St James the Great.
Ordinary Sunday 17: 25th July, 1999
Revd Dr Colin Holden,
Assistant Priest, St Peter's Eastern Hill
Note: This sermon is in two parts. Don't forget to visit Part 2!
About that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and James the brother of John he killed with the sword. (Acts 12, 1-2)
The incident involving the petition by the mother of James and John for a special place in Jesus' kingdom for her two sons (Matthew 20, 20-28) is yet another of those instances that illustrates the gap between the expectations of Jesus Himself and His disciples prior to His Passion; we are all familiar with other incidents in which there are crude understanding of Jesus and His mission, often expression in the expectation that now or later, they will be seen, in the eyes of others, to come out on top. And to this particular request for a special place, Jesus offers a challenge that shows he had a clear premonition of the response which He would eventually generate; likewise, here and in several other passages, He understood that if His followers were to embrace His position as their own, they would receive a similar response. It is part of the proclamation of the Easter gospel that not only did Jesus' followers experience a change in the way they understood Jesus; they changed in a quite consistent way in themselves. A new awareness of Jesus led to a changed self-awareness. But it is of St James alone that the New Testament writings explicitly tell of the consistency between this new conviction and his final end, though St Peter's death as a martyr is clearly hinted at the end of St John's gospel. But very early, traditions developed in the early church concerning end of the lives of all the apostles; and there was a theological logic to them, as well as a consistency with the signs of discipleship as defined in several passages in the Gospels. According to the tradition, all were martyrs, save St John, who was to witness to his faith under torture.
And it is the meaning for us of this tradition about discipleship that I want to make my focus. What is it about? It is certainly about something we are all called to; it can be a convenient escape to interpret the twelve primarily as models of leadership, but this seems to miss the point that their number, twelve, echoing the number of the tribes of the believing community of Israel, hints strongly that they represent a whole new community in embryo. The questions raised about them are relevant in some way for all of us. So what of this incident and its uncomfortable implications? Is it that martyrdom is the highest vocation, the ultimate proof? - and that those who are not martyrs, have missed out on the best ticket? Certainly the Christians of the early centuries expressed this particular point of view from time to time in different ways; one was simply in commemorating as saints for some time only those who were martyrs, having feast days for no others, and subsequently commemorating others only sparingly at first. The succinct saying of the 3rd century African lawyer and controversialist Tertullian, 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church', represented an important part of early Christian experience, often quoted as though there could be no question that this was case.
But surely this is all just a little extreme? And can't there be some rather odd resonances, unhealthy ones, in a fascination with martyrdom? A religious sublimation of the erotic, with violence a thin mask for the repression of something else; that is certainly the impression you can receive from the treatment of martyrdom in some art, as well as the fascination it holds for some kinds of personality. Indeed, why not raise questions concerning martyrdom? There are good reasons, but we can recognise them without ignoring a devotional core in this range of experience that still addresses us and raises the basic question of offering and sacrifice.
When it comes to raising questions, from a historical perspective, a sympathetic agnostic and significant historian of the classical world, Paul Fox, has asked anew whether it was it the high achievers, the martyrs, or the less exalted majority, that were the ones on whom Christianity depended for survival in early period. Not unsympathetic in his representation of the martyrs, he identifies the rank and file, who bent before the imperial winds and came back to the churches when it was safe to do so, as more important for Christianity's survival. [1] There is some truth in this, and there is a sense in which the Catholic church of the first centuries would agree. The persecutions and the status of those who returned to the church after denying their faith created a real conundrum. There were those in the third and fourth century - the Donatists - who regarded those who bent before the imperial wind and burnt a little incense to the emperor's genius to save themselves as having irrevocably forfeited membership of the church, But if they wanted to define the church as a community of the squeaky clean, their position left no place for any kind of repentance or forgiveness, and Catholic Christianity condemned it as false idealism, and offered the possibility of return for those whom the Donatists excluded.
There are sound psychological reasons for being suspicious of any overt desire for martyrdom. In fact, careful Christian reflection developed a healthy psychological insight and distinguished martyrdom from any conscious death-wish and blocked off the kind pof appraoch that might have made martyr into the Christian equivalent of a kamikaze pilot. Actively seeking death is no part; overt heroics or the desire for posthumous fame and the like have all come to be understood as disqualifications. A suucinct presentation of much of this is found in the sermon placed by T. S. Eliot in the mouth of Thomas a Becket in Murder in the Cathedral. There are a few, like Teresa of Avila, who envisaged martyrdom as an ideal at an early age, and who showed every sign of mature and balanced personalities; but overt seeking out of death has been recognised by the community of faith for what it generally is - something unbalanced.
But if the mainstream Christian tradition actually sees the deliberate seeking out of martyrdom as a misplaced or skewed piety, we need to be a little careful before we conclude that all questioning of martyrdom is based on a sound theological ground, and not instead on a preference for comfort. John Donne, the significant 17th century dean of St Pauls, brought up in the shadow of Counter-reformation Roman Catholic stress on martyrdom, wrote in his poem A Litanie, that 'to some, Not to be Martyrs, is a martyrdome'. The position described by Donne can be, and is, a quite real one, and involves a degree of deliberation as well as maturity; among other things, it involves departing from any kind of attention-getting devices, as well as a commitment to self-offering in ways that are self-effacing, something which is the very nub of both this morning's gospel, and the broader tradition concerning the martyrdom of the apostles. But I suspect that a more general discomfort over anything that appears like too much reference to the subject is more a reflection of something that people have either failed to think through carefully, or have avoided because it might make demands (on them, and us).
More recently, experience of this century, and of events last decades of 19th cent that have only recently passed from living memory in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and more recent events there, as well as parts of South America and under recently dissolved totalitarian regimes, suggest that Tertullian, with his claim that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, was onto something, no matter how awkward some of us might feel about it (nothing too extreme, after all, we are Anglican). The strength of Christianity in the former USSR, and the growth of Christian communities in Uganda and other parts of Africa are prime examples. In Papua New Guinea, with the Japanese invasion imminent, Bishop Philip Strong, in a moving radio broadcast, praised and encouraged those teachers, nursing staff and priests who had remaineds in the mission field, because consistency between teaching and life would now be seen; at the same time, he reminded them that 'no one requires us to leave. No one has required us to leave.' [2] As we know, a significant number of Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists died or suffered very real deprivation for their faith, the equivalent of the confessors of the early church. The strength of several churches in Papua New Guinea since World War II, the integrity of the majority if not all of their key figures, and even the authority of the very recent questioning of impropriety in government from church leaders, all have roots in this sacrificial offering in earlier decades.
If there is a witness within the Christian communities of our own age that points to this ultimate sacrifice as something with very positive fruits, not just morbid self-indulgence or psychological inbalance, there are some other dimensions that we do well to ponder on that come from a wider body of experience in our day.
Although there are many voices assuring us that the major motivator for human behaviour is one or another kind of self-interest or self satisfaction, and that motivation for most is void of ideal, or at least that ideals are low as motivators, easily overcome by other elements, there is still much that suggests that we can be, and are, deeply motivated by other things, and at that, far more demanding, idealistic things. Even feel-good weekend newspaper supplements and TV mini-bites focus from time to time on stories of generosity and sacrifice, because they provoke a response from deep within part of their public.
At a deeper level, not only is there a continuing witness within the Christian tradition to which I have just referred: the community beyond institutionalalised religion still seems to have to have its martyrs and its confessors, those who have witnessed through their suffering, without ultimately giving up their lives. The fascination with, and concern over the Holocaust far from simple. But once we pass beyond being cynical about even Hollywood's harnessing of this period as a money-spinner, and when allowance has been made for several other important dimensions (the basic issue of nature of evil and who gets caught up in it; racial concerns), the need and desire to identify martyrs, sufferers for truth and conviction, remains important. There is a deepseated desire in many people to find lives (and deaths) that offer evidence that people are willing to give themselves totally to something beyond themselves and self interest. In another corner, Joan of Arc has developed into a new cult figure for a large body of people, including many teenagers, again well beyond the bounds of institutionalised belief: but commentators on this, such as Mary Beth Tallon, remark that the element of consciously religious offering in her life is still important to this audience: 'I think young people are really yearning for a hero that will connect them. Somebody who is as good as Rambo, but a Rambo who prays'. [3]
Closer to home, a Melbourne literary academic, David Tacey, published reflections in 1995 on a variety of issues entitled The Edge of the Sacred, in which some of his presentation showed a common enough yearning for a spirituality without too many clear edges: the only effective priests in his experience were those who were free from making doctrinal pronouncements. But in 1996, stimulated in part by this parish's 150th celebrations, he wrote in a major article in the Age of the shallowness of spirituality that offered comfort and cosiness, instead of squarely acknowledging the basic place of demand and sacrifice. And at this point, he referred to a basic Catholic doctrine: he claimed that only something like the doctrine of sacrifice that is both at the heart of Christianity, and is represented in the Mass, is able to offer an adequate challenge to the allurements of self-interest presented both in some versions of New Age spirituality, and in the self-interest expressed in quite different forms, such as economic rationalism.
Where does this leave us? The yearning after a way of life and a witness that is self-denying, sacrificial, that I discern in my last examples is one which we should be able to say that we too share. The need to find a way of offering, a mode of sacrifice, is an important human drive, and one that Catholic Christians, of all people, should be able to demonstrate to others. What we might need to acknowledge is that the desire and search for this has more often come to bypass institutional Christianity in recent times because of some failure on our own part to actually embody this in our own lives. Of course there are many aspects of self-offering and self-denial that involve unobtrusive offering, but real generosity in any kind of giving eventually becomes noticeable. At every eucharist we join ourselves to Jesus in an action performed first on the night before his ultimate sacrificial self offering; we join ourselves to Him here, as our model in self-offering. The situation in which St James and St John appear in the gospel for this feast day invites us to ask of ourselves, and of this community, are we ready to offer ourselves, what we have and what we are, totally? And how are we responding to this calling which is our duty as Catholic Christians to fulfil?
Notes
- Paul Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the
Second century AD to the Conversion of Constantine, 1986, chapter 9.
- The New Guinea Diaries of Sir Philip Strong 1936-1945, ed D. Wetherell,
Melbourne, 1981, pp. 222-3.
- See 'The next teenage hero is a God-fearing, cross-dressing virgin', The
Weekend Australian Review, July 24-5, 1999, p. 8.
Go to
Part 2 of this sermon (Sunday August 1st, 1999)
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