Wreaths of Empire

 

Lectionary readings: Hebrews 9.24-28 and Mark 1.14-20

Jesus and his first followers lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. Indeed, Galilee had been successively occupied, over a period of seven hundred years, by the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the (Persian) Achaemenid, the Ptolemaic, Greek-Seleucid, and Roman Empires.

Around the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire invaded Britain, defeating the indigenous tribes with whom they had previously traded, and whom they had unsuccessfully invaded, twice, a hundred years earlier.

The Romans ruled over us for four hundred years, bringing Christianity with them. Then they were summoned home to defend Rome, though many simply refused to go.

In their wake we had two centuries of Germanic migration – pagan Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians;

followed by two centuries of consolidation into around a dozen Anglo-Saxon kingdoms competing for dominance (Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex among them) and efforts to convert them to Christianity by both their neo-Celtic British neighbours – the fabled Northern Saints – and by missionaries from Rome;

followed by two centuries of Danish migration.

Then, in the eleventh century, the Norman invasion, the most comprehensive dispossession and replacement of the ruling class.

For the next three hundred years, the boundaries between English and French were blurred and bloody, while England also laid claim to Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The fourteenth century saw the Black Plague wipe out half the population of England.

The fifteenth century saw the War of the Roses.

The sixteenth century saw Tudor England, and a violently contested break from the Church of Rome, pulling the country back and forth, Catholic and Protestant factions fighting for dominance.

The seventeenth century saw Union with Scotland; Civil War and the state execution of a king; a restoration of the monarchy; and the Glorious Revolution, the deposition of a Catholic king.

The eighteenth century saw the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution;

the nineteenth century saw the Napoleonic Wars and expansion of the British Empire;

the twentieth century saw the First World War – as German expansion in Europe threatened Britain’s global Empire – and a Second World War, followed by rapid decolonization, and new – ongoing – waves of migration from nations we had claimed our own.

What does it mean to be British? What does it mean to be British and Christian? What do these things mean, at any given point in time?

Jesus and his first followers lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. The emperor in Rome justified his claim to their land, and to their lives, by declaring himself to be the bringer of Good News, the herald of universal peace, the Pax Romana.

And Jesus arrives on the scene proclaiming a different kingdom, the kingdom of God, a divine rule that is not concerned with claims over nations or nationalities but is demonstrated in addressing the needs of those who experience crushing poverty, in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, standing with those marginalized by their communities.

I have a confession. I find Remembrance Sunday the most uncomfortable day of the year, because it is a day on which we are reminded of how utterly addicted we are to violence in defence of a moment in history we cannot hold on to. We have done this every year for the past hundred years, and still we are surrounded by war, and still we see the rise of neo-fascism around the world as strong men declare themselves to be anointed by God to defend Christian values, with bloodshed if necessary.

And I have absolutely no skin in this game. I am not looking for the downfall of this nation, I just know – history shows us – that it will continue to change, as will all the other nations. But as I get on with my life, as best I can, in the moment in history that has been allotted to me, Jesus comes to me and says, Follow me.

Follow me, and together we shall scoop others up into this utterly different kingdom, with this utterly different king, whom Empire put to death but whom God raised again to life.

An early follower of Jesus wrote to Christians scattered by the ebb and flow of Empire, saying the signs and symbols we see now are at best pale imitations of reality. Today we wear poppies, a flower that grew in fields that had been soaked with the blood of a generation. A symbol of life returning again, even after utter and comprehensive destruction. A symbol of the unimaginable goodness of God towards us. But the poppy can become an opiate, numbing us to good as well as pain. So, I shall wear my poppy, but I shall look to Jesus, and choose to follow him, to hold out good news to those on the underside of our society, including those maimed physically and scarred emotionally by war.