Advent II
Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:1-11
Luke 3:1-6
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Can a cop killer become a saint? As hard as it may be to accept, Christianity is adamant – Yes. In typical Anglican restraint, reserve, prudence, our Communion has never declared a specific individual to be a saint, but we acknowledge and venerate those deemed so by the wider Church and we wisely recognize and celebrate modern Christian heroes.
Roman Catholics, of course, are more assertive. They have developed a Byzantine bureaucracy to make the decision about whether we know someone to be a saint. In 1987, when he was Archbishop of Parish, Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger initiated the process for Jacques Fesch. It’s become a controversial case:
[Fesch] was the wastrel son of a wealthy family, a chronic adulterer who divorced his wife, and a playboy who produced an illegitimate child, whom he abandoned. By his own admission, Fesch fantasized about sailing to the South Pacific, where he would live a Gaugin-esque life of perfect hedonism. Alas, his parents refused to bankroll such a scheme. Undeterred, on Feb. 25, 1954, he entered a Paris currency dealer’s shop, grabbed 300,000 francs from the till, pistol-whipped the proprietor and then bolted out the door.
As the shop owner stumbled into the street after him, Jean Vergne, a 35-year old French police officer, intervened, ordering Fesch to surrender. Fesch refused. Instead he shot Vergne three times through the heart. Vergne, a widower with a 4-year old daughter, was dead before he hit the pavement. At his trial, Fesch was surly and unrepentant, which made it easy for the court to find him guilty. . . .1
Imprisoned and frightened, stripped of luxuries and distractions, suffering, he confronted his guilt in the silence and isolation. He slowly started to change. He was no longer certain God didn’t exist. He tried to believe in God and even indulged in a very little bit of prayer. Then, about a year after his arrest, Fesch had an dramatic conversion experience. He repented. He made his confession to the prison chaplain and developed an intense prayer life. He reached out to his family and tried to heal relationships. Despite this transformation, the French courts sentenced him to execution. Fesch went to the guillotine on October 1, 1957, without bitterness and full of faith.
Some have argued that Fesch’s heinous, dissolute, nihilistic past disqualify him from ever becoming a saint, that Christians could never pray to a St. Fesch. What would he be, the patron saint of murderers?
But Jesus brought good news to sinners... to all sinners! Let’s remember the Good Thief who hung on a cross next to Jesus on Mount Calvary. Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Lk 23:43) Lustiger has argued, “Nobody is ever lost in God’s eyes, even when society has condemned him.” He wants Fesch beatified “to give a great hope to those who despise themselves, who see themselves as irredeemably lost.”2
In the story of Fesch we see three central themes of today’s readings. The first is God’s love for every person, the universality of his care, his desire for intimacy with every one of his creatures. The second is repentance, that is whether we recognize our need and seek God, whether we are willing to turn around, to change. And, third, if we repent, our life expands – healing relationships, making more connections, forming stronger communities. Repentance renews creation.
First: God’s universal love. One of the strengths of our parish family is our relative diversity – diversity in terms of race, background, opinion, experience, identity. It’s a quality we have to be concerned about, that we have to work at and nurture – always seeking people different than us. We need different types of people who challenge us to expand our understanding, our charity, our compassion. It’s very important not to be a homogeneous community, but a truly catholic, a truly universal gathering. The church is not a club of the like-minded, but a microcosm and a foreshadowing of the Kingdom of God. A harmonious community of different peoples united by and in Christ shows the power and reality of God’s love; it points to what is to come.
S. Luke understands John the Baptist’s ministry in the context of Isaiah the prophet’s vision of a voice crying in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. . . . all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” God embraces all flesh, all nations, all peoples – not just the Jews. Luke’s pointing out that God’s universal concern has been part of Judaism all along, that Jewish tradition includes the expectation that God will include all people in his Kingdom. And yet, John’s “radical questioning of an ethnic basis for membership in the people of God” posed a serious challenge to Judaism.3 It offended the religious establishment and increased hostility toward him.
John’s challenge to the religious establishment about tremendous scope of God’s inclusiveness leads us to wonder how our own tradition may be far more inclusive than we recognize. It warns us not to draw lines about who’s in and who’s out, but rather see God reaching out to and welcoming all people – even people like the unrepentant Fesch.
Second: repentance. God calls everyone to him, but not everyone responds. For John the Baptist, membership in the people of God isn’t inherited; it’s not a matter of blood. It comes from orienting our lives toward God and his purposes. John re-defines Israel. John’s in the wilderness, calling people back out to the place of Israel’s formative experience. The Hebrew people became Israel after escaping bondage in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, and covenanting with God at Mt. Sinai. John is saying, “Come out to the wilderness. Make a new start. Return to God.”
Anyone going out to the wilderness is departing from their ordinary life, turning away from the world’s values, turning away from the political powers – Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod and Philip, turning away from the religious powers – Annas and Caiaphas the high priests. Repentance means to change; it means to turn around 180 degrees – away from human agendas and competitiveness and toward God’s purpose; it’s aligning our lives with God and adopting God’s values: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Extend hospitality to those who cannot reciprocate. Give without expectation of return.”4
Third: healthy relationships and community. Repentance builds relationships, heals relationships, renews relationships, sustains relationships. It’s essential because we’re constantly messing them up.
Sin is a fact of human existence. Sin separates us from God and from other people. Sin damages relationships. The world teaches us to overlook our sin, not to take it too seriously, not to consider that the person we are is not the person we could be. Unless we recognize our weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings, life will confuse us, anger us, deflate us. We’ll despair. We won’t seek God. We won’t turn to God.
What does a repentant life look like? Fesch was fortunate. His time in prison didn’t harden him further. Instead, his time in prison became a great blessing, a way to meet God. In the isolation, austerity, helplessness of prison – in that wilderness, he experienced God. He changed. He turned around 180 degrees. Instead of being full of malice and fury, instead of rebelling against his situation, he came to know joy and deep peace.
S. Paul wrote today’s epistle to the Philippians while he was locked up in prison – isolated, with no control over his condition, his future unknown. Yet, the overwhelming tone of Paul’s letter is overflowing joy and thanksgiving. It comes from his affection for the Philippians, his deep friendships in that community. He thanks God for them, prays for them, holds them in his heart, longs for them. Their love gives him strength to endure his captivity. It’s what we’re coming to be to one another – a renewed humanity.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. Thomas J. Craughwell, “Saints Misbehavin’,” The Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2006, W13.
3. Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans (1997), p. 164.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
