In the heroic age of Beowulf the worst thing that could happen to a warrior was to lose the lord he served. The good warrior pledged unflinching loyalty to his lord. In return the lord would welcome the warrior to his mead-hall, distribute plunder gained on raids, and create a fellowship of warriors. To be sent into exile or to lose one’s lord to death was to lose everything—something our individualistic society might find hard to grasp.
The Anglo-Saxon poem “The Wanderer” is a long lament of a warrior whose lord and fellow warriors have died. Here are a few lines in translation:
Who bears it, knows what a bitter companion,
Shoulder to shoulder, sorrow can be.
When friends are no more, his fortune is exile
Not gifts of fine gold, a heart that is frozen,
Earth’s winsomeness dead and he dreams of hall-men
The dealing of treasure, the days of his youth
When his lord bade welcome to wassail and feast
But gone is the gladness, and never again
Never again shall come the beloved counsel of comrade and king.
Maybe the need for a lord to serve is not unique to the heroic age. In fact, the multiplication of gangs in cities across the country testifies that young warriors are still looking for someone and something to serve. There is abundant research demonstrating that a young boy without a father in the home is twice as likely to join a gang as a boy with both a father and mother. Making dad proud isn’t far from the heroic ideal of making one’s lord and master proud. But if dad is gone, the local gang leader can easily take his place.
Notice that the poet described the wandering warrior without a lord as having “a heart that is frozen.” Many years ago, when the Bloods and Crips were fighting for control of Kansas City, a 14 year-old boy shot a mother in a Safeway parking lot while she was loading groceries into her car. He murdered her as part of his initiation into gang—to prove he was “badass” enough. What startled the public was that he showed no remorse. His heart was frozen. He was a fatherless kid with no lord.
In every young man is a warrior looking for a lord to serve. Jesus is that lord, but too often we have so emasculated church that it is more of a self-help group than a fellowship of warriors. Especially in the West, there is a long tradition of regarding church and children as the concern of the “women-folk.” And certainly some of our worship songs would make a warrior wince. This is not so much the fault of women as it is the failure of men to step up and lead.
After all, our cities need godly warriors. Dragons of depression and drugs ravage our neighborhoods. Idolatry steals the hearts of parents from their children in the suburbs. Selfishness tears marriages apart and emptiness of life gnaws at the hearts of those without God.
The battle rages around us, but there is little of the warrior ethic in most churches. It is right that one ministry of church be to provide healing for the hurt and broken, but our goal should be to heal warriors so they can return to the battle. The invitation to hunker in the bunker until Jesus comes doesn’t capture the warrior’s heart or imagination
Churches can become so self-contained and insulated from the world that we fail to see that radical love and real courage are needed to fight the evil destroying those around us. We need warriors determined to take their cities for their Lord, the kings of kings. Every church needs to invite young men into a fellowship of warriors ready to lay down their lives for their lord.
