Lent 1 - Midweek
A sermon by Sandy Holbrook
March 8, 2017
Perpetua and her Companions
(Daniel 6:10-16, Matthew 24:9-14; Psalm 124)
When Jamie asked several of us to preach for these Lenten Wednesday services, he offered each of us some options for texts to use. I chose Perpetua and her Companions whose feast we commemorated yesterday. Hearing about Perpetua may lead you to wonder why I would choose her. Let me tell you a bit about her first before I explain my choice.
Perpetua lived in the third century in Carthage (a city destroyed earlier by the Romans and redeveloped to become one of the major cities of the Roman Empire in what is now Tunisia – northern Africa). She was a young widow who had an infant child; she was also the owner of several slaves. She and her four slaves were catechumens preparing for baptism. But early in the third century, the Roman Emperor decreed that all people should sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor. Since there was no way a faithful Christian could do this, Perpetua and her companions were arrested and held in prison under miserable conditions. She had a number of visions during her imprisonment, and through one of them she came to see herself as a warrior battling the Devil and defeating him in order to win entrance to the gate of life. So, at her public hearing, she refused even the pleas of her aged father to renounce her faith, saying, “I am a Christian.” On March 7, Perpetua and her companions were sent to the arena to be mangled by a leopard, a boar, a bear, and a savage cow. Perpetua and Felicitas, tossed by the cow, were bruised and disheveled, but Perpetua cried to her companions, “Stand fast in the faith and love one another. And do not let what we suffer be a stumbling block to you.”
Eventually, all five were put to death by a stroke of a sword through the throat. However, the soldier who struck Perpetua was inept. His first blow merely pierced her throat between the bones. She shrieked with pain, then aided the man to guide the sword properly.
Several of us saw the movie, Silence, as few weeks ago. Since then I have been thinking a lot about martyrdom and what it means to have faith and to live faithfully. Silence is most certainly about martyrdom and faith but with some interesting and challenging twists in our understanding of what it means to be faithful – at least for me.
There’s no escaping the gruesomeness of Perpetua’s story or the story recounted in Silence or of any stories of martyrs. At least for me - and I suspect for all of us – the stories about martyrs make us enormously thankful that our faith is NOT likely to be tested in such ways.
Since that’s the case, you may be wondering if I have simply developed a morbid fascination with martyrdom and why I chose martyrs for our focus tonight. Well, remember it’s Lent. Jamie reminded us last week on Ash Wednesday that Lent is often viewed as a season in the church year we’d just as soon skip right on by – get to those Easter bunnies and chicks, the chocolates and the celebration. After all remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall return is a reality check most of us are glad to bypass when possible.
But here we are in Lent – at just the beginning of a season which will lead us to Jesus’ martyrdom on Good Friday before we reach the celebration of Easter. In Lent we have a particular opportunity to explore and deepen our faith – even though we don’t expect to be martyrs like those we commemorate throughout the church year.
The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, an Episcopal priest, reminds us that “Martyrs are not merely people who want to die; those are just suicides. Martyrs love the lives they lay down in the service of something with an even stronger claim on them.” This evening we are reminded by Daniel’s experience and in the gospel from Matthew that threats of torture and martyrdom have a long history. I decided to focus on Perpetua and martyrdom here in the early stages of Lent because they offer us an opportunity to consider what does, in fact, have a claim on our lives, a claim stronger than the life we love, as Crafton puts it? In other words, to what are we deeply faithful? So deeply committed that we would give up our life? Since our life may not require us to be martyrs (I am hopeful on this count), how do we then demonstrate our faith? How do we “prove” it – even in modest ways? Certainly in less dramatic ways that martyrdom?
Tough questions – if we take them seriously. And they are the context in which I think we each consider committing to a specific discipline or disciplines during Lent – some practice or practices that may more sharply focus our faith. Compared to martyrdom, undertaking a Lenten discipline of some kind seems pretty tame.
How many of you are playing Lent Madness this year? While it might appear to trivialize Lent, participation that goes beyond casually voting each day for one of the two competing saints, can itself be a spiritually enriching experience– despite its light hearted approach. The creators of Lent Madness are themselves serious about Lent despite their playfulness. Their hope, expressed online, is that “Lent Madness . . . helps you in the journey, as you see that God has worked in women and men of all kinds, in all places, in all centuries. If God can work in them, God can work in us.” They go on to say, “The heart of Lent is recommitting
to our Christian journey. We do this not to earn God’s favor, but in thankful response for God’s grace.”
The martyrs remind us of the depth of faith that has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout the ages. By comparison our Lenten observances may seem lightweight; martyrs have set the bar high, but in his poem, Lent: Ash Wednesday George Herbert, the 17th Century poet, reminds us that we may not reach the high standard of martyrdom but making an effort is an important dimension of faith :
It‘s true, we cannot reach Christ’s fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev’n as he.
In both let‘s do our best.
AMEN.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment