Sermon: Eve of St George Evensong

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 27th April 2014

Service:

Choral Evensong

Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

In nomine Patris…

Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified
Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ
against sin, the world and the devil,
and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life.
Christian Initiation, Baptism Service

Tonight we celebrate the eve of the feast of Saint George the Martyr, patron of England. The collect for this feast speaks of ‘the flame of love kindled in George’s heart, that enabled him to bear witness to the risen Lord by his life and death’. George is known in the East as the Great Martyr. And that is primary, the martyr, a witness, witness to the death and enduring life of Jesus Christ. George’s ability to witness to the risen Lord was granted by the flame of love fanned by the Holy Spirit. This is an Eastering, a resurrection celebration, since in George’s death we celebrate the triumph of life.

In Eastertide we always have to remember that Jesus Christ appears to his disciples as both crucified and risen, he bears wounds, albeit glorified.  The cross is always a feature of discipleship, both the dying to self and to living to Christ. So the red of a martyr associates the martyr’s death with the passion and death of Christ, and the glorification of a martyr is of his participation in resurrection.  It is captured in the verse from the psalm, ‘The Lord redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion’ (Psalm 103. 4). The celebration of a martyr is a resurrection celebration, as is the celebration of baptism.

Baptism is our primary martyrdom, in the sense of it being an act of witness, a celebration of faith, an embodied inextricable connection to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism, like martyrdom, is captured in Paul’s statement in Galatians, ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2.20a). And Paul associates that with the death of Jesus, ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2.19) he says, ‘and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2.20b).

The language of baptism and the life of George is inevitably martial. George was a soldier. Indeed, Christianity spread quickly through the ranks of the armies travelling their way around the Empire. The Christian was also seen to be one who battles against all that impedes and inhibits life.  So George, and the early martyrs especially, connects us to the price of discipleship paid by the first Christians and the persecutions they endured; they connect us to those for whom martyrdom is a real and ever present reality.

Our distance from active persecution may account for why we are generally uncomfortable with martial language around of baptism and discipleship. At a baptism when I say to someone, ‘Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified’ the congregation joins in and goes further,

Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ
against sin, the world and the devil,
and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life.
(Common Worship: Services and prayers for the Church of England, Baptism Service p. 354)

Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about that. If we do, we need to ask ourselves why. Perhaps we need to add to the notion of ‘fight against’ the notion of ‘fight for’.  There are things to fight against, and things to fight for. And this is the crux of the life of the martyr and all the baptised.

‘Fight valiantly against sin, the world and the devil’. Those three: sin; world; devil. Fighting against sin and for Christ seems acceptable, and fighting the devil is a very George motif. It is thought that early iconography of George slaying the dragon is a mistaken identification of Michael the Archangel slaying Satan.

Yet what of the world, both fighting against, and for, the world? After all, the world is God’s creation. In the gospels the world is a place of profound ambiguity, of both challenge and potential traps: for example we may gain the whole world but forfeit our lives (Mark 8.36); and yet the world is also the field into which God’s word is sown (Matthew 13.36-43); the world is where the Kingdom of God, like the pearl is to be found (Matthew 13.44); and over the world his light shines and Spirit breathes. Martyrdom reveals the ambiguity of our relationship with the world and the manipulations and power games of it, if not understood in terms of the coming Kingdom. That may be one way of not getting bogged down in arguments over whether or not this is a Christian country or if the Church of England should be disestablished. The coming Kingdom transforms what the world is, yet calls disciples to witness to what it can be.

So celebrating George, and all the martyrs, leads us to ask profound questions about our baptism, and helps us in our negotiation of the art of life and witness as the baptised in a changing and moving world. What does your life look like in relation to the faith of your baptism, your dying and rising with Christ? Tomorrow how will you witness and remain faithful to Christ amongst the people and places you encounter and situations you face? For us, this is the hard business of being martyrs, witnesses, to the triumphant love of God in Christ in the power of the Spirit.

May we be faithful witnesses to the crucified and risen Lord.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.