On May the 4th the Church of England celebrates the witness of the Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era. But we are not simply remembering ‘our own’, Church of England martyrs; those who died for their unwavering fealty to the Church of England in the face of Roman Catholic persecution. We are also remembering those Roman Catholics who died at the hands of Protestants for maintaining their Faith and allegiance. We remember those like Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley who were burned at the stake by Roman Catholic monarchs in the turbulent years following Henry VIII. But we also remember the often unnamed Roman priests who hid within, and were sometimes forcibly dragged from, secret closets in the great Catholic houses of the land. Both sides in this horrible period of English history had men and women of great courage, who lived by the light they had been given at the time. They believed earnestly in the central tenants of their faith, and earnestly believed, whether they were Anglican Catholics, or Roman Catholics, that their particular expression of the church was the right one. It was a belief for which they were prepared to die, and yes, sometimes to kill.
We are recognising, therefore, that there was true Godliness
and great courage in martyrs on both sides of that divide. But we also recognise that there was terrible
error and great evil committed by those who ordered the martyrdoms on both
sides! The only way that we can confront
these two opposing truths is with humility.
First, we are invited to personal humility, as we stand in awe of the strength
of faith, the holiness and courage of those who witnessed to their
understanding of God right up to the point of death. Would I, would you, have the courage to do
the same? In the face of someone
threatening to burn me alive, would I have the courage to stand firm as the
English martyrs did? Or indeed as our
own St Faith did, in a different time?
The honest answer is that very few of us would have that courage. Our only response, therefore, must surely be
one of humility.
However, we also need to express some corporate humility
too: humility and repentance for the Church
as an institution, which can turn so swiftly to condemn those who don’t share
our particular theological view. And
humility and repentance for all the times that condemnation has turned to
violence. In the Reformation Era, there
was a see-sawing of religious life in England at the time, as one monarch
replaced another, and the balance of power shifted between Anglicans and Romans,
depending who was on the throne. In those
swings of power and opinion, it is frightening to remember how quickly the
oppressed became the oppressor. How
quickly zeal turned into hatred and then violence.
The Reformation, in that sense, is a stark warning to
theological warriors of today. Arm-chair
theologians, as well as many pressure groups within the church, still argue
with each other about what God thinks is ‘right’ on any number of issues. Christian Twitter is sometimes a very nasty
place. Everyone has their own opinion on a wide range of subjects, These range from which political party is
nearer to the Kingdom of God (a good question for Election Day!) to vexed
questions around human sexuality. Or
Christians love to debate the protection of national borders, the role of the
Monarchy in modern Britain, the question of a woman’s right to choose, the
correct mode of dress for priests and many more issues that inspire real
vitriol, I’m sad to say. There are, for
example, large parts of the Anglican Communion who are presently breaking away
from Canterbury, over recent decisions of the Synod around the blessing of
same-sex marriages.
The hardest lesson to learn in these debates is the lesson
of humility. It’s salutary to remember
that Jesus himself never wrote down a single word. He was presumably capable of writing, because
we know that reading and writing were taught to Jewish boys of the time – so that
they could read the synagogue scrolls (as Jesus did himself on a visit to
Nazareth). Indeed, Jesus himself was
described as The Word – the creative force through which God spoke all things
into existence. But Jesus himself never
wrote a single word down. Instead, he
spoke in stories and parables, designed to creatively expand our thinking and
often leading us to ask more questions.
We have taken The Word, the Logos, the creative speaking of God, and
turned it into logical, rule-bound, codified letters on a page.
Stories come from a place in our psyche which is more fluid
and flexible than words. The human
brain, as I’m sure you know, is divided into two spheres – left and right. This is how we have evolved over millennia,
or how we were created by God (if you prefer).
Our capacity for creativity AND logic is what has made us the dominant
species on this planet. The left side of
our brain is the logical side. It’s the
part of our brain which reasons, organises, catalogues and processes
information. But our left brain exists
in a permanent state of dialogue with our right brain – in which art, music,
emotion, and story reside. In that
sense, we like the English Martyrs, find ourselves in a battleground – between logic
and feeling, between empirical knowledge and faith. Neither of these is more right than the
other. Both are essential to what it
means to be human beings, made in the image of God.
Jesus never wrote anything down, I believe, because he
wanted to keep our right brains alive in the difficult, challenging task of
building the Kingdom. The greatest
religious art, the sublime music of Bach, the instinct to give without counting
the cost, the willingness to love the unlovely neighbour, or even to love our
unlovely selves. These are all right
brain activities.
So to those who, with their left brain, want to nail their
theological opinions to a stake, I urge the lesson of humility. Sometimes, the most honest answer to the
great questions of our age has to be ‘we don’t know’. God’s Kingdom is not yet fully revealed, and
our ability to understand the mind of God is limited at best. At the very least, we need to grasp that when
we offer our opinion on matters such as sexuality, political alliances, abortion,
the monarchy or any number of other weighty matters, we must do so in a spirit
of humility. And, unlike the warring
theologians of the English Reformation, we must never, never, never, offer
violence in word or deed, to those with whom we might disagree.
Amen.
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