The Company of Left-Handed Fencers--August 26, 2021

The Company of Left-Handed Fencers--August 26, 2021

"But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting." [Hebrews 10:32-34]

The followers of Jesus aren't weak when they choose the path of suffering love.  They're not losers when they put the interests of others before their own comfort.  They just know something that the so-and-sos can't believe to be true.

Ok, let me back up for a moment.  In fact, let me stick a pin in these verses from Hebrews for a moment entirely and recount a great scene from a great movie--the sword-fighting, swashbuckling duel between Inigo and the Man in Black from early in The Princess Bride.  I promise no spoilers, but as these two thrust and parry (and flip!) across rugged terrain on the edge of a cliff, at one point, the Man in Black asks his opponent, "Why are you smiling?"  In reply, Inigo says, "Because I know something that you do not know--I am not left-handed!"  And with that, Inigo the Spanish fencing master tosses his sword from his left hand into his right, and goes on the offensive with renewed ferocity and improved skill.  He had been intentionally fighting with his weaker hand all along.  (Of course, this leads the Man in Black to reveal his own secret as well--he is not left-handed, either, and with a similar flourish, takes his own sword in his right hand and proceeds to dominate once again.)

I love the scene, and the movie, just at the level of pure entertainment, but also for the theology of it.  I love the notion that you might be intentionally combatting opponents with a strategy that looks like weakness, or even like defeat, but with the sly smirk of knowing something that those opponents don't know or can't believe.  I love the idea that you might just knowingly, even strategically, choose to embrace what looks like foolishness as the way to victory, as a way of disarming those arrayed against you.  In fact, that's been the strategy of Jesus' followers from the earliest generations.  We are the company of left-handed fencers, so to speak.  We are a cadre of specially trained holy troublemakers, whose way of responding to evil in the world is to respond with goodness rather than more evil, who meet hatred with love, and who answer violence with a refusal to hit back with more violence.   We are disciples learning from a Lord whose way of countering the brutality of an empire and the ruthlessness of a religious lynch-mob was to lay down his life in self-giving love rather than kill or threaten or conquer.  We are a community of people convinced that God's way of accomplishing victory was a cross and resurrection, rather than a gun or a spear.

In other words, we are in on a secret--THE secret of all secrets, to be honest.  We are the ones with a sly smile of awareness that the most powerful force in the universe is love that endures suffering rather than cause it, even if the world around us thinks that is nonsense.  We're the ones smirking because we know the world thinks we are weak, when we are simply refusing to play by its childish rules.  

And the early church understood that its witness, its way of life, was inseparable from the way of Jesus, which meant the logic of a cross rather than a cudgel.  So when the writer of Hebrews talks about dealing with hostility and persecution, he simply presumes (correctly) that his readers all understand they are committed to bearing suffering as their way of combatting evil.  The early church didn't demand special treatment or protections or privileges in society, and they didn't put their own comfort above the well-being of others.  They were willing to be made fun of, excluded, or imprisoned, as their way of exposing the corruption and futile bluster of the powers of the day.  And their refusal to sink to the level of those bloated imperial powers by lashing out with violence in return for violence or evil for evil was a conscious choice--it was their way of victory, rooted in the victory of Jesus the Crucified and Risen One.

Those early Christians knew something that we, in a more comfortable and complacent time, have all too often forgotten.  They knew that God's Reign is made visible, not in conquering armies, vast piles of wealth, or angry mobs storming the halls of power with weapons in hand--God's Reign is revealed in barely noticed actions of chosen suffering... in solidarity with those who are being stepped on... in a willingness to bear hardship rather than answer hatred with more hatred.  In the twentieth century, they would have recognized the power of God in a Baptist preacher sitting in a Birmingham city jail, rather than in the presence of those who locked him up as a troublemaker.  In our day, they might point us to the small but significant choice to wear a mask for the sake of a neighbor at risk for COVID, or the work of those helping to settle Afghan refugees in our communities.  Or maybe it's in the willingness to partner with the folks treated by others as less-than.  Or it's the choice to welcome the visitors who come into your church holding hands who have been turned away by too many other respectable religious people.  Maybe when you and I refuse to give into the "Me and My Group First" mentality, or when we speak up for someone who has been told they don't matter, maybe then someone will see the same Reign of God in us as well.

The world will watch these small actions--the fundraiser for helping foreign refugees, the willingness to be inconvenienced for the sake of someone else's well-being, the intentional choice to include the folks too often left out--and think that we look "weak" or "foolish."  But don't you worry.  In fact, we can smile about it--we know something they don't.  We know that God's design is to redeem the world and reign in it through such signs of supposed weakness.  We are the followers of Jesus: the company of left-handed fencers.  We choose what the world thinks of as losing, or weakness, or foolishness--we choose the way of suffering, self-giving love, even for those who do not share our faith in Jesus--because that is the way of Jesus himself.  That is the way of the cross and resurrection.

Go ahead, let the angry and short-sighted voices of the world call us "sheep" or "losers" or "weak."  We will smile, lovingly, over the knowledge that this is exactly what God's Reign looks like, because our lives will look like the strong and self-giving love of Jesus our Shepherd, whose victory came on a cross. We are in on the secret--God's victory comes through the left-handed way of suffering love.

How will we show it and share it this week?

Lord God, give us the vision to see your victory in small acts of self-giving love... and then to make those actions our way of life.