Friday, April 20, 2012

St. George, Martyr of the 4th Century

What’s In a Name?

Readings: Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 8:34-38

Names are important. We take such care in naming our children. Names are carried from one generation to another. There is something wonderful about being remembered by name. To be called by your name by a friend gives you a warm feeling. Your name touches something in you like nothing else. Some people have a real gift for it. I remember being impressed with a certain Bishop’s wife who met me at a Confirmation in the church in which I was organist. Months later I was at the New Year’s Day levee. She turned to her husband and said, “You remember Ann, the organist at St. Joseph’s.”

We grow into our names. I remember the circumstances of discovering the meaning of my name. After hearing over and over again the poem, “Monday’s Child” I asked my mother what day of the week I was born on. She told me, Wednesday. Now Wednesday’s child is full of woe. That did not sound very good to me. My sister on the other hand was born on Tuesday. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. That sounded very good indeed! And really, she was. She had long blond curly hair that hung in beautiful ringlets. She had blue eyes. She managed always to be clean and tidy. Everything she did was just right. Two years younger, I had a great deal to live up to. Then Father Palmer came to stay with us. He was a Cowley Father from Bracebridge. He was working for the National Church on the 1959 BCP and needed a place to stay in Toronto. He lived with our family for a time. I was complaining about my looks one day, about how my hair wouldn’t curl and so on. I truly was ‘full of woe’. He took me aside. “Your name is very special’, he told me. “You are named for St. Ann, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Your name means ‘graceful one’.” It was a wonderful moment for a rather insecure little girl. That sense of who I was has stayed with me through the whole of my life.

This parish is named for St. George, whose day we celebrate. Few saints have been as widely popular as he. Yet not very much is known about him, at least not the true story. Legends abound, but they are folklore that grew up in medieval times long after he lived. I suspect you have heard the story of how St. George slayed the dragon and saved the beautiful princess from being sacrificed. What we do know about him is that he lived sometime in the fourth century and was a foot soldier in the Roman Army who converted to Christianity. Because he was a soldier, a career that the Church did not allow its members to follow, he was never baptised. But he was martyred for his faith and the Church came to recognize his sacrifice.

The circumstances are unclear, but we know that the Roman authorities became worried by the number of soldiers who were secret Christians and took harsh measures against them. St. George was one of them, and through his martyrdom the Church believed that he had a better kind of baptism, since he shared in the suffering and death of Christ himself. In later centuries, he became the model of the perfect Christian warrior, a figure that appealed to medieval English kings when they placed their conquests under his protection. His image has changed over the centuries so that we now see in him the pattern of what it means to be a Christian in the world. In so many ways, he has grown into his name.

It is no mystery why the passage from Ephesians about the armour of Christ was chosen for the commemoration of St. George. In describing the Christian’s spiritual panoply, the apostle Paul uses the Roman soldier as an analogy. It would have been a common site in Paul’s day. We can imagine St. George wearing a breastplate to protect himself from serious injury. Displayed on his breastplate were several medallions that he had won for his valour. On his feet were thick-soled sandals with hobnails embedded on the underside for traction. The sandal was laced to the foot and lower leg with leather straps. During the winter he would tie them around leather leggings for warmth. Shod this way, he could quick march fifty miles in one day. His sandals not only protected his feet; they were a formidable weapon.

His shield was designed to stop and extinguish flaming arrows. His helmet protected the head and neck. He placed plumage on his helmet so that from a distance he appeared to be over seven feet tall. He was totally prepared to meet the challenges.

As St. George was prepared for every challenge, so we are to be just as prepared. Armed with God’s amazing gift of grace, the Christian is to walk in God’s path, the path of loving service to others. We are to fill our minds and commit our lives to God’s word and will for us centred on the one to whom we belong.

The Gospel too reflects the self-giving life of the martyr. “Are you going to deny yourself and follow me?” Jesus asks Peter and the disciples. Peter needed to discover what the cost of following Jesus would be. St. George discovered it and paid for it with his life. It is something that every Christian needs to discover.

Self-denial is difficult for all of us. Sacrificing ourselves in the sense of denying the self in our lives is difficult enough. We live in a society where so much is available to us that we come to have a sense of entitlement for anything we might want. It stops being about what we need and becomes far more about needing everything our heart desires. If we find it difficult to deny ourselves things that we crave, how much more do we resist the thought of giving ourselves over to God?

Bob Dylan talks about it in his own life. “Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Bob, why are you resisting me?” I said, “I'm not resisting you!” He said, “You gonna follow me?” I said, “I've never thought about that before!” He said, “When you're not following me, you're resisting me.”

What if everything we have done in our religious living and personal relationship with God has been for all the wrong reasons? What if we do what we do because we are looking for rewards, for Brownie points? What if we are following Jesus simply because we think it will be a way to avoid suffering, persecution and death? What if we are simply trying to cover all the bases?

That is why the question is so important. It is only when we accept who Jesus is that he can begin to teach us the consequences of our allegiance. What is Jesus teaching us? It is about our identity as Christians. It is about wearing that mark of allegiance as Christians. “I sign you with the sign of the cross and mark you as Christ’s own.” Those are the words we use at Baptism. We take chrism oil and make the sign of the cross on the forehead of the newly baptized. I always remind the children and their parents that they have an invisible marker on their forehead. They belong to Christ. It needs to result in action in our lives. We need to be servants of Christ. We need to deny ourselves and follow Christ. That is strongly the message of this patronal festival.

What is the cost of discipleship? It costs everything. It requires becoming a servant. It requires action. It requires sacrificing ourselves. That is difficult. Somehow it is easier to leave it all to Jesus, and to join him in a kind of fan club. But God does not intend us to be mere spectators. We are co-responsible. And what Jesus is saying so clearly in this passage is that when we take responsibility, when we deny ourselves, when we become disciples, we become more truly human. We discover our true self. We grow into our names.

St. George discovered that to be a Christian costs everything. He made that sacrifice. May we like him be true witnesses to the faith. Let us show our love of God and communicate that love to those we meet along the way. Amen


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