THE BEARD HATH COMMITTED NO TREASON!
BY AARON ALFORD
Meditation: I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?
—JOHN 11:25–26
Quote of the Day: I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.
—SIR THOMAS MORE
He knelt before the wooden block, his hands tied tightly behind his back. Long had he lay forgotten and neglected in prison. His frame was emaciated, his bones fragile, his beard long and wild. His death by beheading, upgraded from mere hanging, was moments away. The gates of heaven would open for him, and he would see face-to-face the Christ whom he’d served so faithfully.
The black-hooded executioner placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Please, sir,” came the boyish voice from behind the mask, “please forgive me.”
“Friend,” the prisoner responded, “be not afraid of thy office. Thou sendest me to God.” Then the prisoner’s eyes flickered with a merry light. “My neck is short, though,” he added. “Take care not to strike it awry!”
The executioner blurted a chuckle in spite of himself. Then the prisoner laid his head on the chopping block. He was ready to go to God, and no earthly care could touch him now. Except that there was a certain scratch at his soon-to-be separated Adam’s apple, and he realized there was one last thing that must be made right before his passing. He lifted his head, and, with a nod, shifted his long beard away from his neck.
“This hath not offended the king.”
The executioner’s ax did not strike his neck awry, and Sir Thomas More’s head (and his wholly intact beard) landed with a thump in the basket below.1
Sir Thomas More was one of the most highly respected men of his time (sixteenth-century England) and, like his beard, he had committed no treason. But sometimes being true to your convictions can cost you your life.
More was a lawyer, a man who loved order in his home, in his politics, and in his faith. He also valued knowledge and learning, and he insisted that his three daughters receive as thorough an education as his son at a time when such consideration for women was nearly unheard of.
But his love for order and erudition was not at the cost of joy, and he was known for an infectious sense of humor. His friend Erasmus of Rotterdam once said Thomas’s face was “always expressive of an amiable joyousness, and even an incipient laughter . . . better framed for gladness than for gravity or dignity.”2
His skill and reputation as a lawyer grew and eventually led him to become a member of Parliament and to a position in King Henry VIII’s inner circle. As Protestantism spread through England, Henry called on Sir Thomas to write theological letters of response to Luther’s critiques. It was a time of unprecedented turmoil within the church, and More was asked to enforce anti-heresy laws. The government and the church were so closely entwined in matters legal and spiritual as to be almost inseparable, and More was a man of his time. He did everything in his power to stamp out what he believed to be heresy wherever it was found.
More found great favor with King Henry and was one of the king’s most loyal subjects. King Henry was known to come unannounced to More’s home, strolling through the gardens with his hand amicably wrapped around Sir Thomas’s neck.
More, however, knew that friendship with a king such as Henry should be held lightly, as the king did not have much of a reputation for temperance or stability. “If my head,” he once wrote to his son-in-law, “should win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go.”3
It was this quality of unpredictability that eventually led Henry to demand a church-sanctioned annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, so that he could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. (Anne, too, would eventually be separated from her head by Henry. But that’s another, beardless, story!) After the Roman Catholic Church refused to condone such an annulment, Henry simply proclaimed himself to be the head of the church in England, essentially extending his kingly power to things heavenly as well. He created the Act of Supremacy, declaring that the king was “the only supreme head on Earth of the Church of England.”4
Thomas had always counted the letter of the law to be his friend, and had, up to this point, remained tactfully silent on the matter of King Henry’s annulment and subsequent scandalous marriage. He had remained loyal to the king, foolish as the king was. “I never saw a fool yet,” he later wrote, “that thought himself other than wise.”5
But soon Henry created the Treasons Act, which made not signing the Act of Supremacy an act of treason punishable by death. Thomas refused to sign, and for this, he was arrested and taken to the infamous Tower of London, where he was held for many months. A prison cell is not unlike a monk’s cell, and Thomas, who had almost became a monk himself, dedicated his time to prayer, fasting, study, and writing.
A trial was eventually held in which a former colleague named Richard Rich (yes, Richard Rich!) perjured himself in order to secure a guilty verdict. More was headed for the executioner’s block. But Sir Thomas did not beg or plead for his life, nor did he rail against the injustice done to him (though he spoke plainly of Rich’s deceitfulness). He simply remained true to his beliefs, to himself, and to his God.
On the morning of July 6, 1535, Sir Thomas More was led up the scaffold to his execution. But that sense of wit, humor, and good-naturedness remained with him, even in the moments before his death. He joked as he ascended the rickety scaffold, “Pray, Sir, see me safe up; and as to my coming down, let me shift for myself!”6
At the scaffold, he prayed aloud the Fifty-first Psalm, a psalm that begs God’s mercy on a sinner:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me. . . .
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. (vv. 1–3, 7)
He then forgave his executioner and, after he had safely tucked his long beard away from the path of the blade, said this: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.”7
Thomas More died for his convictions, but he did not die in a blaze of defiant anger. He did not die with vengeance and hatred in his heart. He died as a man who was deeply aware of his own sin and need for grace, and he died with the joy of a humble man who knows his Savior.
Thomas wrote to his daughter not long before his execution: “I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.”8
Many of us might find it easy to die for our convictions or to be martyrs for our beliefs, even if that only goes as far as proclaiming them on Facebook and suffering an “unfriending” or two. But how many of us can do so wishing “everybody good”? It’s one thing to suffer for your convictions, but it’s another thing entirely to do so with joy in your heart and peace on your lips. Sir Thomas did that. May his example steady our convictions with humility, grace, and love.
CONTEMPLATION
1. Have your convictions ever led you to being falsely accused of wrongdoing? How did you respond?
2. How do you think Sir Thomas was able to face his death so confidently?
3. What do you think your last words would be in a similar situation? Would they reflect bitterness and anger, or forgiveness and humor?
PRAYER
Father, grant us the grace to be steadfast in our convictions, and let us do so with no ill will toward anyone.
AHM YO BAH
BY JIMMY SUSTAR*
The ethnic regions of Burma, governed by a broken form of democracy and controlled by a military junta, was a violent and dangerous place to live.
Refugee camps along the Thai border were overflowing, and the powers that be did not allow any more people to obtain refugee status. Those needing to flee war, poverty, extortion, and slave labor crossed into Thailand to live illegally, often working in slave labor conditions or as undocumented migrant workers. Children of these families were left vulnerable to many types of exploitation, including slave labor, sex trafficking, and a severe lack of provisions and education.
It was 2011, and I was working as a missionary in a garbage dump where around three hundred undocumented displaced people lived. The focus of our work was relational medical relief, as a means of building a safe community.
One day we set up two mats on top of the rotting garbage and sat down with forty-five little kids and their mothers. We colored pictures with them. The children intently beautified those black-and-white pages exactly the way they wanted. They were creating beauty in the midst of chaos, stink, and filth.
Flies feed and lay their eggs on rotting organic matter. Imagine a cluster of flies at the bottom of your trash can. That is what rested on the bodies and faces of the toddlers as they sprawled across our mats to share crayons and markers.
One baby boy struck me with the reality these people lived in. He was ten months old and was sleeping on his mother’s shoulder. Wearing only a T-shirt, he rested as flies covered his snot-plastered face, repeatedly entering his mouth.
His mother colored. It was an escape for her. A moment of peace.
The boy woke up fussing, so she laid him on the ground near her. As I watched him, I discovered he couldn’t roll over or sit up on his own. He was severely delayed in his development, unable to move. He was helpless. His mother motioned to me that there was something wrong with this child’s brain.
“Ma kaun boo,” she said, and returned to her coloring. Not well.
I asked his mother his name.
“Ahm Yo Bah,” she said.
Suddenly two older kids approached and began fondling his genitals and kicking him on his body and on his head. He could do nothing to protect himself and erupted in screams and cries while his mother did nothing. She was afraid to. This was shame doing its deep and ugly work.
I rebuked the perpetrators and picked up the frightened little baby. I held him and wept.
He stared at me with a blank face, limp in my arms. Heartache, anger, and fear flooded my soul as I asked God, “What does the future look like for this boy? What can I do? Where is the kingdom of God?”
I gave him water, and I spoke his name. “Ahm Yo Bah.” I held him, whispering into his ear all of the beautiful truths that get me out of bed every morning, while holding my whiskered face against his. I kept saying, “I love you. Jesus loves you.” I didn’t know what else to do.
After fifteen minutes of this, he thrust his feet into my lap and stiffened his back as he smiled into my eyes. He came alive as he bounced up and down. I sat him down on the mat. He sat up on his own, and then he ran off to his mother’s arms.
A miracle? Sure.
The deepest part, and the piece that changes me and gives me a glimpse into the glory of God, is the Emmanuel we both experienced in the middle of degradation and despair.
When referring to God-With-Us, Frederick Buechner said that the “Ultimate Mystery [was] born with a skull you could crush one-handed.”9
God’s vulnerability, solidarity, and love for a broken mess is the only thing that can change anything in this world. The only thing that makes holiness and wholeness happen. Ahm Yo Bah and I met Jesus together on a floor mat in the middle of rotting trash, flies, and stench.
We met together in simplicity, humanness, need, and love. We met Emmanuel.