To love God even if it means our death
The Father’s will is to love. To love God above all.
By Steve Hall
Most of us are not and will not be faced with the life-or-death choice of living without God or dying with God. It’s not going to be love God and die. Rather, we’re faced with the more difficult choice — the one that commands us to love God and live. Live the love of God in a world that does not love God.
Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
Acts 20:17-27
John 17:1-11a
I have four stories to share with you. The first two you have already heard in the readings from Acts and John, so I will merely summarize those. The third is an account of incidents in central Africa in the mid-1800s. The fourth is a brief conversation from a well-known fantasy.
The reading from Acts comes toward the end of Paul’s missionary journeys. He has called together the presbyters of Ephesus for one last time. He doesn’t offer a list of the dangers and sufferings he has endured as catalogued in II Corinthians, though they are part of who he is:
Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea . . .
Rather than restate them here in Acts, he tells us that he desires to: “finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.” And that, “... in one city after another, the Holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me.”
The Gospel from John offers a similar perception. “Father, the hour has come.”
Jesus’ time approaches when all will be brought to completion. “I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.”
Given that imminent fulfillment, what is to come after holds some concern. “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine. . . .”
Our third story looks to the martyrs we remember today — men I had never heard of. The Society of Missionaries of Africa (known as the White Fathers) had only been in Uganda for six years, and yet they had built up a community of converts whose faith would outshine their own. The earliest converts soon began instructing and leading new converts whom the White Fathers couldn't reach. Many of these converts lived and taught at King Mwanga's court.
King Mwanga was a violent ruler and pedophile who forced himself on the young boys and men who served him as pages and attendants. The Christians at Mwanga's court tried to protect the pages from King Mwanga. The leader of the small community of 200 Christians was the chief steward of Mwanga's court, a twenty-five-year-old Catholic named Joseph Mkasa (or Mukasa).
After Mwanga killed a Protestant missionary and his companions, Joseph Mkasa confronted Mwanga and condemned his action. When Joseph dared to demand that Mwanga change his lifestyle, Mwanga forgot their long friendship and ordered him killed. He was beheaded and then burned on November 15, 1885.
Charles Lwanga took over the instruction and leadership of the Christian community at court, as well as the charge of keeping the young boys and men out of Mwanga's hands. Perhaps Joseph's plea for repentance had some effect on Mwanga, as the persecution subsided — but only for six months.
In May 1886, Mwanga called one of his pages, Mwafu, and asked what the page had been doing that kept him away. When the page replied that he had been receiving religious instruction from Denis Sebuggwawo, Mwanga's temper boiled over. He had Denis brought to him and killed him himself with a spear through his throat.
He then ordered that the royal compound be sealed and guarded so that no one could escape, and summoned the country's executioners. Knowing what was coming, Charles Lwanga baptized four catechumens that night, including a thirteen-year-old named Kizito. The next morning, Mwanga brought his whole court before him and separated the Christians from the rest by saying, "Those who do not pray stand by me, those who do pray stand over there." He demanded of the fifteen boys and young men (all under 25) if they were Christians and intended to remain Christians. When, with strength and courage, they answered "Yes," Mwanga condemned them to death.
He commanded that the group be taken on a 37-mile trek to the place of execution at Namugongo. The chief executioner begged one of the boys, his son, Mabaga, to escape and hide, but Mabaga refused. The cruelly bound prisoners passed the home of the White Fathers on their way to execution. Father Lourdel remembered thirteen-year-old Kizito laughing and chattering. Lourdel almost fainted at the courage and joy these condemned converts, his friends, showed on their way to martyrdom. Three of these faithful were killed on the road.
The original caravan reached Namugongo, and the survivors were kept imprisoned for seven days. On June 3, they were brought out, wrapped in reed mats, and placed on a pyre. The boy named Mbaga was killed first by order of his father, the chief executioner, who had tried one last time to change his son's mind. The rest were burned to death. Thirteen Catholics and eleven Protestants died. They died calling on the name of Jesus and proclaiming, "You can burn our bodies, but you cannot harm our souls."
When I was in Catholic grade school, we had a book that was seldom used. It was called Bible History and was far more interesting than the Catechism. I can’t remember it ever being used, but it had great pictures and stories. One of my personal favorites was that of St. Steven, my patron saint and the first martyr. (I never understood why they didn’t know how to spell his name correctly.) In any case, the tale caused me to hypothesize the many possibilities for my demise at the hands of heretics. I even considered which methods were most repulsive and which I could most probably endure. But... here I am, and the future doesn’t look that threatening. I’ll never die in a Soviet prison camp. The likelihood of death in a concentration camp or by firing squad seems remote. We seldom burn people at the stake these days. I’m not interesting enough to warrant assassination.
That is probably for the best, as my courage and fortitude have not been truly tested.
I don’t know. God knows.
But in any case, martyrdom in the ordinary sense of the word seems remote for most everyone I know. Technically, we would categorize martyrdom as a form of dying for the faith. I think that’s too narrow. In John, chapter seven, many are looking askance at what Jesus is teaching because he didn’t go to a ‘proper’ school.
“Jesus answered them, ‘My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me; if any man's will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.’” (John 7:16-17)
So, what is the Father’s will?
We talk of the Ten Commandments, while in reality, there is only one. And from that one, all else follows.
I am the Lord, your God.
You shall have no strange gods before me.
Alternately
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
This is the will that Jesus obeyed.
This is the will that Paul obeyed.
This is the will that Charles Lwanga obeyed.
It is not the Father’s will that we should suffer. It is the Father’s will that we should love: Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
The Father’s will is to love. To love God above all. To love God even if it means our death.
But most of us are not and will not be faced with the choice of living without God or dying with God. It’s not going to be love God and die. Instead, we’re faced with the more difficult choice — the one that commands us to love God and live. Live the love of God in a world that does not love God. Love God more than anything this world may offer. That persistent, ongoing, and enduring struggle is itself a form of martyrdom. But it’s not the one that comes in a relatively brief moment. It is a martyrdom of being nibbled to death by ducks, of being tortured by patiently enduring another’s burdens, of being present when others need us, of loving where or when there is no love.
And so I come to the fourth story. It is the briefest of them all. It comes from The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf, the wizard, and Frodo, the hobbit, are with the fellowship traveling through the abandoned mines of the dwarves. Frodo laments.
“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
How often have each of us said I wish this problem had not come to me? How frequently have we desired that these troubles had never happened? Yet, all we must do is determine the character of our response.