but from God’s free decision to stick us to Jesus Christ, and in him to each other. That basic unity is what is real, not our splits. Our splitting reflects not our freedom but our enthrallment to death, the last enemy whose intention it is to split us from God and from each other. But, Paul writes that Christ is “our peace,” and he has made us one, reconciling us “in one body through the cross.” (Eph 2:14–16)
Our real problem is not our much feared and whined about propensity to split apart. No, our problem is that deep down where it really matters, we are already one in Christ. We cannot escape that Christological fact, try as we might. We were baptized into it, and so we have to deal and learn to deal with those whom Christ has given us to love. In Christ, we are stuck with each other. And the amazing thing is that those with whom we are stuck are given to us as gifts—not enemies to be avoided, not objects to be overcome, but gifts. The whole joy of the gospel comes from this very fact: our unity in Christ keeps surprising us with such unwanted, unexpected, and unlikely gifts. Choosing your own god, and even more choosing your own kind, is finally boring as it is deadly. Our freedom in Christ is much more surprising and adventuresome and disturbing than that. And it is also more beautiful.
February 11, 2009
I have always been fascinated by martyrs. I am sure that part of the reason has to do with their courage, and the inevitable question as to whether or not I would be able to face up to such a fate. It is a silly question, asked only by those who have the luxury to consider such eventualities. I suspect that most martyrs of the faith did not worry over much about their martyrdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reportedly, walked to the gallows naked, having prayed, and committed himself to the Lord whom he had sought to serve. Other martyrs had even less time to consider their situation. One thinks of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Oscar Romero. And, as my mother would be quick to remind me, most martyrs do not have such dramatic and well-publicized ends: the single Mom who raises her children, brings them to church, gets them educated and launched; the pastor who spends his whole life in small, unpromising settings and does so without remorse or regret, happy in the service of God; the woman dying of breast cancer, digging in her garden, planting flowers she will never see and enjoying that day’s sunshine. These are martyrs too and quite unromantic ones.
Our suspicion of martyrdom (e.g., “I don’t want to be a martyr!” Or, “Don’t play the martyr act on me!) is meant to indicate that we can see through the religious language so often used to disguise baser motives. Thinking that we can see through all of that hypocritical piety, we easily convince ourselves that there are no real motives for living faithfully or dying well. Martyrs, however, remind us otherwise, which is why we find them so disturbing.
From the beginning, the Christian faith has made it clear that following Jesus Christ can get you killed, either slowly or sometimes quite suddenly. The strange thing is that when people hear that, it sounds like martyrs must be brave if rather sad people, tragic figures, really, like heroes dying for some lost cause. What is more difficult to convey, however, is the martyr’s . . . .what? Good cheer? Confidence? Equanimity? Clarity of mind? Joy?
This morning at devotionals I read the story of Polycarp’s death (+155 A.D.). Polycarp was 86 years old when he was burned to death by his Roman persecutors. Given a chance to denounce his Lord and save his life, Polycarp replied to his tormentors, simply, “Eighty-six years I have served him and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”8 Reading Polycarp’s story has always put a smile on my face, not because I think I could do something like that or that something like that would be easy, but because there is a hint in his words of a friendly insouciance, a kind of careless dismissal of the threat.
In 1996, Father Christian de Cherge, a French monk living in Algeria, was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists and along with his fellow monks, beheaded. (You can read more about this in the book, The Monks of Tibhirine (St. Martin’s 2003), a story that has also received cinematic treatment in the movie, Of Gods and Men.) In a note to his family, he asked them to pray for the troubled country of Algeria and for the gracious people who lived there. He did not want to become a martyr, and particularly he did not want his Algerian captors to be implicated in his death. His last words were addressed to the one who was poised to behead him. He wrote: “And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you are doing. Yes, for you also I wish this “thank you”—and this adieu—to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours. And may we find each other, ‘happy good thieves’ in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen.”9
Do you hear the same ridiculous note in this testimony, that executioner and executed might both be found to be “happy good thieves” whom Jesus might surprise with his unaccountable grace? As if the moment were but a moment and the drama more encompassing and more mysterious than we can know.
Martyrs should not make us feel guilty or subvert our own witness, however small. I think they are given to us as gifts, in part to bring to vivid life what is at stake in this business of the faith, but also to encourage us, even to make us smile, as old Polycarp’s story makes me smile. They also serve to remind us that the Christian life is a life together, a life where others give strength, a life where martyrs make us want to do things we would otherwise never venture.
Maybe that is why we are so quick to disclaim any sense of martyrdom. Their freedom actually scares us. Maybe we should pray to be so free.
March 11, 2009
It’s odd how generations just miss one another sometimes. Some of you would know or at least recognize the name, “Sara Little,” but others might not recognize that name at all. She had been retired from her work as a teacher some time before this seminary in Charlotte got going. She had taught on the Richmond campus of Union Theological Seminary and before that, across the street at Presbyterian School of Christian Education. In any case, hers was a name to be reckoned with. I suspect she was one of the first women to be awarded a PhD from Yale in Christian Education, and I know she was one of the first women to teach at Union in Richmond. She was first in a lot of categories. Her many books had established her reputation as a scholar (above all, her book on teaching, entitled, To Set One’s Heart, (Westminster John Knox, 1983)). Her reputation in the classroom was legendary.
When I arrived in Charlotte in 2001, I knew her by name and reputation only, though if I had attended PSCE or Union, I daresay I would have had a much more vivid impression. At her memorial service yesterday, I heard a former student and colleague of hers talk about what a gift it was—a scary gift at times—to be in the classroom with Sara Little. I also listened to one of her pastors speak about how intimidated he was to find her in his “New Members Class” at Sharon Presbyterian Church. My purpose here is not to praise Sara Little but simply to note that toward the end of her life when she was quite retired, she helped the seminary get started here by giving a lecture on Christian Education. She was old then and not active, but willing, nevertheless, to give us a little push.
Sara was buried in the cemetery at Amity Presbyterian Church, in a part of town where she grew up. When Sara was a child the church was in a rural part of Mecklenburg County, but now the city has swallowed it up and the church finds itself in a transitional neighborhood. Sara was raised on a red clay cotton farm on the edge of Charlotte, attended Queens College, Presbyterian School of Christian Education, and Yale University. She was in many ways a product of the Presbyterian Church and the culture it fostered in this area, a culture of learning and service and hard work and stubborn hope.
As her remains were returned to the soil, I thought about the long journey she had taken from home, the many lives she had touched, but also of the church that was capable of producing such saints. Times have changed. Where there was once a cotton farm with cows grazing in the meadows, now there are deteriorating neighborhoods, gang graffiti, and unceasing traffic. The challenges before us in our day are fearsome indeed and will demand everything and more of us in response. Still, in the early afternoon of a lovely spring day, I stood beside the cemetery and watched as the church’s day school children were enjoying their morning recess. Black and white and Hispanic, 4 and 5 year-olds kicking a large ball around the yard, laughing