32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: “Holy People Do not Go Along to Get Along.”
32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: “Holy People Do not Go Along to Get Along.”
“Silence in the face of Evil is itself evil.” These words are from Dietrich Bonhoeffer a German Protestant Pastor who died resisting the Nazis during world war two.
Today, in our first lesson, we heard a story about heroic resistance from the Book of Maccabees. 200 years before Christ the Jewish state had been conquered by the Greeks. Antiochus IV, who was king of the Seleucid Empire, had conquered Egypt and Israel. Some conquerors were benevolent in ancient times in that they let people keep their culture and religion. But Antiochus was not that way. He brutally tried to wipe out any Jewish heritage in Israel.
The Jews began to resist. A family called the Maccabees led an armed rebellion against the Greeks. Many brave people resisted, having their religion taken away from them. Some of their stories are recorded in the Book of Maccabees. We read just part of a story about an unnamed woman and her seven sons. The Jews weren’t supposed to eat pork. A kosher diet was an important part of Jewish identity. Antiochus ordered the Jewish people to eat pork as a sign of their rejection of the Jewish faith. The choice was, eat pork or die. Most of the Jewish population gave in, but an anonymous family we read about today didn’t.
One by one seven sons are led before their mother. Each one, in turn, refuses to renounce their religion and eat pork even though they are scourged and tortured in many hideous ways. We would expect the mother of these men to tell her sons to eat pork so they might live, but she encourages each one to resist. Each man gives a witness about his faith before he is killed. The mother proudly listens to their words. She would rather have then dead than to commit the sin of apostacy.
The members of this family are known as the Holy Maccabean Martyrs. Both the Orthodox and Catholic church observe their feast on August 1st. The relics of this family are said to be in a church in Cologne Germany. When we hear this story, we could say that this was a nice legend, but no one would be crazy enough to give up their life for their religious belief. But we have many examples throughout history.
One example in our Catholic tradition is a man named Blessed Frans Jagerstatter. Franz Jagerstatter lived in Austria during the 1930’s. He was a simple farmer. As a young man he was known to be a little wild, but he settled down when he married and had a family. He was devoted Catholic Christian. He was a lay minister at his church. Franz was a daily communicant. His faith began to change his perspective on life. In 1938 he was the only citizen in his town to vote against the annexation of Austria into Germany. In 1940 Frans was drafted into the German Army. He didn’t want to serve the Nazi cause. He didn’t believe in what the Third Reich represented. The mayor of his town intervened for him. Franz was able to return home. But in 1943 he was drafted again. He refused to serve in the regular army. He offered to serve as a medic instead.
He was arrested and charged with sedition by the Germans. He believed that serving the Germans war machine which was killing innocent people was a serious sin. People told him that he was crazy for risking his life. Franz was not part of any movement. The church did not support him. He was all alone, attacked from every side. But he would not give in. He wrote from his prison cell, the following:
“If I must write….with my hands in chains, I find that better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of his faith and his free will.”
Jagerstatter was beheaded by the Nazis on August 9, 1943 because he was considered a threat to the state. What if others would have followed his lead? He was an made an example of. His wife Fraziska lived to be a 100. She always loved her Husband. She supported him in his actions despite what it cost their family. Austrians wanted his story to be forgotten. She kept it alive.
In our society people need to hear stories like that of the Maccabees and stories like that of Franz Jagerstatter. We need to be reminded that belief in God and religious principle is worth defending, maybe in extreme cases its even worth dying for. Conforming to evil in order to protect oneself is perhaps the easiest type of sin to justify. But it is still sinful. Those who don’t go along to get along truly offer a holy witness.
Please note: rough draft....grammar will not be perfect!