Have you done time in the “pink aisle”?
If you’ve been there, you know what I mean. It’s that entire section in Target or Toys’R’Us or wherever you shop, that glows with a Pepto-Bismol-bright pink haze. The corridor you trundle your shopping cart down is awash in pinks . . .
there is Barbie and all her accessories,
there are dolls of lesser nobility and parentage,
there are fingerpaints, Frisbees, . ..
Whatever sits on those shelves, they all give off a ghastly pink glow. Stores really should provide special protective eyeshades to their shoppers before letting them venture down those dreaded “pink zones.”
The problem with the “pink aisle” isn’t really its color (although, let’s face it, YES it is!) The problem with the “pink aisle” is that somewhere along the line some marketing executive determined that all the “girl stuff” would be relegated to a “pink zone” and branded with that awful shade of pink.
What had been a sweet “pink-for-girls, blue-for-boys” baby-shower tradition has become a hide‑bound marketing mantra. Pink is a pre‑requisite for marketing success. Pink is an absolute requirement. Pink is the dictator of what is acceptable for selling to a certain segment of the economy.
In short, pink is no longer a color. Pink is now a religion. Individuality and the rainbow of color possibilities are martyred to the iron law of “pink.”
Unfortunately, what happens in the toy store doesn’t stay in the toy store. What happens in the “pink aisle” doesn’t stay in the “pink aisle.” The dictates of convention and conformity, of cultural expectations and day‑to‑day demands, forces all of us to “put on the pink” if we want to get‑along, go‑along, and get‑ahead. We become human pack animals. We live lemming lives.
Bring together a group of five-year-olds and ask how many of them sing. Every hand will go up. Bring the same group together when they’re twelve, and ask how many of them sing. One hand will go up, the young “professional” singer and performer. What happens between five years of age and twelve that our children lose their song, the one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable, irreplaceable song God made them to be?
Teenagers are those most actively struggling to find their own identity. They invest huge amounts of psychic energy breaking free from authority figures and childhood expectations. They struggle to be completely “themselves.” So why do they end up looking alike?
The power of ruling “cliques” and the yearning for popularity and acceptance end up homogenizing all but the most daring. I remember as a teenager thinking I might not be doing what I’d really like to do, but at least I’m not doing what is expected of me either. I remember the day when I realized I was conforming, but to a kind of “conformity” that was driving my parents crazy.
And this is not something that just goes on when we are kids. Moms and Dads “martyr” themselves to their children’s lives and needs. Too many career professionals martyr free time and family time to rungs on a corporate ladder. Athletes martyr their bodies and their health to gain one more goal, eke out one last season, make one final shot. Musicians martyr their creativity and muse to a contract and record label.
As we take on college, careers, families, relationships, and responsibilities we increasingly all become “martyrs” — we sacrifice our dreams; we don’t take “the road less taken;” we martyr our uniqueness to live predictable, conventional, acceptable versions of our lives. We martyr our energy to collecting baubles and trinkets. We martyr our originality to the pink aisles of consumer culture and celebrity worship.
Some of the worst pink martyrs? Pastors and priests, who martyr their calling to save the institution, and prop up the church’s bureaucratic interests. A gospel that wears pink crowns of martyrdom saving the church and maintaining the structures has no saving power or sanctifying unction. The worst apostasy is for us clergy who have been called to preach the gospel to become a martyr to our ecclesiastical preferment and ultimate retirement, just holding on while holding back until we can collect our pension.
You think I’m being harsh with that word “martyr?”
Our word “martyr” comes from the Greek “martys,” which was originally translated as “witness.” In this week’s gospel text the resurrected Jesus calls on his disciples to be his “witnesses,” or originally his martyrs, even to death, for the truth of the resurrection triumph. Jesus’ disciples are to be “witnesses” to the fulfillment of the possibility for repentance and the forgiveness of sins through the resurrection power of the risen Christ. The end of death — the promise of forgiveness and life — now THAT is something truly worthy “witnessing” to, worthy “martyring” for.
Do you know the first recorded Jewish martyr? Abel.
Do you know the first recorded Muslim martyr? A woman named Sumayyah bint Khayyat, who was killed in Mecca simply for being a part of the new Muslim religion.
How about the first recorded “Christian” martyr, at least as we define that word today?
Stephen.
In Greek “Stephen” means “crown.” Hence the tradition of the “martyr’s crown.” All those who suffer persecution and opposition for their faith, all those who die for the kingdom wear a “martyrs crown.”
But wait a minute: we all wear a “martyr’s crown.” The problem is what are we martyring ourselves for? The dictionary defines a “martyr” as someone devoted to a cause, someone who suffers and dies for refusing to renounce or accept a belief or a cause. But that is the world’s definition. That definition is what makes us “pink martyrs” — martyrs to the “cause” of getting by, martyrs to the “cause of getting ahead,” martyrs to the “cause” of being a “good” husband or wife, a “good” father or mother, a “good” provider or good employer, a “good worker” or “good leader.”
We are not called to be “witnesses,” called to be “martyrs,” to a “cause.” As Christians, we have not been called to be devoted to a “cause” at all. We have been called to be devoted to Jesus Christ. Jesus is not a cause. Jesus is The Christ. As we walk with him on The Way, discover his Truth, and live his Life, we wear the crown of martyrdom, of witnessing, for the gospel.
At the end of Luke’s gospel Jesus declares his disciples to be “witnesses,” or “martyrs,” for him. In the second part of Luke’s story — the Book of Acts — it becomes increasingly clear what being that kind of “witness,” that kind of “martyr” entails.
To be devoted to Jesus means to serve Christ, to sacrifice for Christ, to surrender to Christ, to “witness” to Christ. The conventional and respectable go out the window. Always the expected, ever the predictable are dropkicked out of disciples’ lives. Taking the “goodnews” of salvation into the world washes every bit of “pink” predictability out of every disciple’s life.
Whether you were a first century disciple or are a twenty‑first century disciple, the martyr’s crown still fits. Being a martyr, being a witness for Jesus in this world, means boycotting the “pink aisle” and embracing the stark realities of “red” and “white.”
As the early Christian church encountered opposition and obstacles to its “witnessing,” it developed a two‑fold understanding of “witnessing” or “martyrdom.” Those disciple‑witnesses who suffered violence at the hands of this world, who bled and died because of their commitment to Christ, witnessing to his person and presence, were dubbed “red martyrs.”
If you want to read the stories of red martyrs, check out one of the four chained books in English churches called “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.” Every Mennonite home is required to have four books, one of which is Martyr’s Mirror (1660). Lesser known than its sister book Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, every Mennonite home learns the stories of 803 red martyrs like Thielman Jansz van Bruaught. Then there is Jan Claess, one of 2500 Anabaptists executed in the Low Countries in the 16th century. Before he was beheaded on 19 January 1544, he left six letters to his wife, two children, and relatives. He was one of 2500 Anabaptists executed in the Low Countries in the 16th century.
“Red” martyrs abound in the history of Christianity. But sometimes it is harder to live for Jesus than to die for Jesus. Which brings us to another form of “martyrdom” or “witnessing” recognized by the historic church. Not many people know this, but it’s called “white” martyrdom.
White martyrdom describes a different kind of sacrifice, a different kind of witnessing. “White” martyrdom describes those witnesses who manage to die to themselves, to their own needs and desires, every day of their lives. A white martyr is one whose life becomes such a perpetual pilgrimage, who lives to Christ always, so that “for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” A white martyr is one who can say “it is not I who live but Christ lives within me.”
A “white martyr” loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength.
A “white martyr” walks daily a Samaritan Road that tends to the least, the last, the lost.
A “white martyr” travels daily an Emmaus Road that walks humbly, loves mercy, and does justice.
A “white martyr” extends forgiveness to the unforgiveable.
A “white martyr” holds out hope to the hopeless.
A “white martyr” offers repentance to the most unrepentant.
A “white martyr” puts the promise and presence of Christ before a great retirement fund or good insurance coverage.
A “white martyr” invites the hungry to dinner when their own stomach growls.
A “white martyr” sees life as an opportunity to witness, not as an opportunity to “win.”
Every follower of Jesus who made a dent and a difference in the world was in some way a “white martyr.”
Are you daring enough to get out of the “pink aisle” and become a “white martyr”? God isn’t calling us all to be “red martyrs,” although it may be that the reason why the church is so weak and bland in reaching this 21st century culture for God is that too many of us aren’t willing to be “red martyrs.”
But God is calling each one of us to be a white martyr, to be a witness to the gospel, to practice a daily dying to self and living to Christ.
I greet this morning all you white martyrs, witnesses to the resurrected Jesus and the life he offers to all peoples of the world.
Wear your crown proudly.
COMMENTARY
Luke’s gospel describes three distinct resurrection experiences (called “christophanies”) to his readers.
The first at the empty tomb has the two angelic figures remind the women witnesses how Jesus had predicted his own arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection on the third day (Luke 24:6‑7).
The second event is experienced by the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, where the resurrected Jesus himself recalls for them the scriptural predictions of the Messiah’s suffering before entering into “his glory” (Luke 24:25‑27).
Now in this week’s gospel reading, the third and final appearance of the resurrected Jesus is described. Once again it is a teaching time — as Jesus instructs his disciples on how all scripture has been fulfilled with his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. It is during this third encounter that Jesus reveals that it is proclaiming this “good news” of resurrection and the promise of repentance and forgiveness that are to be the ongoing mission of the disciple witnesses.
The Emmaus road encounter demonstrates just how close the disciple community came to scattering in despair before experiencing the resurrected Christ. It is only their encounter with, and last minute recognition of, Jesus as their traveling companion that turns the Emmaus roadsters around and has them hightail it back to Jerusalem.
It is as they tell their story to the rest of the re-gathered disciples that Jesus suddenly comes into their midst. While Luke’s account does not provide the “locked door” details present in John’s telling, it is evident that Jesus’ appearance is instant. His “Peace be with you” blessing echoes John’s resurrection dialogue and recalls Jesus’ previous directive to his disciples on how they were to greet the households they visited while on their first mission (Luke 10:5‑6).
Not surprisingly, the disciples’ first reaction to Jesus’ presence and word of “peace” is panic. They are “terrified” (“ptoeo”) and “fearful” (“emphobos”). They suspect they are seeing a “pneuma,” a “spirit” or a “ghost.” In Luke’s gospel the resurrected Jesus takes several steps to
assure his disciples of his genuine corporeality. He addresses the disciples’ “doubts” (“dialogismoi”) about his true presence by urging them not only to examine his wounds with their eyes, but with their hands as well: “Touch me and see” (v.39). Their physical exam of him, Jesus assures his frightened followers, will prove “That I am myself.” That Jesus describes himself as having “flesh and bones” would recall for these disciples the familiar scriptural idiom from Genesis 2:23, and affirms a common humanity. Jesus is no ghostly apparition.
Despite all these examinations and assurances, the disciples are still confused. Luke’s text describes them as “joyful” (“apo charas”) yet “disbelieving” (“apisteuo”), and yet “marveling” (“thaumazo”) all at the same time. As a final demonstration of his genuine physical presence, Jesus asks for something to eat. He calmly munches down a bit of fish “in their presence.” With that act the disciples are now full witnesses to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. “Spirits” and “ghosts” do not eat.
Words are required, however, to understand what Jesus’ presence means. “Signs” alone, even the ultimate “sign” of the resurrection, will not engender the genuine faith these “witnesses” must proclaim. Jesus first reminds the disciples of all the passion predictions he himself had made during his earthly ministry: “the words that I spoke to you” (v.44). He then continues his lesson by traveling through all the Torah — that is the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings (Psalms). In this biblical unveiling he reveals what has been “fulfilled” through his suffering, death, and resurrection. This teaching is not intended to start an Easter egg hunt for specific texts that describe the Son of Man or the Messiah. Rather, it affirms that it is the perfect accomplishment of divine intention, fulfilled to completion in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
What Jesus brought about was nothing less than the destruction of death’s power and the possibility for “repentance and the forgiveness of sins” (v.47). Making that truth known, first here to his own disciples, is the beginning of the fulfillment of the rest of Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ mission now is the mission of all his disciples: the proclamation of resurrection, starting with repentance and forgiveness, “to all the peoples.”
This message is to be preached first in Jerusalem to the house of Israel. But then it is to spiral out, away from that traditional center point, and extend to all the world. Jerusalem is only the starting point. Jesus’ mission will not be complete until “all the nations” have received the witness of Jesus’ missionary disciples.
Having seen the resurrected Jesus, and having had unpacked the biblical stories pointing to God’s purposes, the disciples are now “witnesses,” the word from which we get our word “martyr.” Being a “witness” is not a completed identity. It is an ongoing process of identity formation.
The term “witness” or “martyr” is better understood as a verb than as a noun. As “witnesses” to all they have seen and heard and experienced, all Jesus’ disciples are called to continue revealing this new truth to “all the peoples” of the world.