The story is stark, difficult, and unrelenting. The tale for our patron saints is horrible. The slaughter of babies in the bible is terrible. I have had more than a few conversations with the chaplains at the school about how we deal with murdered children when we talk about our church. We can talk about how Nellie Peters Black used the name because she wanted the chapel to serve those children who were innocent of the poverty in which they found themselves. We can focus on how our ministry is meant to help children and families. Of course, that is the easy way out. That is the way that we can make a terrifying story palatable for elementary school children and their families. A story that changes the amber and hue of the whole Christmas story. Gone are shepherds and mangers and Mary pondering all these things in Luke. Instead, we are presented with power, politics, fear, and death. And we shy away because it IS hard, it IS difficult, it IS terrible. But whenever I hear stories that are hard or difficult and people who edit them for children, I think of the quote of G.K. Chesterton, one of the great Christian apologists in history: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
For the first five years I have talked about our church and our community for our feast day. Today is high time we talked about our patronal saints. And let’s be clear, it is odd to speak of Jewish infants and children killed out of fear and jealousy as Christian saints. Yet, that is the story we read, that is the tale we inherit, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew. While many of the saints in the Christian calendar are women and men who stood up for their faith and paid a terrible price, we have an unknown number of children murdered for someone they never met or knew. Today we celebrate Unintended Martyrs. And if we know anything of this world, there are likely more of those people caught in awful situations against their will than we care to admit or see. We are truly surrounded by Unintended Martyrs.
This week has seen more than a few reminders of these souls caught in unimaginable circumstances. Two days ago many remembered and honored Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day when the Auschwitz Concentration Camp was liberated by the Red Army. Over 8 million Jews, Gypsies, Christians, political opponents, homosexuals, and special needs individuals killed because of fear and anger and hate. Almost all of them Unintended Martyrs for their faith and beliefs.
And yes, I will speak his name here: Tyre Nichols. A black man, a child of God, beaten to death by the very forces intended to protect and serve. I speak his name because I was born and raised and love Memphis. I speak his name because I grieve when someone is so horribly treated. I speak his name because we can no more turn away from his story than we can turn away from the story of the Holy Innocents. It is horrifying, horrific, terrible, and a thousand other words – many of them with four letter adjectives. He is an Unintended Martyr, someone who died because of who they are. A man caught in forces larger than himself or the officers or any of us.
One of my favorite authors, Toni Morrison, helped open a window on how some of these things can happen. In this instance, how an innocent black man can be beaten by black officers. In her first book, The Bluest Eye, she reflects in horrifying detail how the demonization of blackness in America has been internalized by black communities. This has led to self-loathing, hatred according to darkness of skin, and a deep desire to beautiful which often equals white. The lead character spends much of her life praying for her eyes to turn blue to be more like her white baby doll. As I read the stories about Tyre, I was reminded of a quote about how that hatred of blackness, those lessons of its evil and darkness, permeated Toni Morrison’s story: “You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.”
What does this have to do with the Holy Innocents? What does this all have to do with our place in the world? Everything. When a child of God, someone made in God’s image, is made an Unintended Martyr, like our patronal saints, we must listen and not shy away. But I will draw the through line so that we can see it and hear it and know it more clearly. A clear bright line that the Holy Spirit gifted to me out of the blue. I was led to read a sermon- something I rarely do. And in its words, I heard where God might be calling.
In 1963 Martin Luther King preached the eulogy in Birmingham, Alabama, for the four girls killed in the church bombing 16th Street Baptist Church- four Unintended Martyrs of their faith and for civil rights. And King called these young girls martyrs. He spoke of the evils of segregation and hate and racism. He saw the death, the martyrdom as a moment when the conscience of America, of the South in particular, might come to grips with hatred and animosity. He saw the story of those girls and so many as children caught up in fear and politics and hate- similar to the fear and politics and hate of Herod and the children of Bethlehem. For reasons I cannot describe or explain, the Spirit of God invited me to go and read the eulogy online after hearing of another Unintended Martyr with Tyre. The heartbreak and the anguish are there. A brilliant orator speaks of death and life and politics in equal measures. But I was struck by a line that I know incredibly well from a very different source. King proclaimed that this terrible moment would convert the hearts of many: “Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.” Do you hear it? We say it at literally every baptism. Will you respect the dignity of every human being? The last line of our baptismal covenant.
As we celebrate and remember our patron saints, the Unintended Martyrs of Herod, I realized that our work is wrapped up in the baptismal covenant and is the same as it has been for centuries. We are all called to stand up for the dignity and worth of everyone. How do we do this work? One of my seminary professors talked about the 3-foot rule. Whenever you are within three feet of another human being, tell them that they are beautiful. No really. Everyone you meet from coworkers to janitors to family and the checkout person is a beloved child of God. As the powers and principalities of this world tell them that they are ugly and terrible, be God’s light and life in the world. Tell someone they matter, they are beloved, they are beautiful. This is our baptismal promise and pledge. Our work to understand race and conflict and hate is connected to our baptismal covenant. Our ministry to love God and to love one another becomes crystal clear.
We cannot shy away from our story. We must embrace its terrible reality. Because children of God like Tyre and countless others are still killed in fear because of power and lies. We cannot stop this terrible progression. We know in our faith that Good Friday comes before Easter Day. And Easter Day will come because “the darkness shall not overcome it.” Telling our story and understanding it opens us to realize we are all God’s children and are called to do the hard work of loving God and one another- of affirming the dignity of every human being. Even more, we realize the truth of Chesterton’s comment. Twisted ever so slightly, “The story of the Holy Innocents does not tell us that dragons/that evil exist. We already know that dragons exist. The story of Holy Innocents tells us that the dragons can be defeated.” Go forth and love extravagantly and affirm the worth of every human being.
Readings for the week: Jeremiah 31:15-17 | Psalm 124 | Revelation 21:1-7 | Matthew 2:13-18
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