IN HONOR OF HEROES:

WHAT WE LIVE FOR, WHAT WE DIE FOR

Rev. Barbara Child

Unitarian Fellowship of Valdosta

November 7, 2004  

            The news came on Friday morning that American forces along with a fair number of Iraqis began the attack on Fallujah that probably a lot of us assumed was just waiting until after the election.  I wonder how many more fresh young American faces will be appearing soon on the PBS nightly news hour, casualties of Fallujah. This Veterans Day I wonder how many more Americans we will not be honoring as heroes who have returned home intact.  They are the ones who will have to wait until Memorial Day in the spring to be honored in memory.   

            Friday morning when I went into the Jiffy store to pay for my gasoline, there was a conversation going on between the young man clerking behind the counter and the young man who was the customer ahead of me.  The customer was singing the praises of his “brothers” in Fallujah on the attack that morning. And the clerk replied, “Yeah, it’s gonna be a blood bath.  Isn’t it wonderful!” 

             I was left to wonder more and more what makes somebody a hero.  I went back to reread the words we used this morning to light our chalice, spoken to the memory of Michael Servetus.  I don’t know how much you know about Servetus.  He was a medical doctor,  and he studied the Bible.  He couldn’t find in it any evidence of the trinity, and so he wrote the book that caused his martyrdom.  It was called The Errors of the Trinity.  And if you think we don’t get wise till we get old, I mention that he wrote that book at the age of 21! 

             It took awhile for John Calvin to catch up with Servetus to try him for heresy.  But Servetus was a scholar, and he was so sure about the errors he found in the doctrine of the trinity that he couldn’t resist going to Geneva , confident that he could convince Calvin that he was right.

             The short of it is that Calvin clapped him in jail and had him tried and executed.  When Servetus learned that he was to be burned at the stake, he asked instead to die by the sword because he was afraid that slow torturous pain might cause him falsely to recant his beliefs.  Calvin’s response was to have him burned by a fire of green wood, a slow fire, with leaves still on the limbs.  But Servetus did not recant. 

             Calvin apparently wanted to kill Servetus’s heretical ideas as much as the man.  Calvin saw to it that he died with a copy of his book strapped to his thigh. You will understand why on Friday morning at the Jiffy store, I suddenly thought of Michael Servetus and John Calvin.  I could hear John Calvin saying to a friend, “It’s going to be a slow fire.  Isn’t it wonderful!”   I hasten to add that Calvin’s plan to kill Servetus’s ideas did not work.  Here we are, living proof. 

             When someone tells you they never heard of the Unitarian religion and wonders if it is some fly-by-night New Age thing, I hope you will call to mind Michael Servetus, burned with his book in a slow fire in 1553 because he found the doctrine of the trinity to be in error, because he believed in the unity of God.  I hope you will remember him as a hero of our faith. 

             Not all heroes die in a fire or a blood bath.  I have mentioned Francis David here before.  He was the founder of Unitarianism as a public religion rather than merely a privately held belief.  In the late 1500’s, he was chaplain to the King of Transylvania, in what is now part of Romania .  He died in jail without ceremony 425 years ago.  He was 69 years old.     

            Think of it.  David was chaplain to the king, and he managed to convince the king to call a debate on the subject of whether God was three (father, son, and holy spirit) or one.  And David was such a skillful debater that he did convince the king.  King John Sigusmund thus became a Unitarian, saying that there was only one God, not a trinity, and thus Jesus was a human being – a great teacher and prophet and model for right living – but not God.   

            John Sigusmund was the one Unitarian king in all of history.  He had the power to require all his subjects to subscribe, at least publicly, to his belief, but instead he issued an amazing edict, a decree of religious tolerance that protected people against any one religion being the state religion. 

             Unfortunately, King John died young in a hunting accident, and his chaplain, Francis David, went on to get into trouble because he kept on insisting that people should pray to God, not to Jesus.  He was very sick when he was jailed for his beliefs, and so he died. 

             Francis David is usually thought of as a martyr for Unitarianism, and I would not dispute that.  But I am inclined to remember him not for his dying but for his living, for the far-reaching effect of his converting the king by the power of his words.  I suspect, after all, that the king’s grand decree of religious freedom was composed by David. David reminds me that many heroic people are so far behind the scenes, out of the limelight, that it’s only by some fluke that we even know of their heroism  -- their risks taken to help others or to do what’s right. 

             I think of all those firefighters who climbed up the stairs of the World Trade Center when everybody else was running down.     

I think of those airline passengers on United Flight 93 that bright September morning.  They were ordinary human beings, not people whose job it was to risk their lives that day.  But some of them saw to it that the hijackers were thwarted in their plans.  They saw to it that that plane crashed in a field near Shanksville , Pennsylvania , not into the United States Capitol Building or the  White House.   Because those ordinary citizens took action and gave their lives, countless others in Washington were saved.   

            But I am still not convinced that the badge of hero should be reserved only for people who intentionally risk their own lives. I believe there is another, quieter kind of heroism that goes on every day that simply consists of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help others and do what they believe is right. Some of them die for their trouble, and some of them don’t.  Some become famous, and some are never known at all.  

            I think of the thousands of unsung Transylvanian Unitarians over the 400 years since Servetus and David who have stood firm against persecution by one power after another – everyone from the Orthodox church to the Communist dictator Ceaucesqu, who actually flooded some valleys in a “water reclamation project” designed to wipe out some villages altogether.  I have seen pictures of those flooded valleys with the tops of the Unitarian church spires sticking up out of the water.   

            The Unitarians of Transylvania are very poor.  They farm unyielding land.  They are ethnic Hungarians in a land that has been buffeted from one government to another over the centuries and is now part of Romania .  They have much to teach us about the roots of our faith and about holding to it against unspeakable pressures.   

Many American churches have established partnerships with Transylvanian churches.  I have served more than one church that has a partner church in Transylvania, and when I was in Tampa , we had our partner church minister and his wife come to visit for a week.  One of the things I hope for you as a thriving congregation is that one day you will partner with a Transylvanian Unitarian church.  If you do, I predict that “heroism” will take on a whole new meaning for you.   

            I also want to say that I believe this congregation, and in particular, its leadership, has shown heroism, not unlike that of the Transylvanian Unitarians.  I think of you not being done in by the vandals.  I think of  you welcoming the New Hope Christian Fellowship [a gay congregation] into your sanctuary on Sunday evenings.  I think of you wrapping the church in rainbow ribbon to make visible your affirmation of the worth and dignity of gay and lesbian marriages.  In such ways do we proclaim that we “stand on the side of love,” which is certainly a contemporary expression of Universalism.   

            We all know individual heroes too, not only those in public life, but also in our families and among our friends.  What makes them heroes may have little or nothing to do with bravery.  After all, hear this reflection on bravery from 365 Tao Daily Meditations:  

Beware the brave man.  He may be a hero, willing to risk his very life, but he will also be willing to endanger the lives of others….  When attacked, a brave man goes forth with strength, power, and confidence.  In that boisterousness, there is little awareness of the subtle.  Life is not simple, and it takes a great deal of time to master.

           Maybe that is why on this November day, a few days after the election and before Veterans Day, I am inclined not to look to Fallujah for heroes but to lift up heroes like Francis David, the king’s ghost writer, and the Transylvanian Unitarians, who persist quietly in their faith in spite of all persecutions.  These people are aware of the subtle.  They know that life is not simple, and they take the time to master it.  They are my kind of heroes, and always will be.  

  of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Valdosta