This week, we celebrate two great saints: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.
John Fisher was a bishop who refused to recognize the king of England, Henry VIII, as the supreme head of the church in England. He was executed on orders of the king, who could not stand being embarrassed by those whose reputations as a theologian and scholar were greater than his own reputation as ruler.
We celebrate Bishop Fisher that same day we celebrate my favorite saint, Thomas More. Also executed for his refusal to recognize the king over the pope as head of the church, More was the Lord Chancellor of England, whose final days are recounted in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man For All Seasons. I read that play every summer and taught it when I was a junior high teacher and, again, more recently, in a class I taught at a local university. At the end of the play, More stands on the dais, about the lose his head for following his conscience and says, (at least in the play), “I have been commanded by the king to be brief, so brief I will be. I die here the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
More and Fisher served the king well. When the king didn’t get what he wanted, he changes the rules. People still do that, don’t they?
The world doesn’t have enough people willing to be “God’s first” – not Republicans first, not Democrats first, not liberals or conservatives, or ultra-anything, not watchers of news from one side or the other, but true, honest to goodness folks, willing to stand up and be “God’s first.”
Because if we are judged on how we treat the one another, some of us might be in real trouble. Yes, me included.
This week, let us work hard to be “God’s first.”