Oscar Romero was not a dangerous man At least, hat was what it was thought by those who installed him as Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the tiny Central American nation of El Salvador in February of 1976 Those few families who controlled almost all of the wealth of that devoutly Catholic country were pleased with the appointment He seemed to represent no threat to them or to their continued positions of power and prosperity But was quiet, unobtrusive, and pious seemingly willing to toe the line And to maintain the status quo He was not a dangerous man Who did not espouse a dangerous theology A short time after his election and instalment one of his priests A good friend Was shot to death as he drove to mass by government soldiers Oscar Romero realised that he could not ignore the injustice and the violence taking place al around him The gospel demanded he speak on behalf of the poor, the powerless, and the dispossessed who had no voice of their own and so he became involved in a long struggle that made him a rival and a threat to those in positions of power and which made him very much a dangerous man in a very dangerous place; he told a national audience a year before his death; “if they take this platform form us if they deny us a radio and a television and a microphone if they kill all the priests and the bishop too then you, the people, every one of you must become God’s microphone you must become prophets of a future not yet your own’ one night, in 1980, at the height of the civil war tearing his country apart a lone gunman entered the hospital chapel where Archbishop Romero was presiding at Mass he had just finished delivering his last homily in which he had said: “one must never love one’s self so much so as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that the gospel demands us of” as the Archbishop stood behind the altar preparing the gifts of bread and wine for the offertory the gunman ended his life with a single shot Archbishop Oscar Romero stands in a long tradition of men and women who have lost their lives for the faith A line and a tradition that begins with St. Stephen The very first Christian martyr Whose death is described in the reading from the Acts today; For the first few centuries of its life The Church suffered consistent persecution and opposition in the Roman world And elsewhere as missionaries brought the message to the peoples scattered across Europe Many of the first Bishops and leaders of the Church were to die in the same manner as St. Stephen and Oscar Romero With the result that – around the year 200 Tertullian, a leader of the Christian Church in North Africa Made this famous statement; “You can persecute us, torture us, and kill us the more you mow us down the more we grow for the blood of the martyrs is the very seed of the Church” That history is a living one It has been said – somewhat anecdotally That more men and women died around the world for their Christian faith During the twentieth-century than in any other century in history. Hence the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero who is one such example among many many others Beginning with Stephen and continuing to the present day In contrast We are fortunate and blessed to live in a place such as this In wealth, comfort, and relative prosperity In freedom and in safety We may never be called upon to defend or to die for that freedom As our ancestors – as the ANZACS - were And we may never – God willing – be called to suffer for our faith Let alone die for it As did Oscar Romero And so many of the saints before him: However there is a sense in which the experience of St. Stephen And the experience of those to whom St. Peter writes in his first epistle A portion of which is the New Testament lesson for today Is still consistent with our experience as Christians and as people of faith today Peter addresses his letter to the Christian communities scattered across the Roman world Whom he calls “strangers” and “aliens” in the world These are terms that interpret the social situation and experience of the Christian communities of his day They live at the very margins of their world They are socially ostracised and alienated Looked upon with scorn and derision by those around them Persecution and opposition Whether that of the authorities Or that generated by popular distrust and the rule of the mob The sort of lynch mob who stoned Stephen to death Was never far from the surface: That type of persecution and opposition That brings with it the threat of physical violence Is not present in the environment in which we live our daily lives But there is a very real sense in which we as the Church Have rediscovered And are beginning to rediscover What it means to live at the margins of our society What it means to be just one voice among many voices What it means to be thought irrelevant, unimportant, and ignored What it means to be looked upon with suspicion In short – we are discovering what it means to be strangers and aliens, ourselves in the larger social world In this brave new world, in which we live our message, our Gospel, our identity as Gospel people and followers of Jesus Christ which makes us a Christian community must be proclaimed without compromise not changed to suit to values of the world in which we live not packaged as a marketable commodity or sold as a product but proclaimed as God’s claims upon us as people created in his image and likeness people for whom Christ died as a demonstration and an example of God’s unending love for us all even though this message might not be well received indeed, it might be deeply unpopular and might well increase our sense of isolation and marginalisation at a personal level it might mean yours is a lone voice in the tea room at work or in the schoolyard or among a circle or group of friends; it might mean occasional ridicule or scorn it might mean saying yes when everyone else is saying o or the reverse; it mean – in short – us being a community that is distinctly and decidedly counter cultural but that would seem to me to be a very small price to play when compared with the price paid by martyrs of the faith in our own time such as Archbishop Oscar Romero In the days leading up to his death Archbishop Romero was asked to respond to the threats made against him And he answered with these words: “I do not believe in death without resurrection if they kill me, I will be resurrected in the hearts of the Salvadoran people” I wonder if that flame is alive in us that flame of prophecy that burned brightly in the lives and the witness of the martyrs beginning with St. Stephen whom we read of in the Acts right down to Oscar Romero in our own generation does it burn in us also and make us slightly dangerous and make us willing to die the small deaths of embarrassment, awkwardness, and a willing to swim against the stream does it shine in our lives and make us beacons of hope in the world in which we live and living symbols of the hope of a different way a better way the hope that Jesus offered to Thomas when he said “If I go I go to prepare a place for you” I will not leave you Thomas But if I die – I will be live again If nowhere else, then In the hearts and the minds and in the voices Of those whom come after me And who are willing to proclaim the message I bring That Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life Without fear of where it may take them. |