Courage
By Elizabeth Prata
The other day Grace To You’s Phil Johnson tweeted this:
@Phil_Johnson_“Devil give you colic! How dare you say the Mass in my ear?” 386 years ago today, Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh as he read from the prayer book in St. Giles Cathedral. Her act stirred the courage of the Covenanters.
Jenny was in church that day and she was sitting on her stool. The problem had been that ever since King Charles I had had his coronation service in Scotland, he’d wanted to bring more Anglicanism to Scotland churches. The Church of England was the Church of England which was a United Kingdom after all, and that also meant Scotland. But the Scots were more Puritan in their beliefs than Anglican.
Always independent, the Puritan Scots had become suspicious of the increasing encroachment of liturgy and rigid traditions a la the Roman Catholic Church. They had observed the coronation rites King Charles I used, and were displeased with his use of Anglican rituals. Next came forced use of the Book of Common Prayer, a high Episcopalian book, with its readings in the Apocrypha. King Charles issued a warrant in 1635 declaring his spiritual power over the Church of Scotland, insisting that the Church would be issued with a new book of liturgy which would be read at services. And on July 23, 1637 in St. Giles Cathedral, the Common Book of prayer was opened and John Hanna, Dean of Edinburgh, began to read.
Jenny disagreed.
Her act reputedly sparked a riot, which led to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the English Civil War.
In 2013 a concert called “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace” written by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, was scheduled to be performed in a church in Speyer, Germany. The church was built to honor the great reformer Martin Luther. This church is considered an important place in our Protestant history, it’s where the ‘Protestation at Speyer‘ sealed the schism of the Christian church and is considered the birth of Protestantism. From this time on the adherents of the reformation movement were called Protestants.
So in 2013, in this church, at this concert, Heidi Mund had heard that the program included a Muslim Call to Prayer. Heidi was concerned. She prayed, and asked her brother to accompany her. They bought tickets. The officials had designated a protesting place outside, and one of the restrictions was the protest must be silent. Heidi chose to see for herself and bought a ticket with her brother and settled in her seat in the balcony.
There is a 6-minute opening song called The Armed Man, and then a Muslim is supposed to call to prayer for two minutes. The rumors were true, the muezzin stood up and began to ululate his call. At that moment, a righteous anger rose in Mund, as she said later. She unfurled her German flag-banner emblazoned with “Jesus Christ” and shouted “Jesus Christ alone is Lord over Germany! I break this curse [of Muslim prayer]. I am standing here, I cannot do otherwise! [As Luther had said]. This is the church of Martin Luther! I stand here, I cannot do otherwise!” It was about that time she was approached by security and escorted out. Her brother kept filming.
It takes courage to directly oppose authorities. It takes courage to behave in ways contrary to societal expectations- to cause a ruckus in church or to yell out in disruption at a concert. Jenny and Heidi had that courage. The spotless name of Christ was being impugned- IN church.
It also takes wisdom to intuit a pivotal moment. Is this the tipping point? Is THIS? Now, I do not recommend disruption for the sake of disruption. A civil society has unwritten rules of conduct and we all know how to act in whatever venue we find ourselves.
I remember my first trip to Italy. In America, you form a line and wait patiently for your turn. You don’t rush the line, cut in line, or maneuver for better position in line. But in Italy it’s a free-for-all. It’s totally acceptable and expected that you rush the counter, jostle, and finagle your way to the closest clerk. Doing the opposite in the opposite country would be considered weird.
Yet there are some behavioral standards that are universal. Being a respectful audience member, especially in church, is one of them. There comes a time though that even in those situations we must obey God rather than man. In Acts 5:29 when Peter was told not to teach in the name of Jesus in public, he stated that very fact. We must obey God rather than man.
Normally we strive to obey God AND man, by adhering to His Law and to societal laws and even unwritten rules of conduct. But sometimes it’s important to disrupt. It will take wisdom and discernment to know which is which. The time is coming upon us and soon, where we will have to make decisions like Jenny did and Heidi did. Heidi knew it was coming and had prayed fervently beforehand, and had a plan of what to do in case it played out the way she heard it might. (She brought her Jesus flag with her).
Jenny’s situation was a surprise. Not a total one, there had been indications the Book of Common Prayer was going to be used, and soon, but when it happened, it happened. Jenny’s reaction was, well, a reaction-at-the-moment. She had just a few moments to react until the prayer was over.
In the Bible, Barak’s courage failed when he needed it most. Rahab’s didn’t. David courageously faced Goliath. Esther defied a social protocol at risk of her life. At the moment he needed courage most, Peter failed, denying God three times to a little slave girl.
There are many instances in the Bible of strong courage and failed courage. It just shows us we are human. Sometimes we don’t know at the moment it’s time to stand up and the moment passes us by. Other times we know it’s time but we choose to remain silent. Still others we see it coming and can fortify ourselves for a response.
As you read your Bible and come across examples of people who passed or failed the test, ponder the fact that we are all called to make decisions for Christ. Some of them are private decisions within our own conscience. That happens almost daily. Others, we might have to decide publicly, as Jenny and Heidi did. As the restrictions against Christians happen more frequently, there may indeed come a time in your life where you must make a stand in a pivotal moment. What will you do? What will you do? Prepare now.
