The swordsman, a parable...

(David) Many years ago in a land far away a peasant boy grew of age in a remote province of a great kingdom. The boy grew up dreaming of joining the king’s army—a force of conquering  swordsmen famous around the world both for their skill with the sword and for the excellence of their weapons.

To join the king's army prospective swordsmen were required to appear before the king on a yearly enlistment day with a sword of sufficient quality to be borne for the king. And swords of such quality--swords of the caliber that had led the kingdom’s armies to victory in battle after battle--lay far beyond the means of a lowly peasant.

Yet this boy dreamed constantly of swordsmanship and glory. Though even a rustic sword lay far beyond his means, he longed to join the king’s swordsmen. On his twentieth year the boy gathered his meagre savings to purchase passage to the capital. Penniless, now, as well as swordless, he was still determined to plead his case before the king.

Enlistment day dawned with the peasant boy in the midst of a throng at the palace gates. The gates were opened and an official led the waiting men into a courtyard. As dawn's first light grew to the light of day the young peasant saw his fellow would-be swordsmen more clearly. All were of similar age to himself, but the majority clearly possessed far greater fortunes. Most of the young men wore rich clothing. Many carried jeweled swords. Only a few were dressed crudely, and fewer still appeared without a weapon.

One by one the residents of the courtyard were summoned before the king. The day lengthened. The courtyard emptied. Late in the afternoon the peasant’s name was finally called. He entered the enlistment room where he found the king seated by a solitary swordsman. On a table beside the king lay a sword.

“You stand before me bearing no sword,” the king said. “Why have you come?”

“Your honor,” the peasant replied, “I long to fight for you. I would do battle for your glory and honor. You are a great and wise and generous king. I promise you my obedience, my life even. But I’m a poor man, the son of peasants. I possess no sword. I come to prevail upon your generosity. I beg of you a sword to fight for you.”

With a knowing look at the swordsman by his side, the king responded, “What? You ask for a sword? Don’t you know that you must have a sword to join my army?”

“Yes, your honor,” the peasant replied, “so I know. And knowing also your benevolence and generosity, I beg you to give me what I need.”

“Give it I will,” the king replied. “What you have done is what every swordsman who serves in my army did before you. The warriors of my army are only those men who sought their swords of me as you have done. None of those who come bearing their own swords serve in my army, only those who seek swords of me because only the sword I give is equal to the battles you will fight. This is the secret of my knights and my army--and you must never tell it to anyone.”

The king turned to the swordsman at his side. “Give me the sword,” he said. Lifting the shining, razor-sharp sword from its place on the table, the swordsman handed it to the king. The king touched the young peasant on the head with it. “Go and fight for me,” he said, “Bear my sword. Be a warrior for my glory.”

Years of training followed, then further years of battle. By skill gained from training and by the power of the king’s sword, the young peasant became a conquering warrior, a hero of his kingdom.

One day, however, after countless victories, the now-famous swordsman encountered a weak yet crafty foe in the field of battle. The man who confronted him carried a stick instead of a sword. Instead of attacking, he stood humbly, head bowed before the warrior.

“Great warrior,” he said, “I know that you are about to kill me. I’m nothing, a pea, a dead dog before your glory. But before I depart this life may I ask one favor of you? Permit me to look upon the sword you will dispatch me with. I’ve heard tell of the glories of your weapon. May I see and touch it before I die? I could die satisfied with the honor of being dispatched by so famous a warrior bearing so noble a weapon were you to permit this one request.”

Seeing no reason to deny the man’s final wish, the soldier drew near with sword outstretched. The very wise little man, touched the edge of the sword. “Ah, Damascus steel, I see. A falcata, with elephant tusk handle and a false edge on the concave side of the blade.”

“No,” the warrior responded, “not a falcata, a scimitar, and not Damascus, but Toledo steel, and not elephant, but whale ivory handle.”

The argument, thus joined, lasted long into the night. Eventually, the warrior grew tired. When he slipped into sleep, sword still in his grip, the little man made his escape.

Word of this encounter spread. Soon, all across the world warriors began questioning the nature of the swords of the king’s swordsmen. The warriors responded by examining their swords, classifying them, determining their origin and provenance.

Debating societies sprang up in the king’s barracks training swordsmen to argue the greatness of their swords. Soon, the king’s swordsmen were debating the nature of their weapons more than fighting with them. They became lax in training. They grew lazy. They became sedentary creatures, fat, slow-moving.

Though now excellent at disputing the nature of their swords they grew less and less adept at fighting with them. Eventually, a warrior’s greatness was judged by his skill at debate rather than his ability with a sword. All the king’s knights became acclaimed debaters, famed intellects, formidable disputants on the nature of swords and swordsmanship. But good as they were at debate, the result was the ruin of the king’s army, his warriors made mockery of in battles where they went out to fight bearing doctoral degrees and academic tomes on swordsmanship even as their swords grew rusty from disuse.

2 Timothy 2:14

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Comments

[Josh Congrove]

Excellent, excellent piece of writing, and very apropos. Thank you, gentlemen.

And, if you'll allow me a counter-allusion, I have to say that when I read this, a favorite quotation of mine sprang to mind. I find this indictment evermore fitting to our time the longer I think about it:

"It is not said that evil arts were ever practised in Gondor, or that the Nameless One was ever named in honour there; and the old wisdom and beauty brought out of the West remained long in the realm of the sons of Elendil the Fair, and they linger there still. Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep, who was only banished not destroyed.

“Death was ever present, because the Númenoreans still, as they had in their Old Kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anárion had no heir."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Death by Dialogue:

http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/05/death-by-dialogue.html

[Alex Costa]

Loved It.

[Don Alexander]

When I heard David preach this sermon I was immediately reminded of how old Princeton employed lower criticism to combat German higher criticism. Epistemologically, we have yet to recover.

[Kamilla]

Oh my, that's good.

[Craig French]

That one hit close to home when you preached it.

[Don Alexander]

One has to wonder where we would be today as a society if instead of the academic wrangling of the last several decades the Church had simply issued the authoritative declaration " Thus saith the Lord".

[Stephen Baker]

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?

"Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament...

"In vain does the Bible command with authority. In vain does it admonish and implore. We do not hear it – that is, we hear its voice only through the interference of Christian scholarship, the experts who have been properly trained. Just as a foreigner protests his rights in a foreign language and passionately dares to say bold words when facing state authorities – but see, the interpreter who is to translate it to the authorities does not dare do so but substitutes something else – just so the Bible sounds forth through Christian scholarship."

--Soren Kierkegaard

[Patrick Hart]

That was awesome!

[Valerie (Kyriosity)]

Veddy nice. :-)

[Heather]

David, excellent.

Maybe also a paragraph on the poor fools who continue to fight by the sword and are mocked and condemned by those who better know how to spend their time in elocutionary swordsmanship.

[Mahoney]

David,

Did you write this? When I heard it in your sermon, I had tried to find a printable copy online and couldn't so I figured it might be yours. I'm going to use your illustration with my kids.

This morning I read something that said that the gospel affects the mind first then the emotions but I didn't necessarily agree and have been looking for solid reading on these issues.

I'll never forget the young guy who was a sort of minor celebrity house church "pastor" here in Bloomington who said that he loves the intellectual discussions he had at his IU religious studies classes - he said all of them would "leave their faith at the door" and go in and have a nice discussion - I laughed and said that that is the oldest trick in the book with the atheists, claiming that their sword is no sword at all, they disarm their opponent and then gut him. He didn't seem to get what I meant.

-Clint

[David Baker]

For some reason this reminded me of a quote attributed to Hericlitus from 500 B.C. It hung on the wall of my office as a reminder.

"For every one hundred men you send us,

Ten should not even be here.

Eighty are nothing but targets.

Nine of them are real fighters;

We are lucky to have them, they the battle make.

Ah, but the one. One of them is a warrior.

And he will bring the others back."