Nowadays, people jump into calling me Martin even before they know me. I found it strange at first, even a little rude; but now I have got used to it! You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6plgcRNbtmw
In the ancient world however, calling someone by their first name was very unusual indeed. It was only something you did with your siblings and your closest friends; and even if you knew them really well, if they then became a great Emperor, you almost certainly wouldn’t have dared to presume on an old friendship! So, I doubt if anyone, except perhaps his mother, would have called the great Persian Emperor, Cyrus! He would be called “Your majesty” or the Persian equivalent, wouldn’t he? When therefore, as in our 1st Reading, (Isaiah 45:1.4-6) Isaiah says that the one true God, as opposed to the Persian gods, calls Cyrus by his name, he is saying something quite remarkable; for he is claiming that the God that Cyrus doesn’t know, knows him as well as he knows himself. And Isaiah then makes the even more audacious claim, that Cyrus has only achieved his position as the most powerful ruler in the world, because God “Has taken him by his right hand”, and that Cyrus has been given this power “That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that, apart from me, all is nothing.” I am sure that if Cyrus had ever read this, he would have been more than a little astonished; but in fact it is actually a message not just for Cyrus, but for every person in a position of power
I am reminded of the way Jesus speaks to Pontius Pilate who has the power to kill him or to release him. Pilate might have expected this difficult Jew to grovel, to plead for mercy, but there is none of that. Instead, Jesus just stands there and tells Pilate (John 19:11) “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” As ever, Jesus is echoing the ideas first laid out by great prophets like Isaiah, and so he refuses to be cowed by this man of power. Indeed even the enemies of Jesus, out to trap him, as we heard in our Gospel today, (Matt 22:15-21) speak the truth when they say to him “You are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you.” Yes, they were trying to flatter him, but in the process they spoke the truth; and of course although Jesus knows it is true, he also knows their real intention. As the Gospel says, “Jesus was aware of their malice” So we are shown who Jesus really is, because he knows them well even if, like Cyrus, they do not know him.
Two things follow from this. The first is that if we follow Jesus, then we must never be cowed by the authority that someone else appears to have over us. Until very recently, the only way ordinary people survived was by at least appearing to believe what their government believed in, and in doing what they were told to do. Brave Christians were never like this. The great martyrs of the early Church were prepared to follow the example of Jesus. They chose to defy the power of Rome, to stand in a Roman arena being killed brutally, rather than to give up their allegiance to Christ. The Church remembered one who did this only this week when we celebrated the Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch. Do watch Episode 5 of the BBC Series “Colosseum” to learn more about him. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fwh30s/colosseum-series-1-5-the-martyr So the Church rightly celebrates her martys, not just from 2000 years ago but right up to the present time, in order to remind us what our faith should be like. St Oscar Romero in El Salvador in 1979 or St Maximilian Kolbe in Auschwitz in 1941 are two great examples, but there are so many more throughout history. Of course, we fear our faith is not as strong as theirs was, but that gives us all the more reason to ask for their prayers.
But there is also another kind of Christian courage that we should aim for, and that is to stand up to any person in authority who needs to be challenged. Christians ought to be the first to be “whistle blowers”, but sadly too often we keep our heads down, and rely on other braver non-Christians to do the complaining. Having been taught to love our enemies, we tend to think that this means putting up with those who do wrong, rather than calling them out. We need to remember that loving someone doesn’t always mean being nice to them. True love should always be prepared to challenge people who do wrong, although we need to consider how best to do this. Think of Jesus faced with the accusers of the woman taken in adultery. He doesn’t berate them for being immoral people, instead he simply says “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:1-11)
The second message I get from our Readings today is a reminder of how well God knows us, even if we feel that we do not know him. Jeremiah for example hears God say to him, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” (Jer 1:5) and it is from this he gets his courage to tell the authorities in Jerusalem the unpopular message to give in to their enemies rather than to try to oppose them. It is easy to think that God is far away from us when we feel no sign of him being nearby, which is why we need reminding again and again, that just because we do not feel God’s presence, it does not mean he is not near us, that he is not within us and around us. This is why one important part of our prayer must be to speak to God personally, to assume he is very near, even if we feel nothing; for it is by treating him as a personal friend that we will begin sometimes to feel that nearness. Indeed, some atheists have actually become Christians by praying like that. That sort of prayer can be very powerful, not just for us but for the people we are personally praying for. Notice how in our 2nd Reading (1 Thess 1:1-5) St Paul tells the Christians in Thessalonika “We always mention you in our prayers and thank God for you all.” This kind of personal prayer, especially when we tell people we are praying for them, can be very powerful indeed. Atheists may dismiss it as merely psychological, to which I reply “Well of course it is psychological, how else would you expect God to work?”
One of the things I sometimes say to people who tell me that they do not believe in God is “Never mind, remember that God believes in you” ; which they usually laugh at, but take as a compliment. We like people who believe in us, don’t we? Yes, we must believe that God can be at work in people whether we like them, whether we agree with them, or not; just as Isaiah had that amazing conviction that God was at work in Cyrus, the great Persian Emperor : and indeed knew him personally.
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