The Gray Monk

St Stephen's Day
26 December, 2004
Sung Eucharist

+In the Name of God,
Father, son and holy spirit,
Amen

"At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the tops of their voices they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him."

It seems strange, at this time of celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus, the Christ Child now to be seen in our representative manger, to mark the death of the first Christian martyr. Over the next few days we will mark several more, Holy Innocents on Tuesday, Thomas Becket on Wednesday and, through the rest of the year, many, many more. Why should this be so?

In part, it is to remind us that Christmas is inexorably linked to Easter - and we are an Easter Faith. Our salvation lies not in the babe in the manger in Bethlehem, but in the broken man on the Cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter. It is to remind us that the path between the two is not one of unmitigated joy and celebration, that it has its moments of pain as well. Yet, as I was reminded while preparing this sermon, St Athanasius - yes, he of the Athanasian Creed - argued that in the Babe lays the truth of our salvation, saying, "He became man, so that we might become God." Sometimes perhaps, our focus is too narrow; we do not see the reality behind the obvious.

The word martyr is one that is much abused in our present age. From its original meaning of "witnessing to the Faith" sometimes by dying rather than giving up the faith they hold, it has come to have a slightly different meaning - in the modern media usage it means someone taking their own life in order to maim and kill others. In such circumstances it can be very difficult to distinguish between martyr and tyrant, between slain and slayer. Martyrdom is now, in some parts of the world an "acceptable" manner in which to bring death and destruction to anyone perceived as an "enemy" of the faith, but it was not always so, and it should not be seen in this manner.

It is true, too, that many Christian martyrs would appear to have deliberately provoked the authorities in order to bring about their own death. It may even have been a political tool for some, but in each case, when you examine it carefully you find that the distinguishing mark is that they did not, themselves, kill their persecutors. They were persecuted even to their deaths by their tormentors and did not resist or attempt to retaliate. That is the mark of a martyr.

It would be a legitimate question to ask why, if the Babe in Bethlehem came to bring Peace and Goodwill to mankind, there should have been suffering and death in bringing this faith to the world? The answer lies within us. Each of us is given by God the freedom to follow, to accept his grace, and to practice the peace and love that He preached. But each of us is also free to reject that and to continue to exercise our greed, our fear, and our all too fallible nature in seeking the easy route, the soft option, and avoid the big issues that test us.

Stephen chose to express exactly what the Spirit moved him to do and say. It obviously provoked his audience and they, for their part, found him so offensive that they exercised their human anger and stoned him. The babe came to bring peace and goodwill to mankind, according to the angels, but within days, his arrival had brought fear, enmity, and death.

So, where is the peace and the goodwill?

The message that the creators of our lectionary calendar were trying to bring to us is this. To follow where the Christ child, the man, and the Gospels lead us is not without a price. We have to be prepared to surrender our much vaunted and prized "freedom" in order to accept the burden that comes with having to give ourselves, our fears, and our ambitions entirely over to God. We have to be prepared to give up everything in order to pursue our faith. This was the message to the rich young man who asked; "What must I do to have eternal life?" The answer was "Give everything you possess to the poor - and follow me." It is worth remembering that, in making this rather harsh reply Jesus was looking directly into the young man's heart - and seeing what it was that stood between him and the faith he sought.

To be truly followers of Christ means we have to be prepared to serve Him, and in so doing, we have to be prepared to make sacrifices. Worship is, in one sense, sacrificial, for we surrender our time, our energy, and our efforts in order to give God the praise and the glory which is His due. We cannot earn our way into heaven; we have to accept it on trust and as a precious gift. That gift is one well worth giving up everything to receive. Stephen and the other early martyrs recognized this and did not flinch; their faith held firm.

As Matthew tells us in today's Gospel: "All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved."
For the first three hundred years following Christ's death and resurrection the church suffered persecution, and there were many who followed Stephen into martyrdom. They died because they believed that they had a faith worth dying for. In many parts of the world Christians still live in fear and persecution. We are more fortunate than most - we have only the occasional sneers of our neighbours and the media to deal with. Do we hold this faith - or is our faith a simple candyfloss of pretty images - mangers, stables, sighing virgins, and children flocking to a gentle and humble stranger wandering from place to place? Or is it something that grips us firmly, something that speaks from our very being? Something that accepts that it was not and is not all sweetness and light, all singing and joy?

The events of the last few years have shown us another aspect to martyrdom, a very modern one that sacrifices life in order to take it from others. This is not the martyrdom of Stephen and the rest; this is something altogether different in our understanding. Yet it shares one thing - a determination to hold to faith no matter the consequences.

Our faith - the Christian faith - calls us to make sacrifices in order to follow where Christ leads. These are made in order that we may obtain understanding of the Gospel and grow spiritually. Our sacrifices may be simply giving up our time, suffering the occasional snide remark about Christian "abuses" or "superstition" from work colleagues or neighbours. Sometimes we may have to make career choices in order to preserve our ability to exercise our faith. This is increasingly so as more and more commercial enterprises opt to trade seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day. No room there for anyone who wishes to exercise their faith by attending church.

Whether we recognize our sacrifices as such or not, we are all making them as we seek to follow our faith. Stephen and the other Christian martyrs paid a price we are not likely to be called upon to give, but that does not mean we should not be prepared to do so. To follow Christ means that we must give of ourselves - yes, even give everything we have.

We have welcomed the Christmas Babe, and now we must welcome Him as our Saviour. He compels all of us to make our worship and our lives His own, to give spiritually that we and others may have faith, be strengthened and developed in faith - even when it means giving up something dear to us to do so.

We are all called to be martyrs like Stephen; let us hope we are never called upon to make that ultimate offering. Let us offer instead our prayers for the growth of our community, for the spread of peace and goodwill to all mankind - and to the defeat of fear and ignorance that binds so many into the darkness. May the peace and goodwill promised in the birth of the Christ child be eventually delivered to all men and women everywhere. When we leave this place today, let us do so in the hope that we can be the bringers of that peace to our torn and troubled world.

Finally, as we stand on the threshold of a new year, our New Year Resolutions at the ready, perhaps we should step back and ask ourselves "if I were the young man confronting Christ; What would He see in my heart as the blockage between me and true discipleship? What would He tell me to leave or to give away? When we can answer that - and walk away to do it, we open ourselves to the true joy and meaning of the Incarnation - and to true discipleship. Then we can discover the real gift that came at Christmas, which led Stephen and others to become martyrs - witnessing to the faith even in death.

Amen