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Sleepwalking through ANZAC

By Jolyon | Apr 28, 2009

A thought provoking sermon from the Rev’d Sande Ramage
St Peters Anglican Church, Sunday 26 April 2009

Rituals at dawn always evoke an air of mystery, as though we are poised on the dividing line between two worlds.  They symbolise the movement from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment, and in our Easter story from death to life.  Easter Day ought to begin at dawn but most of us have become lazy, mistakenly assuming that the mystery of our faith will be just as appealing at 9.30 after a good breakfast and a quick read of the paper.

Not so ANZAC Day regulars who relentlessly turn out in the early morning mist.  These days they are joined by growing numbers of young people, generations removed from the veterans and untouched by the subsequent political movements through which we sought to extricate ourselves from involvement in Vietnam and the nuclear weapons business.

Standing in the cold dawn amidst a sea of red poppies, it is apparent that lurking around this ritual, just beyond our consciousness, are important stories that offer a different perspective than the one being presented.  Unfortunately, our ability to ask penetrating questions, which might unleash the healing power of these stories, has been suppressed within a history of militarism that annually fuels the political and media frenzy around ANZAC Day.

While chaplain in a boys school, I was fascinated and disturbed by the way my students were unthinkingly captivated by ANZAC Day services.  Their magnificent inner qualities of loyalty, tender protectiveness and princely valour were all muddled up with their adventuring spirit and poured into the day which has become synonymous with sacrifice.

The idea of sacrificial death is seductive.  At its basest level, the notion that someone would die for us, feeds the ego but, if we are honest, this is more suited to a world where capricious gods hold sway and we are all caught in an eternal cycle of appeasement and gratitude.  Stripping away that old world cosmology opens the window onto a different perspective.

The writer of Mark is certain that Jesus has introduced a new way of being where everyone has free access to God, where the poor and marginalized are always included and where touching the unclean, the enemy, the German and the terrorist is the most inclusive and loving thing you can do.  He is also clear that following this way will bring you into danger.  Within this context, Jesus became a pawn, his vulnerability and openness exploited by the powerful elite, leading to his inevitable crucifixion.

In much the same way, young men and women were, and continue to be, exploited by governments who consider that teaching them to kill other human beings is preferable to working at non-violent ways of managing the world’s problems.

Just this week, some bright spark has suggested that our young people be encouraged to spend their gap year in the military.  Alarmingly, the Principals’ Federation president, Ernie Buutveld said the idea had, ‘reasonable potential’.  Exploitation of their youthful vulnerability is the reality, not the development of potential.  And, tragically, they’ll fall for it.

Field Punishment No 1 was known as the crucifixion because of the way soldiers were helplessly spreadeagled across a gunwheel.  By the time the conscientious objectors,  Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs, and others were forcibly shipped to France, the rules for this torture had changed after the death of a British soldier.

Now, all that prisoners had to endure was to be tied to a post in the open with their hands bound tightly behind their backs, knees and feet bound.  They were only meant to be left standing for two hours a day, three out of every four days and 21 days in all, but such orders were easily ignored when officials were far away.

Instead, their hands and feet were tied tightly for up to four hours in all weathers.  Blood congealed in their wrists and hands so much that they turned bright red, then purple in the cold.  Then there were the days when Baxter was tied crucifixion style to the poles, when his feet were lifted above the ground so he could get no stability.

David Grant’s recent book, Field Punishment No 1, writes searingly of the many tortures these heroic men underwent because they stood for a non-violent approach to fixing our human problems.

One day Mark Briggs, at the hands of a sadistic sergeant, had a long piece of cable wire fastened around his chest and under his arms.  Four soldiers harnessed themselves to the wire and began to drag Briggs along the duckwalk the mile to the front line, with two soldiers hauling each leg.  Battens had been nailed across the duckwalk and to make walking easier, wire netting had been nailed over some parts.  Consequently, the clothing that protected Briggs’ back was torn off, leaving it exposed to the battens and the wire.  His back, neck and arms soon became a mass of lacerations, and blood oozed through the remains of his garments.  Worst of all, a huge flesh wound was gouged into his right thigh and back about a foot long, later described as big enough to put your fist into.

No morphine, that wonder drug named for Morpheus, Roman god of slumber and dreams, was available for these shattered men.  Morpheus appears as a character in The Matrix, a classic movie which suggests we are all being conned about the nature of reality.  Neo, the potential saviour of the world, is offered a choice by Morpheus.  Take the blue pill and continue to sleepwalk through your existence without understanding who you are or what your life task is.  Take the red pill and awaken to reality, the way the world really is without our dreams and fantasies, no matter how uncomfortable that is.

The research and reading I did through my year as a military chaplain forced me to face the reality that the Christian church has a tragic history of colluding with principalities and powers whose central focus is diametrically opposed to the Jesus way.  The call to arms made by many clergy during both world wars is well documented and makes embarrassing reading.

But there were others who stood against military and government manipulation.  The Rev’d Ormond Burton, who was Shirley Murray’s inspiration for the ANZAC hymn that we sang today, was an outstanding man.  Although honoured as a war hero after WWI, because of his outspoken pacifist views was imprisoned during the second world war and finally expelled from the ministry.

As the growing attachment to militarism increases, through the unthinking and unexplored expression of ANZAC Day, it is interesting that the Christian church remains largely silent.  By doing this we are once again colluding with the state that was prepared to torture conscientious objectors like Archibald Baxter and Mark Briggs and who continues to ignore their part in the ANZAC story.

We may stand in pious judgement against the excesses of the soldiers at Abu Grahib, Guantanamo Bay, and many other terror sites and events, but we have our own Kiwi litany of torture and injustice to be made right.  And until we do, we are sleep walking through ANZAC, blind and deaf to the whole story.

Having only just stumbled out of Holy Week, the image of the crucified Jesus remains fresh in our minds.  On the cross, the open hearted acceptance that he showed in life was writ large.  Arms spread wide, vulnerable, and powerless to save himself, his big heart unprotected.

But let’s remember, we are only part way through Easter.  Contrary to his words, it is not finished until we have moved on from the empty tomb and begun to recognise Jesus as the wounded healer around us.  He’s already appeared as Ormond, Baxter and Briggs.  This week in Israel, another appearance has been reported in 18 year old Neta Mishli, imprisoned because she will not enlist in the military and collude in destruction.

These are the untold, resurrection stories that lurk around the margins of ANZAC Day and symbolised today by this white poppy that I wear.  White poppies stand for the belief that there are better ways to solve conflicts than killing people.  It’s not a new idea but one that is hard to embed in our psyche when we fail to recognise the links between institutional and personal violence in our society.

The Peace Movement of Aotearoa has responsibility for running the White Poppy campaign in New Zealand.  Perhaps we Anglicans can join them next year in making sure that white poppies are seen in Aotearoa.  More than that, we have the opportunity to create a mystical dawn ritual that allows the stories of the wounded healers to be heard so that we awake from our sleep walking to make the resurrection real in our time and place.

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