By Rev. Russell Daye
St. Andrew's United Church, Halifax

The King's Speech

Isaiah 42:1-9

Volume after volume has been written trying to come to terms with the wild and violent time that was the twentieth century. Philosophical novels, political histories, interdisciplinary examinations, economic analyses, cultural studies and many other works have wrestled with that era that killed so many hallowed traditions and birthed a pantheon of unruly gods. But none that I have read come close to the compact insight in William Butler Yeats’ poem The Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This poem, written in 1919 and looking back on the shocking destruction of the First World War, presaged the momentous change to come. At the heart of that change was the loss of ‘centre’: ‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’. For Yeats, key to this loss of centre was the abandoning of Christianity as the cohesive belief system of western civilization. He believed that something strange and ferocious would succeed Christianity, and depicted that thing as a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem.

Certainly, in the 90 years since the writing of this poem the world has seen many rough beasts trying to claim the centre – fascism, Stalinism, fundamentalisms – but none, no matter how fervent, has succeeded. Those failures are fortunate, but we still find ourselves in a strange and threatening place. Exactly four hundred years ago a strong, clear, beautifully articulated voice appeared. This was the King James Bible. In many ways it became the voice of the falconer for the English Speaking World. Four centuries later there is no such voice. In this pluralist, post-modern, post-Christian, apparently post-everything time we very often seem to be hovering, our ears bent to the ground listening for that decisive voice but instead hearing a confusing cacophony.

The preachers here at St. Andrew’s have decided that, for the season of Epiphany, seeking enlightenment, we are going to descend and listen to some voices in this cacophony. In a time in which something like the King James Bible could never be produced, we are going to search for ‘Wiki-Bible’. What do we mean by ‘Wiki-Bible’? We mean the texts that people turn to when they seek spiritual meaning, or moral clarity, or deep healing. Wiki-Bible is not so much a collection of texts as a cultural crossroads at which people find and share the stories that shape their lives. By texts we don’t just mean offerings on the written page, but also movies, plays, music, and so on. Martha and I are going to start you off with two sermons that examine movies: for the rest of this sermon we will take a look at The King’s Speech; next week Martha will preach on The Social Network.

Yeats’ depiction of the rough beast emerging in chaos must have resonated with many citizens of Britain and her commonwealth in 1939. Hitler’s tentacles were extending across Europe and Britain was being pulled back toward the nightmare that was supposed to have ended with ‘the war to end all wars’ in 1918. If ever the country needed the strong voice of national falconer it was now. Into that need stepped a most unlikely of pair of characters. The first was Alfred Frederick Arthur George, the Duke of York, second son of King George V, who suffered from a terrible speech impediment. While this handicap was painful and frustrating, until now it had been only a personal problem. After all ‘Bertie’, as he was known to his family, was not to be king; that would fall to his brother, the future King Edward VIII. Bertie could linger in the background, out of the public eye – or, more to the point, out of the public ear. But then Edward turned out to be weak of character, unwise in love, and, worst of all, a Hitler sympathiser. Bertie is thrust onto the throne and into the role of falconer. But how can a man who can barely talk become the voice for a nation? Again, into the need stepped an unlikely hero …. (movie trailer shown)

What is it about this film that is causing such a stir? I can’t remember the last time so many people spoke to me about a movie. What is it about the portrayed relationship between a broken prince and Lionel Logue, an odd and unorthodox commoner, that is so compelling at this time? It is impossible to know how enduring will be the appeal of this film, but for the time being it holds a prominent enough place at our cultural crossroads that I think it should be considered part of this season’s Wiki-Bible.

The film’s power clearly has something to do with leadership. There is an integrity about both men, about their relationship, and about their gift of voice to the nation that comes not out of self-service or the pursuit of power but out of sacrifice, confusion, and suffering. In many ways, the genius of The King’s Speech is a perfect fit for the genius of the Isaiah passage George Buckrell read for us a few minutes ago. Listen to a few verses from the King James Version:

1Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him. 2He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 4He shall not fail nor be discouraged. 6I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; 7To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. 9Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.

Isaiah offered this prophecy to Israel during one of her darkest and most confusing hours: her kingdom conquered; her temple destroyed; the people driven into exile. In the prophesy God says to the people, ‘Yes, the former things have passed but new things I will create, and before they spring forth I will send a servant to tell you of them, to teach you how to prepare for them and to teach you how to live through the darkness of the meantime. This is one of Isaiah’s famous ‘servant passages’ in which he tells of a great and humble servant leader that will come. This leader is not a rough beast that guides with booming voice and callous hand, but one who guides with fierce gentleness and brave example.

Dare we, in this post-Christian time, say that the leadership quality of both Bertie and Isaiah’s servant is so appealing because it is Christ-like? The suffering servant who offers hope because he has been wounded by the dark angels of his time and has risen from his pain to offer a way forward. A falconer whose voice is marked not by angry charisma but by love born through loss. A guide whose strength comes not from denying the confusion of the time but from having looked deep into the heart of that confusion and understood it.

Perhaps The King’s Speech is so compelling for Christians because we recognize the touch of Christ in both the growing strength and confidence in Bertie and in the moxie and genius of Logue. We recognize the touch of Christ in this impossible coming together of a King and a commoner. We recognize the touch of Christ in the gift of a clear and faithful voice amid the confusion raging across Europe in that time of rough beasts. And this gives us hope. It gives us hope that clear voices will arise in this time of confusion, that the touch of Christ is present even now. It gives us hope that God is lifting up falconers among us, and that, bending our ears to the ground, we will hear them.