St. Martin Halves his Cloak to Share it with the Beggar

Posted by Priest on November 23, 2008 under Sermons |

For some of you, today’s Gospel reading must be a déjà-vu. Didn’t we do this just recently? This sounds so familiar!

And indeed, just one and half weeks ago, those attending the Wednesday night Eucharist heard exactly today’s text from the Gospel according to Matthew. That day, we commemorated St. Martin of Tours, who was born around the year 330. His early years were spent in Pavia in Italy. After a term of service in the Roman army, he traveled about Europe, and settled in Poitiers. Eventually, he became the Bishop of Tours in France and he is the first saint commemorated by the church who had not been martyred. He is commemorated particularly for an incident that changed his life and deeply influenced the life of the church.

According to an old legend, while Martin was still a catechumen*, still preparing for baptism, he was approached by a poor man, who asked for alms in the name of Christ. Martin, drawing his sword, cut off half his military cloak right in the middle and gave it to the beggar. On the following night, Jesus appeared to Martin, clothed in half a cloak, and said to him, “Martin, a simple catechumen, covered me with this garment.”

Of course, this legend is a perfect illustration of the deep meaning and the profound revelation of today’s text from Matthew. There is such a close link between the Gospel and the legend that it does make me wonder if the gospel text served as a sketch for the legend. Maybe the legend was not so much meant to tell a historical truth, as it was intended to reemphasize the saintly character of Martin of Tours and to edify the faith of the faithful. This kind of “exaggeration” of the biography of a saint was not so uncommon in times past and happened in all realms of life. Only our modern minds struggle with the importance of historicity.

Be that as it may, St. Martin, or at least the commemoration of him, has had a deep impact on the church and on popular culture: I remember well St. Martin’s Day when I was a wee one. It was a feast day for us children. We would take a boot (a snow boot or a rubber boot) and place it outside our front door. We did so in anticipation … and with trepidation. There was always a bit of trembling, because if St. Martin had discovered that we had been undisciplined little rascals in the year past, he would come in and we would get a spanking. If, however, we had behaved, St. Martin would fill our boots with nuts and sweets and all kinds of little presents.

Just after dinner every November 11th, there would be an ominous knock and our hearts would sink. (I never noticed that my dad was nowhere close by when the knock happened….) We would wait, and our mother would egg us on to open the door, which took all the courage we could muster. And, yes, St. Martin never showed up – unlike St. Nicholas – but that is a different story. But our boots would always be filled to the rim!

In later years, after St. Martin, St. Nicholas and the Easter bunny had all shared the same, ultimate fate, we would still receive presents and it became our family tradition to receive our Advent calendars that day.

Of course, considering the legend, it seems more than appropriate to give gifts on St. Martin’s Day, right? After all, St. Martin gave away something too. But is that what the story is really about? Well, yes and no.

On first glance, the legend provides us with a heart-warming story about St. Martin giving something away – and I can hear the voices of kindergarten teachers: “It is all about sharing!” But if we stay with the giving of a gift, with a mere act of charity, I do think we miss the point. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against sharing or acts of charity. When we give, however, there is always a giver and a recipient. There is always a direction, someone who acts and someone who is on the receiving end of the action, someone who is active and someone who is passive, a saint and someone who is given saintly ministry. And the receiver had better be thankful! In the same way, acts of charity establish a kind of hierarchy: there is one who offers kindness and someone who is supposed to accept the kindness. And the giver is always the better person, right?

But that is not what the story of St. Martin really is about – and that’s not what today’s Gospel is about, either. In fact, if we give in to a kind of heart-warming story about giving and sharing, if we see Martin’s act merely as an act of charity, and if we let ourselves be drawn into an “awing” and “oohing” over the story, then we degrade the message to something cute, something that has more to do with filling boots with nuts and sweets, rather than the profound revelation of God’s self-giving for us in Jesus Christ. The Gospel ain’t cute. But the Gospel is radical, rooting out our understanding of how things work and challenging our way of doing things at the core.

The legend tells us that St. Martin halved his cloak in order to share it with the beggar. This was more than a charitable donation. This is more, not just because we never think of giving 50% when we think about a charitable donation. But this is more than a charitable donation also, because Martin, by giving half of his cloak away, exposed himself to the elements, exposed himself to the plight of the beggar, and exposed himself to what God had to teach him. He let his guard down, removed the layers of protection around his body, and, more importantly, around his heart. He dismounted from his high horse and met the beggar face to face. It was an embrace and it was an encounter leaving both changed.

Martin gave away his cloak and in return he received grace and understanding about the radical message of the Gospel: The kingdom of God is built not on lording over others, but it is founded on serving. Martin opened himself to interact with the beggar not top down, but as an equal, and both are changed. The beggar received warmth in body and hope for his soul, and Martin in return has to radically adjust his understanding of the world. In later life, he consistently butted heads with his colleagues in the college of bishops who had started to buy into the power games of the empire. By the time Martin had become Bishop of Tours, the Christian church in Gaul had once more started to turn into a religious elite, dancing to the tunes of the mighty, frequenting the halls of oppressors and exploiters, and enjoying the company of an Empire rooted in this world. The church had once again forgotten that justice and peace are central to the Gospel; that following Christ is not just a charitable act, but involves all that we have and all that we are; and that all of us, each and every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we find ourselves on the journey are created beautifully and awesomely in the image of God.

Today’s Gospel story is not just an adjunct, an appendix to the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, and an uncomfortable appendix at that. Jesus is quite clear in today’s Gospel text that charitable acts, as well-meaning as they are, are not a sufficient answer to God’s challenge in the Gospel. But working for justice here and now – whatever form it may take – is a central Gospel issue, is rooted deeply in the Incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth.

Those who do not house the homeless; those who do not feed the hungry; those who do not visit those in prison; those who fail to make themselves vulnerable for the needs of others, which in the end are God’s needs; those who limit the intent of the Gospel to an insurance policy for the afterlife; they miss the radical message of why God became one of us in Jesus Christ and walked this earth preaching good news to the poor, releasing the captives from prison, restoring sight to the blind, and lifting up the lowly. And they miss the restorative power of God in their own lives here on earth.

In the end, this is one of the reasons that got Jesus killed: His message of liberation, his challenge to pursue justice, his offer of life in abundance even for the least of us, all this was just too much for the powerful and the elites of his day and age. And one could argue it is a message that is still too much for our day and age, too.

Today, we are celebrating the Feast of Christ the King – and that he is. Jesus Christ is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the ruler of the universe, the sovereign of heaven and earth. Through him, and with him, and in him everything was created and has its being. He is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, who was and is and is to come. This is what God has revealed to us; this is what we proclaim; to this we hold fast.

If we use this Feast, however, to lift Jesus up high, way high, then he becomes too high for us to reach and too high for him to reach us. God was not born of our sister Mary in a stable amongst ox and ass, so that we can put him on a pedestal and project our understanding of power on him in return. That would be absurd and would reverse the radicalism of the Gospel, which turns our world upside down and remains a challenge, even today.

In Jesus, God emptied himself, gave away his armour and protection, dismounted from the high horse of heaven, divested himself of the cloak of power, and made himself vulnerable, approachable, embraceable. In Jesus, God inseparably connected himself to each of us, but especially to the plight of the least of our sisters and brothers. In Jesus, God never abandons us, even when hunger, thirst, homelessness, or captivity threaten our very existence in body, mind or soul. In Jesus, God becomes a servant – for our sake and for the sake of the world. And in Jesus, God empowers the church to be servants too, servants who give all that they are and all that they have, servants who work for justice and peace, and servants who will reveal the glory of God, which, for now, is hidden inside the least of our brothers and sisters.

[Reverend Markus Duenzkofer delivered this sermon on November 23, 2008.]

* Merriam Webster defines catechumen as “one receiving instruction in the basic doctrines of Christianity before admission to communicant membership in a church.”