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Sermon: First Evensong of George, Martyr, Patron of England

 
Preacher:
Steve Summers
Date:
Sunday 27th April 2025
Venue:
Guildford Cathedral
Service:
Choral Evensong

Psalm 111, 116

Jeremiah 15.15-end

Hebrews 11.32-12.2

On occasions, in a moment of weakness, I have been known to try a McDonalds’ meal…and it never fails to disappoint - the mismatch with that appealing picture on the board.  The crisp lettuce, the melting cheese, the sheer size that approximates a football in the image, bears absolutely no resemblance to the soggy, wilted pea-sized offering that appears when you unwrap the waxed paper.  I should be ready for that misleading advertising but every time it’s a disappointment!

However tonight, one thing that we cannot accuse the writers of our biblical texts of is false advertising.  They set out the brutal reality of what to expect if you sign up for Christian faith.  They strike terror into anyone considering Christian faith.  Not much is held back, and the picture painted is one of suffering, torture and martyrdom.  You can’t say you weren’t warned!

From Jeremiah:

Jer 15.2  ‘And when they say to you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: those destined for pestilence, to pestilence, and those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine, and those destined for captivity, to captivity’.

From Hebrews:

Heb 11.35  ‘Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground’.

It's hardly a glossy advert.  Such scriptures are a challenge for us to hear: they seem alien, describing a world that is, thankfully, distant from us here in 21st Century Surrey.  And our missional strategy usually goes a bit more positively, linking the life of faith to: ethical values, forgiveness, compassion, community life, hope…  Courage in the face of torture, or being sawn in two, is not a desirable strap line.  And yet we have these scriptural reminders of the earliest beginnings of our faith – within Judaism and the early Church – and it does us no harm to remember them on occasion.

There are a couple of things we might want to consider this evening:

1.  The roots of our Christian faith lie in an unfamiliar world, in fact in another faith altogether.  Our religious DNA lies in the Jewish faith, and its worldview as described in these ancient texts is unfamiliar.  The view of a God who punishes or withholds God’s favour or protection, as a response to disobedience, does not align with the benevolent God that we recognise.  And yet it is there in our canon.  Dealing with this heritage has always been problematic – from the early church councils right up to the present day.

2.  Perhaps more relevant today, as we approach the feast of St George the Martyr.  The book of Hebrews is very much tied into the stories of the Hebrew Bible, where the writer connects faith to; tenacity, courage and perseverance.  Even in the face of persecution, torture and death.  St George was possibly a Cappadocian soldier in the Roman army who was martyred for refusing to recant.  Hence our reading on this feast day.

But is this gory listing of the tortures experienced in the name of Christian faith just a distant memory for our contemporary context?

Well, it’s not really that distant.  Currently around the world, there are Christians who are going through exactly this kind of treatment.  They know persecution and violence – they live with danger and the fear of martyrdom.  Sadly, for many in our faith it is a present reality.

Certainly, in our UK society, with its relatively peaceful social practices, intolerance is usually expressed verbally, and only rarely in physical violence.  But in the time when the book of Hebrews was written, violence was commonplace.  1st Century Palestine, under Roman occupation, was a very different world to ours.  Roman rule was built on a regime of conquest, where acquiescence was rewarded, but resistance was brutally crushed.  Human Rights as we understand them were not even considered, let alone experienced.

It is in this context that the newly emerging Christian faith began to make waves.  Christianity irritated the Roman authorities, not because it was offering another God in their pantheon of Gods.  That was no particular problem for a polytheistic society, but because it venerated another living, resurrected King – one who claimed divinity - in direct challenge to the Caesar.

So, in a world where violent eradication was the standard policing policy, our ancestors in the faith paid the ultimate price for their faith.  As we begin the feast of St. George, it does us no harm to remember this aspect of our faith and liturgical calendar.  Those whom we remember as having ‘lived by faith’ held a faith that sustained them even in the face of torture.  The reality is that Christian faith has a violent past.  Not in the sense of our heritage found in the triumphal Judaism that conquering and eradicated tribes as it moved into the Promised Land.  But very pointedly in the Easter story.

In this season we remember the story of death and suffering as well as the story of resurrection.  Indeed, the complications of having redemptive violence at the heart of Christian faith – where Jesus’ death on the cross is central to the process of bringing a hope-filled future, cannot be overlooked.  This presents an ongoing tension at the centre of any stance we take against violence.  And those who advocate for a peaceful and tolerant society still have to reckon with scriptures like our section from the book of Hebrews, where faith is celebrated as being intertwined with a violent death as a martyr.  However, this reality has fuelled the capacity for Peaceful Protest, with the understanding that there may well be a physical cost to standing up for Christian values.  Here in the UK, it might cost us a night in jail, superglued hands, or at worst a cracked head.  But for others around the world it is likely to more aligned with our biblical text.  Standing up for ‘The Way’, like the Early Church did, might cost you everything.

In closing, we need not gloss over this harsh past.  We do need to recall and remember the experience of the martyrs.  It keeps us honest, and provides balance to the version of Christianity that is so commonly known in our times.  The vitality, energy and commitment of those who lived (and live) this precarious life can inspire us to greater commitment, and learn to embrace complexity in our beliefs.

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