By: Rita Steadman
We need a big hope in a big promise.
Sophie Scholl had one. This past week marked the 75th anniversary of her death, and she should not be forgotten. She was a young university student, who with a small group of friends, resisted the Nazi government by printing and distributing pamphlets across Munich that called on Germans to stand against the Nazis, reporting on the mass killing of Jews, which they called “a crime . . . unparalleled in all of history,” and urging and end to the war stating “Hitler cannot win the war, he can only prolong it.”
Distributing their 5th pamphlet, Sophie and her brother were seen by a janitor as they dropped them fluttering down a stairwell. They were immediately arrested and interrogated for four days. In her defense, Sophie said, “Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.” And they had started, even when no one else would speak. Sophie’s interrogator later wrote:
“Until the bitter end, Sophie and Hans Scholl managed a bearing that must be called unique. Both [said] their activities had only one purpose: preventing an even greater calamity from overtaking Germany and, if possible, helping to save the lives of hundreds of thousands. . . . They were convinced their sacrifice was not in vain.”
Reportedly, “The whole prison and their interrogators were deeply shaken and impressed by (their) courage and deep faith in God, even in the face of death. “They bore themselves with marvelous bravery,” one guard recalled.” (thegospelcoalition.org).
After the four days, they were condemned in the morning and by 5pm that afternoon, Sophie and her brother were executed by guillotine. Supposedly Sophie’s last words were, “God, you are my refuge into eternity.”” (thegospelcoalition.org).
Sophie Scholl had a big hope. She was a devout Christian, a Lutheran who still loved the letter of James, “Be doers of the word, not merely hearers.” (ibid). She placed her trust in God’s love and believed in his righteousness, and she was willing to suffer for his righteousness sake.
She heard Jesus’ call in today’s Gospel and accepted his invitation, “Whoever wants to become my follower, let her deny herself, pick up her cross, and follow me.” In her own words, Sophie said, “How can we expect fate to let a righteous cause prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up undividedly to a righteous cause?”
We need a big hope in a big promise in order to follow. In Genesis we heard God’s promise to Abraham – that he would make Abraham the father of nations and that he would begin an everlasting covenant, an unending relationship. His descendants would be as many as the stars. He would be the father of many nations. And as Paul tells us in Romans, Abraham believed God. He had a big hope in a big promise. This Paul says was counted to him as righteousness. That is, his trust in God’s love and faithfulness counted as righteousness. Our righteousness comes from trusting in God’s love for us – not from anything we do or don’t do – but from our relationship with God, our believing in God’s love made known to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
God loves us. God loves you and God loves me. He loves the people we like and the people we don’t like. He loves us all. Jesus suffered because God loves you. Jesus denied himself and took our human nature because God loves you. Jesus picked up his cross and gave himself to the will of the father, because God loves you. God absolutely loves us and he calls us to live that love and become part of his promise with Jesus’ simple invitation, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
We need a big hope in God’s love because standing up for justice and standing with those who are suffering requires denying ourself and picking up our cross and following Jesus. Without believing in his love, we cannot answer his call. Denying ourselves isn’t easy – not for human nature and not in our culture. “Look out for yourself. Take what you can. You deserve the best” are all regular messages that we’re all too ready to hear. To deny ourselves, as one commentator dryly puts it, “is at the very least, removing ourself from the center of one’s concerns.” It’s “relinquishing…in favor of service to others.” (Feasting on the Word). That doesn’t sound grand or heroic. But the grand and heroic is intricately connected to the small and the mundane. Sophie Scholl and her friends spent days and months concerned with the question how to live daily life truly, even under a dictatorship. The moments of boldly following Jesus require practice in the small things of life. Each day matters.
Every day is a field of practice – from the father who eats the burnt toast at breakfast so his daughters can have the bread that’s only lightly toasted, to the wife who doesn’t wake up her snoring husband to be sure that he sleeps through the night even if she will not, to the young person on the bus who stands and gives up his seat for someone else – each day is a fresh opportunity to hear Jesus’ call, to remember God’s love for us, and to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him. Our practice matters – for our families and communities, and for ourselves. Practicing God’s sacrificial love teaches us to trust ever more deeply in his sacrificial love for us, teaches us to hope more fully in that love.
And we need a big hope to follow Jesus in our world and even in our Churches. We need to believe in God’s love if we are to enter the debates of our day not to insist on our rights or preferences, but to deny ourselves and listen, and to be with people in their suffering. We need to believe in God’s love if we are to risk identifying with those who are vulnerable, if we are to pick up our cross and speak out against abuse and oppression, or the deaths of innocents.
In the Church we need a big hope when we consider our future and reaching out to new peoples and new generations. How will we love and serve them? Will we insist on our ways of doing things? Will we insist that people look like us or sound like us or like the same things we like to worship with us? If we are going to follow Jesus then we must be as Archbishop Temple once described us. He said: “the Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.”
We can be this Church when we believe in God’s incredible awesome love for us. This is us when we have a big hope and heed Jesus’ call, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” and this is us when we believe his promise: For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Rita Steadman is a priest of the Diocese of Maine, where she served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bangor, for over 12 years.
