This (a New Testament with a metal cover that says: May this keep you from harm) is something carried by one of my heroes. He wasn’t always a hero – it was not until later in life that I recognized what a hero he was.
Who is your hero? This question was raised for me at All Saints’ by Bishop Martins in his sermon when he was talking about the saints as heroes of the church.
As a little kid I had a number of heroes. There was Superman – remember the motto: Truth, justice and the American way?
There was the Lone Ranger, remember? A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger! … With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States! Nowhere in the pages of History can one find a greater champion of justice! Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear!
Did you know that there was a moral code that the actors actually followed, put in place by the writer that shaped the characters?
Actors Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels both took their positions as role models to children very seriously and tried their best to live by this creed. It reads as follows:
I believe:
that to have a friend, a man must be one.
that all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
that God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.
in being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
that a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
that ‘this government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ shall live always.
that men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
that sooner or later…somewhere…somehow…we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
that all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.
in my Creator, my country, my fellow man.
Additionally: The Lone Ranger never used slang or colloquial phrases, but instead used perfect grammar and precise speech, he never drank or smoked, AND he used only silver bullets, to remind himself that life, too is precious and, like his silver bullets, not to be wasted or thrown away.
These were pretty heady and idealistic heroes but what examples to follow. If only.
When I got older my heroes were more flesh and blood and somewhat less perfect: the Gemini and Appolo astronauts, test pilot Chuck Yeager, General and President Eisenhower, General George Patton. All of them were great men with notable qualities worth emulating but with notable foibles also.
And in church, I had a problem. I remember that in third grade, we had a class where every student took on a saint that had his first name.
The Pauls had a couple of St. Pauls to choose from, Marys had a couple of St. Marys, Peters were St. Peter.
But I couldn’t find a St. Richard! Talk about feeling out of place. The only Richard I knew was Richard the Lion Heart but he was no saint so the teacher, with all the compassion of a great white, told me just to pick one. So I think I picked St. Patrick since his day was a high holy day in our house but he wasn’t really my patron saint.
The problem sort of resolved itself at my confirmation some years later. We were told by the nuns we had to have a confirmation name that was normally one’s patron saint. I didn’t have one so I asked my dad who responded immediately with the name of St. Jude. So, ok, I was confirmed with St. Jude as my patron. It was only sometime after, I asked my dad why he picked St. Jude for me. Without a pause, he said because he is the patron saint of hopeless causes.
As I got older I had fewer heroes. I always looked for the Lone Ranger; the perfect hero who did nothing wrong, the man who reflected everything that was good and right.
But there weren’t any until I truly became a Christian when I came to really know Jesus. Up to that point Jesus was just, well, God’s son, he was God: He couldn’t relate to me – he was on a different plane. I was not sure if he could or would relate to me. I somehow missed the point of who Jesus is.
It is true that he is the son of God but I learned that he was also a real man; the perfect man. Paul discusses this reality in one of his letters, comparing Adam as the representative man to Jesus the second Adam. As the first Adam failed in crucial and significant ways, Jesus as the second Adam succeeded. He did everything the right way. It connected some dots for me – Jesus was who the Lone Ranger was all about.
And it was clear to me that Jesus accomplished all because we couldn’t. I couldn’t find a hero because I expected heroes to be perfect. And there aren’t any perfect men.
But there is Jesus – the model hero – the archetype of all that we consider good and honorable and pure and true. One who risked himself to protect the vulnerable – dying for sinners, self- sacrificing, honorable in all his dealings, honest true, powerful but never employed for self. Giving his life for people who were not perfect, to free them from the consequence of that very problem. He saw the worst of us not as enemies, but as victims, hostages of powers beyond our ability to deal with sin and death, and his life was given to free us from those powers.
Jesus is a hero – The hero – he represents to us the perfect hero, something none of us can be.
For me, now, heroes no longer have to be perfect I understand they can’t be but they do model something of Jesus: Truth, justice, compassion, courage, self-sacrifice, however imperfectly, in their lives.
That allowed me to recognize a new hero in my life. The man who carried this plated New Testament in a B-24 in WW 2 though I might point out to him today that it did not seem to be opened much; dad. He was not a perfect man by any means but I still see him as a hero, an imperfect man who was willing at particular points in his life to risk everything for others and paid the price for that courage in both physical and deeper wounds.
So as we recognize our veterans today, as we recognize heroes, we are by no means saying they are perfect but we are recognizing that at some point in their life, in situations that required it, they reflected something of the qualities of the only true and perfect hero.
And isn’t that what lies at the center of Christian discipleship – learning as imperfect people to reflect Jesus into the world?
We will all be veterans of this life someday. Let us pray that in all situations in our lives we will so reflect our Lord into the world that someone might consider that we lived a heroic life.