The heretics of America’s Christian Nationalist movement are quick to claim that they are being persecuted when they are not allowed to persecute others. Would that they knew real persecution!
Though actual persecution of early Christians in the Roman empire was sporadic before Constantine legalized the faith in 313 C.E., violent persecution was very real at times. So we have the seven surviving letters from Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, traditionally believed to have been a follower of the disciple John. The letters were written to supporters after his arrest in the year 110. Like Paul, a Roman citizen, Ignatius was sent to Rome to stand trial and face possible execution. Along the way, he discouraged any attempts to free him or to pursue his acquittal. In one letter, he writes: “I would rather that you fawn on the beasts so that they may be my tomb and no scrap of my body be left.” He goes on. “Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil – only let me get to Jesus Christ!”
In a few short years, there has been a dramatic shift, from Paul’s belief that the Second Coming would take place at any moment, God’s just and caring realm initiated on earth, to this glorification of martyrdom, this belief that martyrs for the faith would receive a special place in heaven. This echoes the Revelation to John of Patmos, written about fifteen years earlier and three decades after the death of Paul. John of Patmos, like Ignatius of Antioch, lived through a spasm of anti-Christian persecution, for John under the Roman Emperor Domitian, while Ignatius died during the reign of the better known Emperor Trajan.
The desire for martyrdom can also be found in the story of St. Christopher. Most know the bucolic bit, the gentle giant carrying travelers across the river, the child traveler who gets heavier and heavier that turns out to be Jesus in disguise. Few will remember the deeper legend, Christopher with the head of a dog from a tribe of cannibals, his faith that leads others to convert, his survival of multiple attempts to execute him, and his eventual embrace of martyrdom, with a final death toll of 201 soldiers, two prostitutes, a thousand or so citizens converted then martyred, and Christopher himself.
Many of you will know my own small cadre of admired saints, Bonhoeffer, King, Milk, and Romero, will know that each of them was murdered, and assume that I have a thing for martyrs, a fetish for holy death. I do not. I have a thing for courage.
And honestly, two of the men, Bonhoeffer and Romero, were nerdy scholars who found themselves in moments of crisis, while a third, Milk, while not a Christian, displayed selfless courage as a gay man and elected official, so I have an affinity for all three, being a nerd if not a scholar, gay, and unexpectedly, an elected official.
That only leaves King, and I don’t think I need to make a case for him as a saint of the 20th century.
It would be easy to conclude that dying for the faith is a glorious thing, which might have some merit if you believe in either a post-mortem existence or a God that only saves a select few. But I am not so sure about either of those things, and certainly don’t believe in eternal torment, as much as I’d like to nominate some candidates for a modern re-casting of Dante’s Inferno.
I am inclined to see the holy in a woman born on the banks of the Little Pigeon River who had talent and grit and became a superstar, and while only nominally Christian, a far better Christian than cartoonish villains like Pete Hegseth and Peter Thiel. Saint Dolly Parton lived a good long life and died of natural causes, having done several lifetimes worth of good in the world.
Reform Protestants, our forebears, don’t recognize saints at all, while Lutheran and Anglican Protestants only recognize some of those canonized before the Reformation. The Roman Church has a formal process, and still churns out a steady stream of saints, while the fractured Orthodox churches are less prolific, but still also proclaim saints. For example, soon after the nationalist autocrat Vladimir Putin seized power in Russia at the start of this century, his allies in the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the last Russian royal family, declaring them passion-bearers, which is to say murdered but not martyred for their faith.
The theology of sainthood is tied into a belief system that is proxy-based and transactional. You pray to a saint to get Uncle Gustav out of purgatory or to find your lost car keys. It is not much different than the system that allows a human to decide whether or not you deserve God’s forgiveness. The Communion of Saints, in that context, is both the narrowly defined collection of individuals officially recognized by the church, and more broadly, all of those who have died without sin, or have had their sins purged, and who now reside in heaven. I’m not sure what that means for centuries of folks who relied on Saint Christopher, removed from the official Roman church calendar because the story is a pious fable.
We Protestants lean into a broader definition, the Communion of Saints as the current gathered and universal church, and more broadly, the Communion of Saints as all who have been faithful. And for me, as you know, that fidelity is measured not in what people say they believe, not in creeds and magic prayers, but in what they actually do. Did this person lean into love, as much as was possible in their context?
In that context, the Communion of Saints as taking in the living church makes sense to me, the gathered people who try, every day, to love the world, as Saint Leonard Cohen of the Eternal Hallelujah wrote in his novel “Beautiful Losers,” Cohen an observant Jew descended from priests and also a Zen Monk. And now, we cast that love even wider, loving not just our perfectly imperfect species mates, but all that is living and even that which is not living as narrowly defined, this amazing living planet, this hunk of star-stuff hurtling through space, all of it including us light, data spoken by the holy.
Perfectly imperfect, hard-headed and dumb as a box of rocks sometimes, like Simon Peter, like me, but always trying, for that is the only measure of sainthood when we are faced with holy mystery beyond all of our understanding, from entanglement to elephants. Did you try? Did you love?
And so I close this morning with more words from Leonard Cohen. Some will know his song “So Long, Marianne,” from his 1967 debut album. It was dedicated to Marianne Ihlen, his romantic partner during much of that decade. A half century later, as both were dying of cancer, he sent this email:
Dearest Marianne,
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, just as yours has too.
I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. I don’t have to say any more. Safe travels old friend. See you down the road. Endless love and gratitude.
—?your Leonard