OEF Council Lenten Reflection#2 By Juniper
Christians over our history have not lived in good times. There is no promise of good times as part of our earthly pilgrimage. Last week, the church observed Perpetua and her companions who lived in the second century in Carthage. We are told that they simply stood firm on the good news of Jesus, and for this the Roman Emperor had them beheaded. They knew what was coming and they stood firm.
One of the ongoing conflicts about Jesus’ teaching was how he addressed the authoritarian rulers of his time. Many would have wanted him to have joined the active resistance. But Jesus took a different route. He taught us to turn the other cheek, to render to Caesar what was Caesar’s, and to love and pray for our enemies. He faced down this power in Rome and Jerusalem with his very life. Gustavo Gutiérrez, a leading liberation theologian of a generation ago, changed me when he said: How can you love your enemies when you don’t have any enemies.
Francis and Clare both deeply challenged the pope of their day. The pope was an absolute ruler and could sentence anyone to be burned, drawn and quartered, or exiled. Francis and Clare’s profound commitment to return to the gospel life was radical to the papacy, especially their commitment to poverty. They had ongoing conflicts with the papacy over their gospel-based rule of life that was seen as being on the edge of heresy. They were both forced to rewrite their rules. In the next generation, Franciscans of the Spiritualist movement, which took the rule of poverty seriously, were burned by the papacy. The early Franciscan chroniclers were all living under this system of authority and did not directly address the conflicts.
One of the most authoritarian actions of the papacy at the time of Francis was the call for the Crusade to “win back the Holy Places”. There was a widespread draft to build the army. “Infidels” of all sorts were targets of the Crusade. This point is starkly made in the
Franciscan produced video of The Sultan and the Saint that starts with Christian
warriors murdering a Jewish family. Francis responded to the draft by going. In our day we might call him a chaplain for the army. When he arrived in Egypt at the front, he was horrified by what he saw: the cruelty, the violence, and the depravity of the Crusaders. He made a deeply internal discernment to become a peacemaker and to cross the front and build reconciliation. He knew that this would very likely cost him his life. But it didn’t.
He was captured and, rather than being summarily executed, he was taken to see the sultan, Al-Malik al Kamil. He preached his word of reconciliation. The sultan, who had not sought the conflict, was deeply moved by Francis’ message and is reported as saying: If all the Christians were like you, I would become a Christian. The Crusade was unsuccessful, and the armies of the pope returned home having not reached their goal. But the sultan gave Francis the care of the Holy Places, the chapel in Bethlehem, and the place of the resurrection among others. To this day, Franciscans care for these holy places. Reconciliation worked to return the holy places; conquest did not!
The story goes on and on. Gospel followers standing up: Maximilian Kolbe, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Edith Stein (Sr. Teresa Benedicta da Cruz), Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Daniels, Bishop Oscar Romero, the Sisters of Mercy in El Salvador, etc. There is a great crowd of witnesses. Some have given their lives. Others have faced their fear without losing their lives. They all stood firm with the Gospel.
It is our turn. We have authoritarian rule in the US that is impacting the whole world. Fear is all around. As a queer man, I fear what is coming. As one who has spent my life in the company of immigrants, it is here. As one who has worked for years with seniors and families whose lives depend on Medicaid, Food Stamps and housing subsidies, the future is very troubled. As someone who has just returned home to Canada, the whole country is in an uproar. From where I sit, the US Constitution has been repealed, and I do not see a path back to where we were.
We are called to be the light of the world: to not put our light under a basket but to shine it out bravely into the darkness; to stand for the gospel values we professed; to work for justice, reconciliation, and peace.
No one promised that we would live in good times. But our deepest hope is that the way of the Gospel is the future; it is our heritage and the victory that we share in. We can stand strong in the midst of the waves of fear.