Beneath the Surface

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

July 26, 2015

Beneath the Surface

Selected Texts

He stands imposing, impressive,

a proud knight in gleaming armor;

an image captured in oil

by a painter in the year 1520,

just three years after Luther nailed his 95 Theses

to the door of the church in Wittenburg Germany

and launched the Reformation.

The portrait speaks of a man who was a leader:

a bold, confident man,

his armor elaborate,

a spear in one hand,

a gleaming golden sword in the other.

        

In painting the man,

the artist took more than a little license,

for the artist painted a military leader

who had lived more than a thousand years before;

a man who had not been a knight

in service to a German king,

but had in fact been a commanding officer

serving the Roman emperor,

a leader of a legion of more than 6000 men

in the army of the Roman empire.

The officer’s name was Maurice

and the emperor he served was Maximian,    

who ruled the Roman empire

as the 200s gave way to the 300s.

Maurice was not a typical soldier in the emperor’s army:

he was a Christian.

In fact, the legion he commanded

was composed entirely of Christians.

Still Maurice and his legion were obedient, faithful;

soldiers dedicated to serving their emperor.

Toward the end of the third century,

the emperor sent Maurice and his legion

to the land then known as Gaul,

today known as France,

to put down a rebellion against the empire.

Maurice and his legion went

dutifully and obediently.

But when the emperor gave them his next order,   

they balked.

Maximian had ordered Maurice and his soldiers

to persecute the Christians in Gaul.

That was something neither Maurice nor his men would do;

they refused the emperor’s command.

We have to remember that for the

first 300 years following the death

and resurrection of our Lord,

proclaiming oneself a Christian

in a world dominated by the Roman Empire

was likely to lead to arrest and execution.

Maximian’s successor Constantine

would free Christians to live in the open,

worship in the open;

but in Maximian’s time arrest and death awaited

those who were exposed as Christians.

When Maurice and his men

refused the emperor’s order,

the emperor retaliated by decimating the legion.

In its original sense the word “decimate” meant

that every 10^th man of the legion was to be killed.

More than 600 men were put to the sword

for their refusal to do as the emperor had ordered.

Still, Maurice and his men refused to comply,

resulting in a second decimation,

hundreds more of the legion’s men

dying rather than betraying their faith.

Yet a third time, Maurice and his men

stood up to the emperor,

resolute in their faith.

The emperor didn’t hesitate:

this time he had Maurice and all his men killed.

They died as martyrs,

a word which in Greek means, “witness,”

men who gave witness to the strength of their faith

by dying for it.

As the centuries passed,

Maurice’s reputation as a martyr grew

and by the 10^th century, in an ironic twist,

the Holy Roman Emperor made Maurice

his personal saint and patron.

And, as was the custom at the time,

the emperor and religious leaders

accumulated relics thought to have been associated

with the man who was by then

known as Saint Maurice.

In the early years of the 16^th century

Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg

commissioned the great painter

Lucas Cranach the Elder

to paint an altarpiece for his church;

One of the panels was to feature Saint Maurice.

He was painted as a contemporary knight

in armored splendor,

painted just slightly smaller than life-size

as part of a magisterial altarpiece.

The rest of the altarpiece has been lost

to time and history,

but the painting of Saint Maurice

survived the centuries

and now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

in New York City.

This is one of those times when it would be wonderful

to have screens here in the Sanctuary

so you could see the painting,

see it for yourself.

It is a painting that would truly take your breath away,

not just for its magnificence as a work of art –

it is truly is a masterpiece –

but also because when you look upon

Maurice the knight,

the great military leader of a Roman legion,

the Christian martyr,

you would look upon a black man,

an African. 

Maurice: military leader,

commander in the Roman army,

leader of a legion of 6000,

devout Christian,

martyr…

and a black man.

The color of his skin,

his birthplace –

those things that we are so quick to use to judge—

what a travesty if we were to do that to Maurice.

Racism and prejudice have been

an ugly part of human history

for virtually all of human history.

God recognized our proclivity

right at the beginning of the Bible,

telling the children of Israel to welcome the alien,

not to persecute those who looked different,

who came from different parts of the world,

but rather, to feed them,

welcome them,

assure them of justice:

    “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien,

for you were aliens in the land of Egypt….”

(Exodus 22:21)

     “You shall not strip your vineyard bare,

or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard;

you shall leave them for the poor and the alien…”

(Leviticus 19:10)

There is racism everywhere in our society,

a cancer we can’t seem to eradicate.

It takes the form of the overt racism

we see in individuals and groups who aren’t afraid

to speak out against black or Latino or Jew or Asian.

And it also takes a more insidious form:                 

the polite kind that resides in churches,

businesses, neighborhoods, schools;

silent, but toxic,

lurking in the minds of men and women

who would never think of themselves as

racist or bigoted,

but who are so quick to judge a person

based on the color of their skin,

the accent of their speech,

the clothing they wear,

the country they or their ancestors came from.

When God sent the prophet Samuel

to anoint King Saul’s successor,

God sent Samuel to the man Jesse,

who presented his first-born son,

a strong, solid, strapping young man

who Samuel could see clearly

looked the part of a king.

But God was quick to tell Samuel

that that young man was not the one God had in mind

to be Saul’s successor as king,

telling Samuel,

“Do not look on his appearance

or on the height of his stature,

because I have rejected him;

for the Lord does not see as mortals see;

they look on the outward appearance,

but the Lord looks on the heart.”

(1 Samuel 16)

We cannot fool God.

God knows us,

knows our minds.

We do look at outward appearance.

and then we do make judgments.

But do you hear what God is teaching us,

how God is telling us to live our lives?

Look past the skin, God tells us,

look deep beneath the surface,

look on the heart.

That’s what matters.

That’s all that matters.

Jesus reinforced God’s teaching

when he told his disciples,

“Do not judge by appearances,

but judge with right judgment

(John 7:24)

reminding his disciples,

and that includes you and me,

that it is by our love that we are known

as disciples of Christ,

not by the color of our skin,

or where we live,

or the clothes we wear,

or where our ancestors came from.

A recent survey found that both

white and black respondents

feel that race relations have

deteriorated in our country, rather than improved.

In an article discussing the survey’s results,

a writer observed that this has been a year

“that has seen as much race-related strife and violence

as perhaps any since the desegregation battles of the 1960s.”

(New York Times, July 24, 2015, page A15)

As if to prove the point,

a candidate for the highest office in the land

makes shamefully racist comments

and becomes more popular.

                                            

There is no place for racism or bigotry

in the church of Jesus Christ;

no place for racism or bigotry

in the lives of disciples of Christ;

no place for prejudice,

no place for intolerance.

After all, didn’t we just hear these words last week:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

(Galatians 3:28)

We are all one in Jesus Christ.

I am guessing that Maurice knew that,

which is why he couldn’t and wouldn’t

persecute or kill

his brothers and sisters in faith,

even though to him and his legion

they were foreigners,

aliens,

people who looked different,

spoke a different language.  

An elderly man came to join in a recent protest

as part of a white supremacist group

in Columbia, South Carolina.

He was wearing a t-shirt that bore a swastika.

He slumped on the steps of the building

overcome by the heat and humidity of the day.

A state trooper saw his distress,

came to his assistance,

and began to walk him up the steps

toward the building

to get the man inside in the air-conditioning and shade.

A fire fighter stepped in to help the trooper,

one on each side of the elderly man,

guiding him slowly up the steps,

and then inside the building,

where they found a couch for the man

and helped him sit in the coolness so he could recover.

The trooper and the firefighter were both black,

the two of them helping an avowed white supremacist.

(New York Times, July 25, 2015)

“I give you a new commandment,

that you love one another.

Just as I have loved you,

you also should love one another.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.’”

(John 13:34-35)

This, brothers and sisters,

this is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN