January 18, 2009
Song of Solomon,
2:10-13
2 Corinthians,
10:17-11:2
Matthew, 18:1-6
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“I am a man,” the great Zidane said.1 Zidane, possibly the best soccer player in
the world at the time, the winner of the 2006 World Cup’s most outstanding
player award, led the French in that tournament to an unexpected and glorious
birth in the finals against the Italians. Then, in front of over 700 million viewers, Zidane had a shocking fall
from grace. Well into overtime during
the championship match, Zidane exchanged words with Marco Materazzi, one of
Devastated French fans were left to decide whether their hero’s behavior could be justified. Could there be legitimate cause to have been provoked beyond reason? “I am a man,” Zidane said in defense of himself. Adam Gopnik interpreted this as “meaning, unfortunately, that being one, he could not let an insult go unavenged.” Or, would have being a man meant having the brains, the self-control, and the sense of proportion to walk away from a provocation? While it hardly appeals to our best sense, we like swagger. We want ‘real men’ – tough, forceful, certain, men of action.
But is that the spiritually mature way to
respond to provocation? How did Jesus
respond to provocation and insult? In
his book The Spiritual Life of Children, Robert Coles reports a vignette I
associate with Jesus’ saying “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou
hast perfected praise.” (Mt 21:16 < Ps 8:2) In the South during the desegregation of schools, black children
sometimes had to walk the gauntlet to get to the school door. Around them would be mobs shouting at
them. In 1962 one
I was all alone, and those [segregationist] people were screaming, and suddenly I saw God smiling, and I smiled. ...A woman was standing there [near the school door], and she shouted at me, ‘Hey, you little [‘n’-word], what you smiling at?’ I looked right at her face , and I said, ‘At God.’ Then she looked up at the sky, and then she looked at me, and she didn’t call me any more names.2
The girl’s astounding sense of God’s presence with her sustained her in her adversity, in confronting hostility, in responding to provocation and insult. She shows us something of St. Agnes. She makes us question what real strength looks like, what real toughness is. Perhaps, it comes from a sense of God’s presence, from a trust in God, from a conviction that God cares, that in the end God will take care of everything.
“Unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said in today’s gospel. He also says it in Mark’s gospel, but in the context of the disciples fighting among themselves about who is the most prominent and important. Jesus says that true greatness can be found not in childish behavior, but in child-like qualities. Jesus is calling us to abandon the way of the world and to embrace his ways, which include three child-like qualities: trust in God, learning, humility.3
First, trust in God. For the most part, if parents are at all reliable, their children trust them to provide at least the basics. Young children are totally dependent. Entering the kingdom of heaven requires us to become dependent upon God and not to rely upon our own efforts to put ourselves right with God. Children don’t earn our care for them. Likewise, our heavenly parent’s love is not earned or deserved. Rather, it’s just part of the nature of God, and we can rely upon him and trust him far more than a child trusts even the best parent.
Second, children are eager learners and are easily taught. They’re wired for learning. With relative ease, a child can learn another language, but adults often are too stuck in familiar patterns and sounds and without the plasticity and receptivity of children. Children develop socially and emotionally, but adults often hit a wall. Children tend to be much more adaptable and flexible, but adults often get set in their ways, rigid. Jesus calls us to learn new ways, to seek growth, to adjust our lives according to his teaching.
Third, humility. In the ancient world, children had the lowest position in society, and many regarded humility not as a virtue, but as a vice, appropriate for slaves, women, and children, but inappropriate for free men. “I am a man,” Zidane said. Christians are counter-cultural and see humility as essential for all. Jesus promised, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23:12) Paul wrote, “in humility count others better than yourselves.” (Phil 2:3) Christianity calls us to see each person of infinite, and so of equal, value to God, even children, and so we’re to value every life equally. All are precious and valuable.
Our patron, St. Agnes, who is also the patron saint of girls, embodies these child-like qualities, and it suggests that we as a parish might especially seek to embody trust in God, learning, and humility. But we honor Agnes not because of her youth, but because she was a martyr, a witness to Jesus, and together we seek to embody that as well, and that requires some part of Agnes’ faith and motivation.
Agnes was brutally murdered, martyred, because she refused to marry the pagan son of powerful Roman family on the grounds that she had devoted her life to Christ. ‘Martyr’ is a bit of dicey term these days. Most use it to refer to someone who has given their life in order to advance a cause. Originally, it referred to a witness in a legal proceeding; it was a technical, forensic term. Christians appropriated it to refer to fellow believers who had died on account of their faith. The early Church had many martyrs, like Agnes, who endured great suffering and death, but most did not seek it. Indeed, Christians do not consider someone who seeks death to be a martyr. That’s not a wholesome witness of Christian faith.
In the late 20th century, some fundamentalist Muslims began to call suicide bombers martyrs. This is a source of much controversy in Islam. While Muslims who die in legitimate fights for the faith are considered to be shaheed, or a witness, or martyr, Muhammad declared that anyone who commits suicide would be excluded from heaven. Most Muslims consider suicide wholly contrary to the spirit of Islam.
Only God can judge our intent – whether
we seek death, but some Christians also appear to have come quite close, albeit
without trying to kill others as well. Muslims ruled much of medieval
To be frank, I find even more mainstream martyrdoms to be a bit disturbing. I offer a slightly different take than traditional piety. None of us is in a position to judge, but in many situations it seems unnecessary to refuse to offer a few grains of incense to gratify a swaggering, blood-thirsty emperor; it seems acceptable to renounce in word or symbolic action to save your skin. And, indeed, many Christians did renounce their faith publicly to save their skin. I am not convinced that in all cases they chose the less honorable path. They, too, could have been martyrs, witnesses to the faith, if in a less dramatic way.
Maimonides was one of the intellectual
giants of the Middle Ages. His stature
in Judaism is that of Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or both of them together. He “created the template for medieval and
modern Jewish thinking” on a wide variety of subjects – theology, law, science,
medicine, philosophy, politics.4 He lived in Cordoba in the 12th century and converted to Islam, at least
publicly, to save his skin, and he encouraged other Jews to do so as well. So “the architect of medieval and modern
Judaism” lived for a time, at least outwardly, as a Muslim. Later in his life, he moved to
Maimonides’ work drew heavily from Islamic ideas and techniques. One Jewish scholar writes, “even his ostensibly Jewish positions, and the methods he uses to reach them, appear to be taken, sometimes verbatim, from the Muslim tradition.” His work was also derivative from the classical tradition – Plato and Aristotle. Unlike religious extremists, Maimonides listened to those around him, engaged with critics, borrowed and learned from them. This was not a man of insecure or fragile faith, no bunker mentality, but rather he was open and curious, delighted in the variety of God’s creation, appreciative of God’s wisdom in all places. Although he didn’t die a violent death, Maimonides was a powerful witness and made enormous contributions to his faith – dare I conclude: far, far more so than if he had allowed himself to be killed.
I doubt that any of us will have to choose between death and renouncing Christ. Rather, our witness to Christ and the attractiveness and power of his love is more ordinary, displayed in common decisions and acts.
Maimonides has something to say to us about the value of remaining cool and calm in reacting to a threat. It’s about the value of using our brains, seeing the big picture, keeping perspective, instead of acting on impulse and emotion. We endure all kinds of threats some real, some only perceived. New ideas, new habits, new people, new values are constantly threatening us, knocking us off balance, challenging us to adapt. We need that, but it’s difficult. When there’s ill health, stress at work, financial upheaval, family difficulties, uncertainty about what we cherish, can we calmly keep the big picture in focus? When we fret, lose sleep, become angry, feel envy, are we trusting God?
Our faith is that in the end everything
turns out alright, indeed better than we can imagine. That was the faith of the eight year old in
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
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1 Adam Gopnik, ‘Rules of the Game: Can We Forgive Him?,’ The New Yorker, July 24, 2006, pp. 22-23.
2 Robert Coles, The Spiritual Life of Children, pp. 19-20.
3
4 Shaul Magid, ‘The Great Islamic
Rabbi,’ The