Seventh Sunday after Trinity, 14 July 2024, Austwick, Keasden
“Mercy and truth are met together,
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
I’ve been reading the memoirs of Anne Scargill and Betty Cook about their years involved in the Women Against Pit Closures movement. [1]
In one story Anne describes a day when she had been in London to see Arthur and was coming back on the train. On the platform at King's Cross she noticed a woman struggling with a big case. She was elderly, so Anne asked her if she could help. Between them they got the case on the train and Anne lifted it onto the luggage rack for her. They sat down at the table seat opposite one another. The elderly woman was well-dressed, and well-spoken, and Anne took to her straightaway. She told Anne that she was going to get off at Leeds as her son was meeting her there. Anne said that she was getting off at Doncaster but that she would lift her case down for her before she got off.
The woman told Anne where she lived and talked a bit about her son and daughter-in-law and how she was looking forward to visiting them. She then asked Anne where she'd been and where she was going. Anne told her that she lived in an old pit village near Barnsley. She asked Anne which one, and Anne told her Worsbrough.
'Isn't that where Arthur Scargill lives?'
‘Here we go,’ Anne thought. Then the woman set off.
‘I think that man is a hypocrite, he has led the miners up a garden path and all the time he is living in the lap of luxury.’
Anne decided not to say anything. She told the woman that she was going to the buffet bar for a cup of tea and asked her if she would like one. When Anne came back with their teas, the woman carried on.
'I've heard that he lives in a huge mansion with a swimming pool.'
‘I don't think he does,’ Anne said. ‘I live in the same village and there's nobody in Worsbrough with a swimming pool in their garden as far as I know.'
'They say he sent his daughter to private school.'
'I'm not sure that's true either. I believe she went to the local comprehensive.'
Anne managed to change the subject and talked to the woman about times gone by. She told her that she'd worked at the Co-op for a lot of years and talked about the changes she had seen in her community since the pit closures, but every time there was a break in the conversation the woman fetched it back to Arthur.
'He is a horrible man and he is to blame for what has happened.'
Anne found it hard to stomach what this lady was saying. On the one hand she could see a kind and friendly person, and on the other she could see someone who hadn't got her facts right. She wondered if she ought to say something, but every time she thought about speaking, the subject changed and the woman said something nice. Anne decided to keep her counsel.
As the train approached Doncaster, Anne reached up to get the woman’s case down for her. The woman thanked her, saying,
'Can I just say this has been a lovely journey. It's not every day you meet someone so thoughtful and kind.'
The woman took Anne’s hand and told her her name. Anne bit her lip and thought, 'Bugger it, I'll tell her.'
The train started to slow down.
'I'm Anne Scargill. I'm Arthur's wife. We live in a small bungalow with three bedrooms. Our daughter lives with us and so does Arthur's dad, and we've got a couple of dogs. My husband works really hard for his union and my daughter is training to be a doctor.'
The woman didn't know what to say. Anne looked through the window and saw that the train was pulling up to the platform.
'Oh! My goodness! Oh! My goodness dear, you must think me completely awful.'
Anne told her that she wasn't too offended and that she had to put up with comments about her husband all the time, especially from the newspapers and television. She then asked the woman how she knew so much about Arthur.
'Well, I suppose I have read it in the newspapers.'
As Anne stood up to leave the carriage, she said, 'Can I just say love, that you shouldn't always believe what you read in the paper.'
Anne waved to her as the train set off.
It’s a simple story, but insightful. In a world where people so often assert their truths over others aggressively, it is good to be shown how truth can be defended with mercy.
In a world where we can so easily be self-righteous in our harsh judgements of others, it is good to see how righteousness can be delivered with a kiss of peace.
Anne Scargill had learned how to be tough, whilst campaigning for the families and communities of the mining villages; on that train she could have easily torn that woman to shreds, defending her truth with unkind words and biting counter-criticisms. Instead she left the woman chastened, for sure, but not crushed. She left her not with a shake of her fist, but with a wave of her hand.
It’s a simple example of what Psalm 85 celebrates: ‘Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other,’ sings the psalmist, imagining a world redeemed of harmful conflict, where people tell their truths and sort out their differences with grace.
How differently would the story of Herod and John the Baptist have turned out if they had found a way to do this? If John’s truth-telling had come clothed in mercy, rather than his terrible judgments of ghastly eternal fire for the sinful, which provoked Herod’s fearful, extreme, retribution?
That is impossible for us to know, but it is worth our considering how differently the hostilities of our times might turn out if we grappled with our differences using the means of mercy and the methods of peace rather than allowing ourselves to be inflamed in the restless hubbub of rolling news reports and the sound and fury of social media?
How differently would we behave towards others who we don’t always agree, or get on, with, if we took this lesson to heart: that we can stick to our truth, whilst being merciful and kind?
Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: kindle, we pray, in every heart, the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquillity your Kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. [3]
Notes
[1] Ian Clayton, Anne Scargill, Betty Cook, Anne & Betty: United By The Struggle. The story is recorded in the chapter, ‘Woman on a Train’, p.180-181.
[2] See my previous talks, The judgement of Jesus and the Judgement of John (2015), and Mark 6 - Herod the haunted, 2012, 2015.
[3] Collect for Epiphanytide, Celebrating Common Prayer, p.164
Comments