great Fire of London in 1666 and the Blitz in 1941-43. Now sandwiched between some of the biggest financial houses in the world, in a state of disrepair and without a congregation, the Bishop agreed that insurance no longer be paid on the church. On 24th April 1993 a massive bomb was detonated by the IRA, not only bringing the financial markets of London to a standstill, but, as a result of what might be called incidental collateral damage, practically destroying the 12th century building known as St Ethelburga’s.
Any wise businessperson would have recognized that now was the time to clear the site and look for the big money on offer for precious real estate in London. The Bishop had other ideas. “Fill the space with people,” he instructed, “And see what happens.” While the exterior of the building was rebuilt, the interior was left as clear space. It is extremely versatile and can be used in all sorts of ways. Those responsible for the new St Ethelburga’s had a clear vision of what they wanted – a mutual space in which people from often radically different spectrums of life, could meet. Notice I say ‘mutual’ – not neutral. Neutral implies no one has a stake in it; mutual suggests there is space for everyone. In one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, perhaps in the history of the world, a deliberate attempt has been made to create mutual space.
Today St Ethelburga’s is used by a wide range of people – especially those who live in conflict zones. It is a place for listening as people tell their stories. It is a place for people of one religion to meet those of others. It is a place where young people who grow up in the street-violence of inner city slums hear stories of people who found the inner strength to stand up against poverty, oppression, hatred and bigotry. Simply by coming together in this mutual space people are able to appreciate the results of their actions on others; as well as voice the frustration, hatred, or sense of impotence in their lives.
This concept of ‘mutual’ space fascinates and intrigues me. It is part of a bold vision.
Centuries ago a wise person wrote that “where there is no vision, the people die” (Proverbs 29: 18). Every person, every people, every nation, needs vision. It was the vision for a better life, with new experiences and fresh opportunities, that led people to arrive on these shores – by waka, sailing ship, steam boat, jumbo jet. It was the vision for a world set free from oppression, where people could live a decent life, that led thousands of New Zealanders to sign up for service in the 1st World War. Their sons and daughters did the same thing two decades later as the 2nd World War broke out. Some did the same again in Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia … Yet this very striving to make a better world sometimes brought long-lasting hatred and mistrust.
As a child I listened to my grandmother telling the stories her brothers told her of Christmas Day in the trenches. The guns went silent, and then, slowly, heads popped up out of the trenches. Chocolate and cigarettes were shared, an impromptu football game arranged. For a brief moment, two opposing armies shared some mutual space. Then the madness continued, and men died in the mud again.
Just last week the Hon John Battle, former MP for Leeds, spoke in this Cathedral about his constituency. He told of two refugee families living side by side, one Hutu, the other Tutsi. For years the children attended school together, played in and out of each others’ houses, shared birthday parties. One night he got called to the estate by the police. A battle had erupted and Hutu and Tutsi were at each other’s throats. The spark? A television news report about Rwanda had caused the children to ask their parents what the difference between Hutu and Tutsi was. Long suppressed emotions quickly boiled to the surface.
He told of two elderly gentlemen who lived in the same street. Each Sunday evening they would walk to the corner dairy to buy the paper and get the football results. The Indian walked on one side, the Pakistani on the other. They never spoke to each other. Even though they lived in Britain, and were decades away from the bitter fighting following independence, suspicion and hatred simmered on. One day the MP saw them walking arm in arm down the centre of the street. “What’s happened?” “Oh,” said the Pakistani, “today I saw a news-clip of an Indian truck loaded with relief supplies crossing the border into Pakistan!” Can finding mutual space really be so easy, and so difficult?
I believe that among the roles of services such as this one, where we remember those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in war (and the death this year of Lieutenant Timothy O’Donnell is a stark reminder to us all of the cost to those who go to war), is to rekindle the vision for our world as a better place. The vision, of course, is not new. Two thousand eight hundred years ago the prophet Micah spoke of the vision of a great judge who would bring people together, persuade them to beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks, and so create a place where people sit under their own vines and fig trees without fear. Eight hundred years later this vision was re-articulated by Jesus when he spoke of the need to love one another, and to demonstrate this love by laying down one’s life for another.
In more recent years people like Mustafa Ataturk have articulated the vision in his gracious words, so familiar to us from ANZAC Day services: “There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, here they lie side by side, here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent your sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
While preparing his people to take on the might of the government Martin Luther King (Jr) re-articulated the vision in these words: "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." The refusal to hate is surely one of the biggest challenges for us today. Living increasingly privatized lives, where we know all about other people in the world through our television sets, but seldom meet them, it is all too easy to find ourselves at the mercy of powerful media people. So we wear our red poppies remembering those service men and women who were killed in war; and our white poppies (with a history almost as long as that of the red) reminding us that there are nearly always better ways of resolving conflict than war; later this month men will wear white ribbons, a small symbol that we are against family violence.
That’s all very well. Yet unless, and until, we deliberately create and hold on to some mutual space in our lives, our societies, our world, space where we can meet as fellow human beings, we will go on being at the mercy of those who use people as weapons in the fight for dominance.
This service includes the moving words of the Kohima Epitaph: “When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.” As we honour those who gave their today so that we might have a tomorrow, let us strive to find the mutual space in our society and world, treasure it and make good use of it.
