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Last Sunday after Epiphany - February 3, 2008 - Rev. Gary Strubel

A friend of mine attended a retreat where each attendee was assigned a saint on which to meditate and then report back to an assigned partner. At the end of the retreat, they would report to the rest of the group the insights they learned from their partner’s meditation. To my friend’s disappointment, he was assigned St. George of “St. George and the Dragon” fame. When he met with his assigned partner, my friend let loose on why his saint ruined his weekend. He was disappointed in getting a fictitious character, famed for an event that never occurred, slaying a beast that never existed. Why couldn’t he get a real martyr who did real deeds that really mattered? Why, in this day and age, are we still enamored with superstitious myths? When his partner was called upon to report to the group what he learned from my friend’s meditation, he simply said, “My partner had a problem with his saint.”

This problem initially seems focused on the connotation of myth, which unfortunately is popularly equated with fiction and untruth. Indeed, the feast of Saint George was made an optional observance by the Roman Catholic Church in 1969 and removed altogether from the Episcopal Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Even here at All Saints, our only stained glass window that actually depicts a saint is St. George, and he has been relegated to the parish bathroom.

In reality, myth has more to do with truth than fiction. Myth is a religious language of interpretation. It may expound upon an actual event in order to illustrate a deeper significance. It may begin with a theological truth that needs a story invented in order to make it accessible. At its heart, myth is really concerned with revealing a greater truth than simply recording facts. It’s not that the facts are unimportant, but their secondary to the truth they signify.

Yet, this doesn’t really account for my friend’s animosity to poor George. It turns out that Saint George may have been a real Christian martyr, who as a Roman Officer, was ordered to participate in the Christian persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. George, instead, confessed to being a Christian and openly criticized the persecution. An enraged Diocletian ordered George’s torture and execution.

The myth of Saint George and the Dragon came centuries latter, which depicts the historical St. George as a knight who slays a dragon, before it devours a princess given in sacrifice for not destroying a town. This myth is an allegory about the truth of Christianity (St. George), overcoming pagan superstitions (the dragon), that relied on human sacrifice (the princess) to appease the spirits.

Thus, the story of Saint George illustrates the power of evangelism to save us from ourselves. That is, if you believe that evangelism is a good thing. Some see evangelism as a great plague that destroys cultures. Under that assumption, then the story becomes one of oppression rather than grace. Both the story and what it represents must be abolished at all costs.

Such was the angst of the early church that St. Peter is addressing in our epistle. The church was struggling with finding a place in the pagan world, where it felt itself at odds. The Jewishness of the scriptures was foreign to these Greek-influence people as were the moral judgments in their permissive society. The answer to these challenges was to downplay the scriptures as oppressive myths. By rejecting traditional prophecies as fables made up by people who are bent upon controlling the lives of others, they would be able to undermine the content as well. Since the motivation in creating these myths is corrupt, the myths themselves are corrupt and therefore must be discarded as evil and untrue.

St. Peter contradicts this assessment by revealing that the motivation was not a human desire to oppress, but an attempt to understand a greater truth. In particular, Peter points to his witness of the transfiguration of Jesus, an event so marvelous that it initially defied his understanding. The scripture and the prophecies of the Old Testament brought light to the meaning and significance of the event, as illustrated by Peter’s vision of Moses and Elijah. Peter stresses that no true prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s interpretation, but truth moved by the Holy Spirit of God. Thus, the motivation for drawing from the Old Testament, which is itself divinely inspired, is to fully understand the significance and mystery of Christ. As all of this is from God, it is inherently good.

This is not to say that the Transfiguration didn’t happen nor I am I intending to point out which parts did happen and which parts didn’t. What I’m attempting to point out is that the authors of scripture arranged the stories and eyewitness accounts in a way that adds theological significance to the original events. It’s like having the commentary built in to the story. This is the power of myth. It reaches from the superficial in order to illustrate the deeper.

It’s this deeper meaning that shows us the mind of God, but also the darker and more selfish reaches of ourselves. The challenges of scripture will continue to tempt us to claim falsehood in the bible. Not because they defy our modern sensibilities, but because scripture challenges us in both our spiritual and moral habits. Thus, it’s often at odds with what society deems permissible. Society responds by being dismissive, and the first way to dismiss your opponent is to discredit the argument. Even better, make their argument the villain.

Perhaps this would have been a better meditation for my friend, who may have learned something deeper about himself rather than having his weekend ruined. Perhaps this will motivate us to examine our motivations for discrediting parts of our own religion, or even the faith of others. Maybe we can finally get poor St. George out of the bathroom.