The scripture readings we heard this evening, from Ecclesiastes and from the letter to the Hebrews, were those appointed to commemorate a martyr, in this case our martyr and our patron here at St Thomas’s. Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas Becket who was killed by armed thugs at Vespers – that’s Evensong – on 29th December 1170. His murder was the culmination of a long argument with the king who had appointed him, his former friend and patron, Henry II. Thomas was very quickly recognised as a Christian martyr, as one who had died for his faith, and King Henry ended up doing penance for his death. The reading from the book of Wisdom describes the righteous man who is so inconvenient to his enemies that they plot his death, and that sums up Thomas’s fate. And so does the conclusion of the passage: ‘They did not know the secret purposes of God, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls’.

T.S Eliot’s verse drama, Murder in the Cathedral was first performed in 1935, and its dramatic build up to the assassination scene and the pathetic excuses given direct to the audience by the assassins made it for many years a favourite for church drama groups. There was a production in this cathedral quite some time ago now, and I actually produced a version of it myself when I lived in Hertfordshire.

There are a number of striking things about the play. The verse is haunting and memorable. And then there is a strong theme of God’s will working even through human malice and error, to bring about his will. Martyrdom is not an accident: ‘Destiny waits in the hand of God’, chant the chorus, ‘shaping the things unshapen’. And then there is the way T.S. Eliot attempts to get into Thomas Becket’s mind by sending him a series of tempters, the last of whom appeals to ever shred of narcissism and grandiosity in Thomas’s character: by holding out as a prize the glory that would go with martyr status. Thomas defeats this temptation, with the words, ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason to do the right deed for the wrong reason’.

But what struck me most when I last looked at Murder in the Cathedral was the way the whole drama is set in the context of the Church’s liturgy. It really did happen on the last of the four days after Christmas. The murder scene opens as a priest holds up a banner of St Stephen announcing: Since Christmas a day, and the feast of Stephen, First Martyr. Then another priest with a banner of St John proclaims, Since St Stephen a day: and the day of St John the Apostle. And then a third priest comes in with a banner of the Holy Innocents: Since John the Apostle a day and the day of the Holy Innocents. Each time the appropriate introit is sung. And then the first priest continues, Since the Holy Innocents a day: the fourth day from Christmas, setting up anticipation in the audience. What day is this? What will happen to add to the sequence? It is to be a day of destiny, and destiny lies in the hand of God.

The fourth day of Christmas. 29th December in the year 1170.

T.S Eliot’s play does not delve much into the politics of Becket’s martyrdom, or why Becket, as the King’s favourite statesman - both his Chancellor and his choice for Archbishop - fell out so spectacularly with his patron. The poet was interested in Thomas as a martyr rather than politician.

But at the heart of the conflict between king and archbishop was a political issue. Not a conflict between church and state exactly, or between sacred and secular, that would be to impose our assumptions on the 12th century. In fact since the time of the historian Bede, the English Church had understood the monarch and the leading Archbishop to be joint shepherds and protectors of the English people. The king had a sacred role as much as the Archbishop did, and he felt he had a God-given right to govern the Church. That’s why he appointed Thomas, his loyal faithful servant, who had already proved his worth as Chancellor.

It was Thomas who stepped out of line, because when he was appointed Archbishop he gave up being Chancellor and distanced himself from the King’s attempts to control Church’s revenues and legal status. Instead he insisted that the Church should retain certain privileges which kept it semi-independent from the King’s rule, its own courts for example. It is strange to reflect on this at the time of our current troubles in the Church of England. Thomas would probably not have been on the side of independent safeguarding and might even have wanted to keep clerical errors out of the public eye.

At the time, Becket’s stance was popular. Many people could see the point of the Church having an independent voice. After his death he came to be seen as a defence against oppression and his cult as a martyr spread all over Europe. Yet three centuries after his death King Henry VIIIth banned any devotion to Thomas, appalled at his refusal to comply with the wishes of his king. So what we end up with is a complex set of memories, a struggle for power between king and archbishop in which motives and moral principles were mixed, a politically motivated murder which went horribly wrong and led to the victim being proclaimed as a saint in heaven, and a testimony to the abiding tension between political and spiritual values.

For us, I think there is still something fitting in the way in which Thomas, our patron saint, is remembered. After Christmas, St Stephen the first martyr, after St John the Evangelist. After the Holy Innocents. On the fourth day.

At Christmas we worshipped at the stable, along with the wise men and the shepherds. Then we remembered the stoning of Stephen, which introduces the figure who would become St Paul. Then St John whose Gospel reveals the true identity of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. And then Holy Innocents, the helpless children who were slaughtered by those seeking to kill Jesus. And so we come to the fourth day after Christmas with the pattern already set: the star and the stable, the first martyr and the great missionary, the hidden glory of the incarnation, and the saving death of the innocent. Death and glory, glory, death and witness, death and glory and witness: and the hope of the world.

For all of us this is surely a call to bear witness in our day and in our time. By recognising the incarnate Christ and being ready to testify to his glory, by seeking to discern his will in our own lives. We can’t control the outcome of our lives, we are purged and we are blessed on our journey through life. Destiny lies in the hand of God.

Yet, as Thomas’s life and death show us, the choices we make are real choices, to follow Christ as his soldier and servant is what we promised in our baptism, and we can renew that promise every new year, every day. Love God, love our neighbour, be generous, kind, compassionate. Love truth.. Pray without ceasing. We don’t know where this will take us, in our particular circumstances, because Christian faith is faith, not certainty, always a matter of trust.

But we can be assured that destiny does indeed lie in the hand of God and we won’t fall short of his purposes if we follow where he leads.

Angela Tilby

Canon of Honour Emeritus