Small acts of courage

This morning, the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women, a rainy Oregon morning, how fitting. I sometimes reflect on the scene in Zeffirelli’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ where the body of Jesus is taken down from the cross during a blustery spring rainstorm, and relate that kind of weather to the events surrounding Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and even resurrection. Oregon has given us many a rainy Great Week and Pascha.

Father Paul said he didn’t have a sermon or homily for us, only a meditation, which he presented as ‘a small act of courage.’ I talked to him afterwards and asked him never to preach a sermon to us again, if that weren’t a sermon; the short ‘meditation’ he shared with us was, to me, what a ‘sermon’ ought to be—brief, focused, imaginative, but still simple, and most of all, actionable—a word from Christ which I can follow. This is what I remember (not verbatim!) from Fr Paul’s talk…

Crucifixion was the Roman world’s way of absolutely trashing a human being. Anyone who died this way was considered human garbage. It was Rome’s way of asserting its irresistible power over humanity by the ultimate outrage against that humanity. A crucified man was probably rarely, if ever, given proper burial, just deposited into the local garbage dump. This was the (apparent) victory of worldly power over what is right, over us, God’s people, and we were powerless against it, back then, and today. But were they then, and are we now, really powerless against triumphant worldly power?

Joseph of Arimathaea knew that his Master, Jesus, had been killed. He didn’t have the power to prevent it. But because of his social standing, he did have the power to go to the authorities and ask for possession of the body, so he could give it proper burial. He did this, apart from the closer disciples of the Lord who had no access to the authorities because of their poverty. Yet even these, the women followers, called by the Orthodox the ‘myrrh-bearing women’, had the courage to find out where the body was taken, so that after the Sabbath they could go and finish embalming it with myrrh. They knew that their Lord had been put to death. They too had no power to prevent it. But they did have power to do what they could, that is, even though they couldn’t undo the tragedy, at least they could minister to the holy body with the myrrh.
Two small acts of courage in the face of the irresistible triumph of might over right, two small ‘revolutions’ against the inevitable, and these, even before the real victory of the resurrection of Christ was revealed.

I’m afraid I’m reporting your words very badly, Fr Paul… I’m doing my best.
What really hit me is this…

We’re all faced with circumstances wholly outside our control, ranging from minor annoyances to life-shattering tragedies, and everything in-between.
Though we can’t change or prevent these triumphs of worldly power or false authority, we can do ‘small acts of courage.’
We can step out in faith.

The acts themselves are not hard… a kind word, a smile, a wordless embrace, lending a hand. We know that we can’t undo the wrong, prevent the tragedy, or overturn the tyranny by our single action. But by stepping out in faith to do a small act of courage, we have joined ourselves to the still invisible, but coming, great reversal that puts everything right once more. Like the myrrh-bearing women’s, our small act of courage in the face of utter calamity, will meet the Lord’s resurrection, and our own as well.

For me, the idea is pivotal, and I’ve learned it by trial and error, through a lot of needless suffering. Thank you, Fr Paul, for expressing it so well, and for your forbearance with my faulty reporting of your words.

“What's done is done” doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
Small acts of courage really do change the world.