Another Graham Greene post.
I have books that I review. I have books that I read for study. And I have a small pile of books on a stand at my bedside that I read “for fun”: on my days-off, while drifting-off to sleep before bed, and in the heat of Sundays after church. It is at the top of the latter stack, the one on the nightstand, that Graham Greene’s The Comedians currently rules, well-worn and dog-eared, crusted with salt and sand (the mornings of my days off are usually spent at the beach with my family). It sits right now lording over a collection of Fr. Brown stories by Chesterton, an orthodox prayer book (there’s a few good ones for waking and sleeping), a book by J.C. Ryle, and brief treatise on Bitcoin. Its an odd and variegated stack.
Greene’s book, however, occupies all of my “fun reading” time for the time being. Among the brilliant scenes contained in its narrative is one in which a fraudster, whose ploy to swindle hundreds of thousands of dollars from Duvalier’s Haitian government has been exposed, seeks asylum on board the Dutch vessel Medea —or at least the opportunity to stow-away from Haiti.
The tonton macoute —the personal paramilitary force of Papa Doc Duvalier— arrive at the boat and demand to see the captain. The old captain, without promising Jones (the swindler) anything in the way of protection, greets the feared tonton will an unexpected force of will. When the gold-toothed boss enters he looks at the narrator and says, menacingly, “I know you.”
But the old captain interrupts him: “I don’t know you.”
The tonton and his police attaché begin their investigation, but are interrupted by the captain who tells them he alone is permitted to carry arms aboard the ship.
Drawing himself up to his full height he speaks: “I invited you on board — but only on conditions. I am the only man allowed to carry arms on this ship. You are not in Haiti now.”
Greene writes “That phrase spoken with conviction really disconcerted the officer. It was like a magic spell — he felt unsafe. He looked around at all of us, he looked around at the cabin. '‘Pas a Haiti?’ he exclaimed…”
He is not in Duvalier’s Haiti anymore. It doesn’t matter geographically where the ship is harbored, within the ship lives a different kingdom. “Vous etes in Hollande” the captain tells him.
Greene’s tonton is beaten. He is not in his world anymore. He hands over his gun and sits down and begins asking questions, this time feebly and politely, like one who knows they do not know the language in a foreign place and that the person speaking with them is being gracious.
The captain also, however, sends Jones (the swindler) back to shore. He is not int he business of protecting swindlers just because they happen to have been born in the same hemisphere. No. This is neither our Jones’ England nor Duvalier’s Haiti. It is Holland. Where the boat goes, there is Holland. Both the tonton macoute and the huckster Jones must submit to Holland for they are in Holland.
This is reminiscent of that scene from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, in which Jesus sends his disciples to go and heal the sick, and to tell those they heal that “the kingdom of God has come near them” (v.9). We shake our heads. “No, Jesus, this is Judea” we might want to say. Or, for the political realists out there, “No Jesus, this is Rome.” Perhaps Jesus is speaking mystically about an inner kingdom that has nothing to do with physical reality. But that doesn’t hold-up. The miraculous healings are physical. Jesus’ death on the Cross is physical. St. Paul and I both hope and believe that the Resurrection was physical (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1-19).
What is at work in Luke 10 is similar to the tonton macoute on board the Dutch vessel. When the jail walls collapse under the praises of Paul and his friends (Acts 16:25-34), when Eutychus is raised from the dead (Acts 9:36-42), when the heavens stop giving rain, and then when they do (1 Kings 18:1-46), what is happening is that the kingdoms of the world are being confronted with another kingdom. Like little ships from Graham’s novel, the people of God carry that kingdom with them into the world. Within the Chruch lives a different world. Welcome to the kingdom.