CHRISTMAS 2: St Stephen's Day

This morning's sermon by The Very Reverend Dr Jeffrey John was on martyrdom and bullying, and was all I would expect from him: thoughtful, clever, succinct, and so accessible as to make something good sound easy. (But then try writing something that good yourself, and you realise it's not easy at all.)

There was a stunningly narrow-minded response to the sermon by the religious press, who chose to intepret his sermon as being a swipe at those who persuaded him to resign the Bishopric he was called to before he was consecrated. "Dr John chose martyrdom as his theme..." they said. What? Forgive me if I'm missing the point here. But it's St Stephen's Day - surely the theme was chosen for him?

I'm not naive - I know that people preach out of their own experience. But I also know that good practice in preaching leads you to edit out personal vendettas. You can't preach grace and vindictiveness in the same sermon.

Bullying is rife in the Church. Just because Jeffrey Jon is who he is doesn't automatically mean that every time he mentions a subject like this he's nailing a personal agenda. The subject of bulying is not, alas, restricted to relationships between Bishops - if only life were that simple. I've been on the receiving end of Ecclesiastical bullying many times, both from those in power and those in the rank and file: for being a woman, for being an Evangelical, for NOT being an Evangelical, for being an Anglican, for wearing robes, for not wearing robes, for just being there when someone else wanted to be there instead of me. Those stories have nothing to do with the gay debate, but they still have everything to do with Jeffrey John's sermon. Maybe I'll tell some of them sometime. But in the meantime, here's the script of the sermon (a script of the whole service is on BBC Radio 4 website):

In TS Eliot's play 'Murder in the Cathedral' Thomas a Becket says in his Christmas sermon:
Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of Stephen the first martyr follows the day of the birth of Christ? By no means. At Christmas we rejoice and mourn at once. We rejoice at the coming of Christ into the world; but we mourn the cost of his coming: - his suffering and that of all who witness to him.

In fact the week after Christmas is full of feasts of martyrs: St Stephen, the Holy Innocents and Becket himself, as if to remind us that witnessing to Christ has always cost dear, and always will.

If you doubt it, go and see the new statues over the West door of Westminster Abbey. There's a line of ten modern martyrs, people like Janani Luwum, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, who all paid for their witness with their lives.

My favourite is Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador. He was such an unlikely martyr: a shy, scholarly man, rather conservative in his views. He was actually the man that the military regime in El Salvador wanted as Archbishop because he seemed so wet. A safe man, they thought; he wouldn't rock the boat.

But from day one of becoming Archbishop, Romero, in his quiet, shy, scholarly way, kept asking difficult questions. What about all the political prisoners, he said, who were kept without trial, or simply disappeared? What about having elections, real elections that weren't rigged? Why did 95% of the land belong to only 2% of the people? Why were the schools and hospitals being shut, so that the poor were getting sicker and more illiterate? This is wrong, said the Archbishop, in his quiet, shy, persistent little voice. And gradually more and more people started listening, until half the population was crowding round the cathedral just to hear him speak.

So the government, and some of the Church authorities too, tried to shut him up. First they said he was a Communist in the pay of Moscow and tried to get him sacked. When that didn't work they offered him money to buy him off. When that didn't work they send round beautiful women to try and seduce him. And when that didn't work they sent round a man with a gun, and shot him dead in the middle of Sunday mass.

Oscar was a hero and a half, but he only did what we're all supposed to do. The word martyr is just Greek for 'witness' and that is what Jesus calls all of us to be: people who are willing to pay the price of telling the truth that is in us.

By witnessing I don't mean being pushy. In scripture the people who really speak for God are usually the opposite: Moses the stammerer; Isaiah who was obsessed with his own unworthiness; Jeremiah who was terminally depressed about everything; Jonah who ran away. They none of them wanted to speak. But that was tough. God wanted it.

And I think it is the same with most of us. Ninety per cent of clergy and churchgoers are introverts. We prefer a quiet life; we don't like sticking our necks out. But at some time or other God needs us to speak. It might be to explain our faith. It might be to challenge an injustice at work. It might be to defend someone who can't speak for themselves. There are all kinds of situations where witness is required. And with nearly all of us, our sin isn't speaking too soon, it's not speaking at all, because we are scared. But as Jesus said, there is a worse thing to fear than fear. Fear letting him down. Fear losing your soul.

I have a memory from my schooldays that still haunts me. One year we had a boy in our class - I'll call him David. He was a pathetic kid, weedy and rather effeminate. And his life was hell. Children can be incredibly cruel to anyone who's different, and David was a brilliant target. He was beaten up, he got his lunch thrown away, he got called girl's names, nancy boy and poof and all the rest of it; and he always sat on his own. I can hardly think of the misery that kid must have gone through. Now I never beat him up, I never called him names; the fact it was happening used to churn my stomach. But I never said or did a thing to help him. Because of course I was terrified that if I did, they'd suspect me too, and I'd get the same treatment.

And of course that's how it works, in so many bad situations in the world - and yes, in the Church too. We know what's happening is wrong, but we keep our heads down, and hope someone else will do the martyr bit and face down the bullies with the truth.

If you go to Jerusalem and visit Yad Vashem, the museum of the holocaust, you see the famous quotation in the entrance hall by Martin Niemoeller, the German pastor imprisoned by the Nazis. You've heard it before; but listen again:
At first they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. And then they came for the Communists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. And then they came for the gypsies and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the homosexuals and the handicapped and the mentally ill, but I didn't speak up because I was none of those things. Last of all they came for me. And there was no-one left to speak up for me.

Jesus said: If you speak up for me before others, I will speak up for you before my Father in heaven.

Comments

[Simon]

My wife led our church service yesterday morning on the theme of martyrs. See stats @ http://www.globalchristianity.org/gd/findings.htm (#2).

For more on Romero, see http://www.bruderhof.com/us/searchResults.htm?docType=All&startrow=0&SearchTerms=oscar+romero

[bls]

A question, something I've been mulling over for some time: why is bullying rife in the Church?

Why is a Church founded by Jesus of Nazareth, friend of the friendless and the bringer of joy to the sorrowful and release to the captives - why is such a Church rife with bullying? Why does it so often exclude, and exactly the same kinds of people that Jesus went out of his way to include. (I'm not just talking about gay people here, either. I mean all sorts of outcasts.)

This is a real question. Is it just in the habit of human beings to end up doing things this way? Do organizations always end up creating an "in" group and an "out" group? Is it the residue of the "Constantinian Captivity"? Did Christianity need to make itself powerful in order to survive, and did that require the ejection of undesirables - again, exactly the opposite of what Jesus himself did? Do organizations need to put their own survival first, or is there some "middle way"?

Or maybe this is just the natural state of things in a fallen world, then?

[maggi]

Bls: "Is it just in the habit of human beings to end up doing things this way?"
- yes, I think it is. I think it's impossible to create an institutionless Church, and a sinless fellowship. Whichever way we organise or structure (or deconstruct, or reform) the Church, this will happen again and again. I think the answer is not to look for a way of doing Church that rules this out, but to accept that this will resurface over and over again, and consider strategies for subverting it whenever it does.

[rhys]

most organisations (the one's I've worked for before being ordained anyway) have various forms of bullying. The issue is as you say Maggie a way of "considering strategies for subverting it whenever it does"
might I add dealing with it and the perpetrators when it becomes unreasonable/outrageous etc
the trouble is that's part of a whole way of staff management appraisal and accountability that both church structures and individuals are unwilling to adopt because perhaps they don't know where it might lead.

[james buckley]

'At first they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. And then they came for the Communists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. And then they came for the gypsies and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the homosexuals and the handicapped and the mentally ill, but I didn't speak up because I was none of those things. Last of all they came for me. And there was no-one left to speak up for me.'
This quotation is fictitious. You won't find it anywhere in the authentic writngs of Niemoller. And isn't St Stephen's Day about dying in witness (martyrdom) to Jesus Christ? Invented quotes are false witness - and bad form in academics.

[maggi]

Well, James, I didn't know that! (to be fair to JJ, though, I don't think he claims to be an academic!)

I'm sure it is written up at Yad Vashem - unless my memory deceives me, I've seen it there myself. I'm aware though that there are two or three versions of this saying.

And it is certainly widely attributed to Niemoller. So if it wasn't niemoller's, whose was it? Or could it have been a saying of his, rather than a writing?

If anyone knows an alternative source, please pop it in a comment below - thanks!

[robert]

I've seen a numer of variations on this text, but I don't think I'd sen one with the homosexuals and handicapped clause in before. There's usually a mention of Catholics too. I've not found a proper source, though http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml
gives some sort of outline and mentions a number of versions of it. It mentions a source as Time Magazine 1989 though I remember quoting it back in 1984/5

[dave paisley]

This seems to be a decent summary - giving the original quote and some history of how it has been twisted through the years to suit different purposes.

http://www.liv-coll.ac.uk/pa09/europetrip/brussels/neimoller.htm

Ahhh, google...

[robert]

And the liv-coll.ac.uk page references http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm
which seems to give a pretty comprehensive history of the evolving of that quote.

[maggi]

on the site robert suggests it says this:
Ruth Zerner, "Martin Niemoeller, Activist as Bystander: the oft-quoted Reflection," in: Marvin Perry and Frederick Schweitzer (eds.), Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries: Symbiosis, Prejudice, Holocaust, Dialogue (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 327-340. [back to reference about Catholics, above]
This is a sophisticated discussion of the origin of the quotation, but it appears that Ms. Zerner doesn't know German, and did not attempt to trace the quotation in older published sources. Her main sources are a letter written by Sibylle A. Niemoeller von Sell (Martin's second wife) to Ingeborg Godenschweger, a staff member of the German Information Center in New York City, dated March 14, 1986. Apparently Ms. Godenschweger was trying to confirm the origin of the quotation after Martin's death. Zerner also conducted phone conversations with Franklin Littell in 1990, and with "Brigitte Johannesson, the only surviving daughter of Martin and Else Niemoeller," in 1991. Both say that MN used this quotation first in English speaking countries. Littell dates the quotation from MN's trip to the US right after World War II; Brigitte Johnnesson thinks he used it first in England in the early 1960s, although it might have been at any time between 1955 and 1969, according to her. Littell, Johannesson, and Sibylle Niemöller all think that Martin Niemöller never included Catholics in the quotation.

This does suggest, as I wondered aloud, that Niemoller probably said it, although it's not in his writings. THe author also points out that Niemoller would have denied it in his lifetime had he NOT said it. The site includes a good analysis of which categories of people he himself probably did/didn't include in the saying.

[rhys]

James - this discussion reminds me of sayings such as:

but apart from that Mrs Lincoln did you enjoy the play?

[james buckley]

See the discussion on titusonenine.classicalanglican.net

[Christopher Shell]

It sounds totally horrible, I know, but occasionally bullying is a matter of perception. The following factors are relevant:

(1) We live in a world where a lot of ppl can't or don't distinguish between focussing on issues and focussing on personalities. That is because they spend all or most of their conversation talking about personalities. So when someone turns up who gets passionate about matters of principle (and sees themselves as battling the forces of self-contradiction and so forth), they've never come across this before (it's too abstract for them), and misinterpret the passion as being personally directed.

(2) Our education system is now more about affirmation and less about truth. There are of course pros and cons here. But this means that ppl become less familiar with the idea of others disagreeing with them. And where truth issues, and right/wrong issues, are less clear-cut, plenty of people end up 'agreeing' with everyone about everything. Accordingly where someone turns up who values their integrity and says they disagree when they do disagree, this can be unfamiliar to many - and can be misconstrued as a personal attack. Ironically, the appeal to objective grounds like logic or common sense, which are intended to indicate that we are all playing by the same rules and engaged in the same quest for truth, far from being interpreted as irenic, can actually be interpreted as alienating, since they increase the abstraction level, and can therefore (in the very act of deliberately avoiding personal issues) unintentionally seem cold and impersonal.

An example: How often have ppl complained that their driivng instructor (for example) is bullying them? Of these ppl, how many do you reckon were correctly identifying the instructor's (often completely impersonal) motives?

[Christopher Shell]

Conclusion: If the suggestion is made that Christians are often bullying, then if this is true it is wicked. Not all the allegations will correctly diagnose the situation (godly passion for truth will be wrongly confused with bullying). Not all allegations will be based on much evidence. Some may be based on one or two unrepresentative incidents. Sometimes it will be said that Christians are particularly (more than averagely) bullying. Why do ppl say such things when they cannot possibly have a significant enough sample to judge from? For all they (or any of us) know, Christians may be among the least bullying members of society. Anyone who's worked in business is unlikely to single out Christians as being the most bullying social grouping.

But whenever Christians (or anyone else) are engaged in genuine bullying, that is wicked. It can stunt development for a lifetime if not nipped in the bud and addressed.

[Richard A. Menees]

Well, James, I didn't know that! (to be fair to JJ, though, I don't think he claims to be an academic!)

To be fair to the truth, JJ graduated with a first in classics for Hertford College, Oxford. Maybe this school teaches its scholars to get ahead by cooking quotes when they write or preach. I would rather not discount the academic standards of the institution or adjust J John's acuity downward to get him off the hook for publishing a bogus quote. The rules are you tell the truth when you preach. Johns did not.

[maggi]

I'm not discounting academic standards, or changing the rules. I was pointing out (in reply to a comment above) that he doesn't claim to be "an academic". It may be that the quote he used is not in Niemoller's writings. Nevertheless, the quote is widely used, and nearly always attributed to Niemoller. It is bizarre to suggest that JJ needs to be got "off the hook", or deliberately used a "bogus quote". He probably used it in good faith, just as most of the other people who quote it do. To say that JJ did not "tell the truth" when he preached is overcooking it.

[Richard A. Menees]

Maggi Here is the quote as it actually appears in the museum in Israel.

Dear Mr. Menees,
The quotation below is on display in the Historical Museum at Yad Vashem. As you may know, Yad Vashem's new Holocaust History Museum is scheduled to open in Spring of 2005 - I do not know if the quote will be displayed there too.
Yours sincerely,
Amanda Smulowitz
Commemoration and Public Relations

First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak up,
because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak up
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and and by that time
no one was left to speak up.

~ Pastor Martin Niemöller
-----Original Message-----
From: Martha Menees [mailto:marthaserves@msn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 3:45 PM
To: general information
Subject: Niemoller Quote

Dear friends

I have read a sermon preached recently by an English cleric which quotes the German pastor Martin Niemoller from an inscription the preacher said he saw at Yad Vashem. Is there or has there been a quotation by pastor Niemoller on display at Yad Vashem and what is the exact text? I thank you for your attention to this question.

Richard Menees
======================================
So what Johns and now you tell us we will see posted in a respected venue is not what is there at all. The rules don't change just because you happen to believe you can make the world a better place by prevaricating.
When you preach, you tell the truth. Johns bears false witness about Niemoller and about Yad Vashem. Given that this is about a sermon parts of which have already been preached by Tony Campolo before scores of Anglican bishops and clergy in Canterbury, the fact that it uses
a bogus quote as a clincher just makes it all the more common. That others on the web have over the years given in to the same temptation to twist the truth to fit their individual agendas does not justify what JJ has done. It just makes it more common. Pitty it was preached on the feast of a martyr since the point of such days is about making a true witness.

[Liz Macarthur]

Was this from a sermon by Tony Campolo? Where can I find this sermon? Thanks,
liz

[Fish]

I just wanted to say that for some reason the Martyrs have always been a fascinating subject to study for me. I am intrigued by them, their lives, their faith.

I have faced bullying all my life, and perhaps that is partly where that fascination comes from.

St. Stephen is probably my favourite of the Martyr Saints. Just always feel drawn to anything about him.