Failure on a big stage is failure indeed just as triumph is true worldly triumph in fact. The rest of us watch and wonder, sometimes hastily opining, judging, forgiving, celebrating, doing something where we are called to do nothing, but acknowledge the failure or the victory. Yet all of us will fail, fall short of the calling or ideals of goodness, truth, and beauty. I have done so. We all need healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
I do.
We all score wins, do the right thing, and practice virtues. Days of celebration come and rare is the person who does not have one moment when his friends shake his hand and say: “Well done.”
Today the leader of the church in Rome is remembered and this remembering includes the annual recollection of his utter failure. We cannot be sure of his story, history is uncertain in the era in which he lived. The West does not even recognize his sanctity. But in the legend there is wisdom and a reflection on repentance that may or may not give us “facts,” but does show mature consideration on what reconciliation is.
We are sure he was the leader of the Roman church and fairly sure that when the Roman tyrants began to persecute the Church that Marcellinus recanted. Christians would not give the Roman state what the state demanded: an acknowledgment that Caesar was the ultimate master. We would do our duty as citizens, even honor the Sovereign, but our bowed knee came with a reservation.
Every vow was “under God” and a Christian definition of a tyrant is the leader who demands total obedience.
Marcellinus was a prosperity lover and his denial brought him wealth and comfort. He denied the faith and received his reward. Marcellinus stood before Caesar and sold out his flock, the martyrs who came before him, and then Jesus. The tyrant rejoiced and the fall of Marcellinus was as public as any fall could be. At that moment, when the heir of Peter threw incense into the fire and said Caesar is Lord, we might grow smug if we did not know ourselves. Only those ignorant of self can see a bishop groveling to a tyrant and not know that we might do the same.
Perhaps, we have done the same.
In this age, in America, we may face such a choice, our brothers and sisters face it today in much of the world, but not yet. In our freedom, however, we sell out the Lord Jesus whenever we deny the absolute and ultimate sovereignty of God.
We sell out God when we proclaim any patriotism as being above our love of His Good, His Truth, and His Beauty. God is not a republican, but a monarchist. God is not a democrat, He is King. We can have jingoism or Jesus: we cannot have both.
We do so when we work hard to make His moral law say something different than all Christians at all places at all times have understood. The most obvious American example is when the love of money and control convinced some to deny the Faith in order to hold humans in bondage to the horror of the church universal.
We sell out the Faith when we use it to gain money and power. When we sell the gospel for profit and confuse our doing well financially with doing good, we are traitors to King Jesus.
What happened to Marcellinus? One story is that he repented. He turned himself into a group of church leaders who asked what should be done with him. It is hard to know what to do with a fallen, broken hero. Marcellinus did not say: “Sorry! Sorry!” and ask for a jet to renew his ministry. He did not hasten off to a new group or city, less aware of his failure, to start again at the top. Instead, Marcellinus stripped himself of any clerical status, resigned all offices, and went out to the church to serve.
Marcellinus got a second chance at greatness. His apostasy had been public, so his repentance had to be public. He stood before the tyrant and told the truth. Like most tyrants (great and small!), the truth was the one thing that the tyrant did not want to hear. Marcellinus was murdered by the Emperor and was made a martyr by the Lord.
Marcellinus had asked that his body never be buried. His shame was too great and he could not forget what he had done. God appeared (the story goes) to his successor and ordered his body to be honorably buried. God forgave Marcellinus more completely than Marcellinus forgave himself and God won. The story, whatever the merits it has as history, is certainly an image of this truth: we can all become saints if we will only embrace repentance, holiness, and God’s truth.
Nobody is beyond hope: ever, not even the famous failure.
Consider this fact today. The story might save us if we will only listen.
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