Cold Ashby: 23 February 2003
There are donkeys at the bottom of our garden.  And in looking out of the window the other day I remembered a recent newspaper report that the Donkey Sanctuary received more money in donations last year than Age Concern, Mencap and The Samaritans. 
Well, that puts us all in perspective, doesn’t it.  It also makes it rather difficult to know what to say about the Gadarene swine. 
It seems to me that one of the hardest tasks for a clergyman – or it would be if I were one – is to say something relevant about the lesson for each Sunday.  In some cases, for example the parable of the Good Samaritan or the Sermon on the Mount, there seems plenty of useful conclusions that one can draw. In other cases it’s much harder to discern the overall message inherent in the passage under consideration. To-day’s lesson is a case in point. A colourful story, yes: but it’s hard for a layman to see why Jesus cast out those devils in the way he did. 
So as an Englishman , I always feel a little uneasy about the Gospel story of the Gadarene Swine rushing headlong to their doom. It seems rather unfair that those pigs had to be the vehicle to get rid of devils. Wasn’t it Winston Churchill  who said, “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals”. 
Over the years the phrase a “ a Gadarene rush” has come to mean some precipitate, almost mad, action having disastrous consequences for a lot of people. Thus, we had a Gadarene  rush  in August 1914 Europe went over the cliff  into the First World War via the railway timetables drawn up by the German High Command.  As some of us may have seen on the television news the other night, promiscuity causing AIDS in Africa is pushing a number of countries towards that cliff of self inflicted genocide.  
The herd instinct is, then, very much part of our lives.  Joining the crowd is the safe option.  “It’s always best in these cases to shout with the crowd”, said Mr. Pickwick.  
“But suppose there are two crowds”, said Mr. Tupman. 
“Shout with the loudest”,  replied  Pickwick. 
It’s that much harder to stand up against the crowd, not to be part of the prevailing opinion, not to put our heads above the parapet. 
 When I started in my first job my boss told me that it was better to have my morals doubted, than my judgement. And as I look back on life I fret about the number of times I got it wrong.  Sometimes, of course, its good judgement not to put one’s head above the parapet. But by and large my view is that staying away from the herd mean one does not go over the cliff. 
For me one of the most inspiring stories in the Bible is the one about Solomon’s dream when God asked what the King wanted in life and Solomon requested  “an understanding heart to judge thy people that I may discern between good and bad”. 
At then on the downside there is Peter, lurking in the palace of the High Priest keeping his head down when Jesus was taken there.  “Then began he to curse and to swear saying I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. “  
But that incident too can be inspiring, even as one laments Peter’s cowardice.  For it shows us that human frailty extends even to the greatest figures in history, the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church.  In another, much more mundane,  context I’m always slightly relieved when I see a well  known professional golfer miss a three foot putt in the Open Championship. It’s what I do all the time and it inspires me to do better than him without feeling crushed when I don’t.. 
So what’s your take on the war?  Are you in sympathy with the million or so people who demonstrated in London last week, or do you see those demonstrators indulging in a Gadarene rush away from the realities and responsibilities of 21st Century
International politics?  Do you support Tony Blair or Charles Kennedy? The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, or the Archbishop of Glasgow?  
You will be relieved I’m sure to hear, that even if the vicar permitted it, I don’t intend to hold a debate on that controversial subject this evening.  Only to leave a few inconclusive thoughts with you.
First, each one of us needs to make up his or her own mind.  Not having a view on an issue such as this is not an option for Christians.  But we are faced with contradictions: Jesus was the Prince of Peace:  “Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you” . The Bible is full of references to peace and we pray each Sunday for the Peace of God which passeth all understanding.”
Yet there comes a point when we have to stand up against evil. War cannot be ruled out.  Jesus himself predicted conflict “For nation shall rise against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom …”  ,he says in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Christian texts are  full of references to the fight against evil. 
But human nature is fickle, easily swayed. In 1933 just after Hitler came to power the Oxford Union, the university’s debating society voted decisively in favour of a motion that “This house will not fight for King and Country”   Two years later 11.5 people voted in response to a five question referendum organised by the League of Nations Union. Four of the questions were about disarmament and collective security. And the fifth, thrown in almost as an afterthought was about war.   More than ten million voted Yes to every question about the need for disarmament and collective security, except to the second half of the fifth one – whether an aggressor should be stopped by war. Here 6 and half million said yes, against 2 million noes and 2 million  who had no view. 
So the deep divisions of opinion about peace and war that are so clear in our society to-day are nothing new.  We have to make up our minds, to have beliefs.  History is not like some flowing river. It is created generation by generation by living people and their beliefs.  So it is with our own society.  Each one of us contributes to history.
OK. I’ll come off the fence. Not for me the Gadarene rush to peace or war or so I like to think! But on balance I’m with Blair and Bush on this one. If we retreat now, the consequences will surely be worse in the long run than the war if we don’t.  But I echo most ferverently the collect for to-day  “Oh God who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do, mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity.” 
Whatever happens over the next few weeks and months, there will surely be plenty of adversity.
Amen
