So impressed by them I was, I wrote a book about them—that is, about early Christian martyrs—a little academic book, good for sleeping, not a bestseller.[1]
I wrote it because I was impressed by their behavior (the martyrs’ behavior)—or, rather, misbehavior—and by the things they said in the face of interrogation, torture, and even in the moment of death—remarkable behavior, remarkable words. The second century martyrs of Lyons, for example, supposedly joked about their torture “as they sped on to Christ.”[2] Pionius, another martyr, this one a priest, was downright insistent. Staring down his interrogator, the priest taunted him saying, “You have been ordered either to persuade us or to punish us. You are not persuading us. So, inflict the punishment.”[3] He was later crucified, but offered even then one last opportunity to recant. “Change your mind and the nails will be taken out,” they told him. But he just looked at his hands and said, “I feel they are in to stay.”[4]
Remarkable behavior, remarkable words as I said. Fueled I think, obviously by faith, but specifically by the vision of faith, a vision of the universe, and of God, of history, and eternity. To put it simply, I think these martyrs had a larger vision than did their persecutors, and it made them brave if not somewhat arrogant before the ignorance of the powerful. Saturus was a martyr in North Africa. From behind prison bars, he used to stare at passersby, taunting them. “Get a good look at our faces,” he’d say. “You will see us again, and you will recognize us on the day.”[5] The day of judgment; they were able to see the end of the game—these martyrs—and it made them fearless. When Pionius, that priest, was asked, “Which god do you worship?” he answered, “The God who is almighty…who made the heavens and the earth…I am a Christian…I do not offer sacrifice to men.”[6] Remarkable behavior, remarkable words.
Ours is a different age, however. Reminiscent of Plato and his critique of corrupt democracy, ours is an age in which we are educated and conditioned in what the philosopher called “unnecessary and useless” desires, resistant to any arguments for goodness or truth. If anyone says anything about goodness and truth—anything contrary to a person’s individual pleasure—he “but shakes his head,” Plato said, “and says all pleasures are equal and should have equal right.” Politics, therefore, becomes the politics of fleeting self-interest rather than common society.[7] “Liberty” becomes code for “license,” that is, for doing whatever you please. And so, society becomes merely a collective—of individuals, of consumers, and of the offended—no longer truly a community. The image and the parable here is of the man, staring at his phone, walking right off the edge of a cliff along with a million other people he never actually met. Ours is a different age.
Chantal Delsol is an interesting French thinker—I don’t buy everything she’s selling. However, she is right, I think, in her assessment of the fracture of Western culture—fracture sociale, the evidence of which I should think is evident and abundant. She says that with the loss of any sort of common moral paradigm, we’ve entered an age not even of ideologies, but rather simply an age of the war of identities. People form collectives, she says, around markers of sex, gender, culture, or behavior, and they unite “to defend the point of identity that is their common ground.” Politics thus becomes, as she says, “individual narcissism at the social level.”[8] This, I think, is the anxiety and the social impotence we feel—Plato’s worst fears of corrupt democracy come true. Why do things feel so tense and so different these days? I don’t know; I’m not a prophet. But it may be this, and this should frighten you.
But we don’t know what to think. We’re fearful to speak. I’m not sure why we can’t talk about tyranny? A social and technological tyranny cowering even politicians—certainly you and I—scared off from doing or saying what is right or even what we believe—afraid of some viral crucifixion, tweeted a million times until your world comes crashing down around you. And so, we remain silent. We refuse to think. We’re fearful to speak.
Vaclav Havel was the first democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism. He was a playwright, philosopher, and dissident before taking office. One of his most influential essays, written well before he entered politics, called “The Power of the Powerless” describes life in totalitarian society. It’s a remarkable piece of writing. He talks about a shop owner forced to place a sign with a political slogan in his shop window—“Workers of the world, unite!” the sign reads. “Why does he do it?” Havel asks. “Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world?” No, Havel said. Rather, “If he were to refuse, there would be trouble.” The real meaning of the sign, he said, is this: “I…live here and I know what I must do. I behave in a manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am above reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.”[9] This is how it works, he said—modern totalitarian dictatorship. We police ourselves, even if we don’t believe in the ideologies currently in power, because—as Havel said—we “live within a lie;” we just want to get along quietly, and so therefore we “confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”[10] But, of course, Havel was talking about communist Czechoslovakia, not the “land of the free, home of the brave.” Or are we just afraid to think so?
Now I’m sorry for spending so much time on this, rambling on about politicians, philosophers, and martyrs. But I’m trying to get my head around these words of Jesus we just heard—crazy talk about a darkened sun, falling stars, shaken powers, and the “‘Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory.”[11] And I’m trying, as a stammering and struggling preacher, to suggest to you that these very words of Jesus—these strange apocalyptic words of Jesus—these may just be the most relevant and timely words of the Lord you’ll ever hear. They are not the primitive relics you think they are. They speak to our time and to the character and vision demanded of those who would be his disciples. The unmoved here are simply the unaware.
Speaking these words, Jesus is at the end of his ministry. In a few days, he’ll be dead upon a tree. And they didn’t crucify Jesus because he was persuasive or convincing. They crucified him because neither he nor they had anything else to say. As the gospels relate, Jesus enters the Temple precincts; he argues with the bright authorities and the powers of the day. And his arguments go nowhere. The debates end in a foreboding silence as the politics begin to play out and the wood is made ready along with the nails. And so, Jesus sits down across from the newly built Temple (it wasn’t even completed), and he prophesies its destruction. He warns his followers about the “tribulation” to come. He tells them not to be misled, but to be “watchful.”[12] He encourages us to see and understand the times—“Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” he says. And so, the Lord tells us to be mindful and to be vigilant of the greater truths of the universe—the truth of God and of his power and of words that “will not pass away.”[13]
And this is our lesson. In this tyranny of ill reason, political buffoonery, silence, and weakness—this is our lesson. To see and to live like those martyrs—if not in death, at least in bravery and boldness, laughing at the powers of the shallow day. To live like Jesus in truth and in the utter freedom of bondage. Standing before Pilate Jesus said, “I was born for this…You would have no power…if it had not been given to you from above.” “Then he handed him over…to be crucified,” the gospel says.[14] This is our lesson. If you want comfortable, you don’t want Christianity, certainly not Catholicism. You want something else. Choices will have to be made. The game is short. “For our salvation is nearer now that when we first believed.”[15] Amen.
[1] Joshua J. Whitfield, Pilgrim Holiness: Martyrdom and Descriptive Witness
[2] The Martyrs of Lyons 1.6
[3] The Martyrdom of Pionius the Presbyter 8
[4] Ibid. 21 paraphrase
[5] The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas 17 paraphrase
[6] The Martyrdom of Pionius 8
[7] Plato, The Republic 561-561e
[8] Chantal Delsol, The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, 128
[9] Vaclav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” Open Letters, 132-133
[10] Ibid., 136
[11] Mark 13:26
[12] Mark 13:1-23
[13] Mark 13:28-31
[14] John 18:37; 19:11, 16
[15] Romans 13:11
© 2021 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
