On Monday evening the Drama “The History of Mr Polly” was aired on TV.  It may not exactly be my kind of TV but I tend to think that Lee Evans who was playing Mr Polly is quite a talented actor and comedian.

Of course Mr Polly is an habitual day dreamer and romantic, notoriously bad at making up his mind, swayed by every person he comes into contact with and as a result evades responsibility for just about everything.

Mr Polly runs away from his past to start a new life at the Potwell Inn where he finds work as a handyman and eventually a new relationship with the lady who owns the Inn.  But for Mr Polly it is a little like out of the frying pan and into the fire.  Potwell Inn is periodically under siege from an unruly and aggressive assailant.  Mr Polly decides to take a stand against the assailant and in the process is shot and wounded.  Lying on the ground, cowering like a frightened rabbit, the assailant points the barrel of the gun at Alfred Polly’s head and says, “Aren’t you afraid to die?” “There are worse things than death”, replies Polly, “like not being able to live your life properly”

Maybe he is right!  Maybe to live your life like a scared little bunny rabbit, running from everything new, filled with anxieties and doubts and never knowing the real hopefulness, joyfulness and beauty of life is worse than death. 

Christian Aid have as their moto – “We believe in life before death”.  It’s a nice little play upon the Christian belief in life after death and a very pertinent way of reminding us that, not just some, but millions of people never experience the hopefulness, joyfulness or beauty of life before they die.  For them life may be an existence worse than death.

26 years ago Archbishop Oscar Romero read John 12: 20-26 and during the service preached upon it saying “We have just heard in the gospel that we must not love ourselves more than him; that we must not refrain from plunging into those risks which history demands of us, and that those wanting to keep out of danger will lose their lives.  On the other hand, those who surrender to the service of people through the love of Christ will live like the grain of wheat that dies.  It only apparently dies.  If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain.  The harvest comes because the grain of wheat dies.  The earth allows itself to be sacrificed, to break up; only in being broken does it produce a harvest”.

Oscar Romero preached fearlessly against injustice and oppression, those very things, which steal the beauty of life away from God’s children, those things, which cause millions to live a life worse than death. Romero’s recurring themes were that the way we treat the poor, reflects the way we treat God, that a life motivated by material ambition is empty and impoverished, that violence can be defeated by Christian love and that prayer is powerful.

Romero had just finished preaching on John 12 when he was shot and killed in full view of his congregation as he stood at the front of his church.  Perhaps in ending Romero’s life his assailant placed a grain of wheat into the ground; for Romero’s words live on and his life is still celebrated.

“Everyone who struggles for justice, everyone who makes just claims in unjust surroundings, is working for God’s reign, even though not a Christian.  The church does not comprise all of God’s reign; God’s reign goes beyond the Church’s boundaries.  The Church values everything that is in tune with its struggle to set up God’s reign.  A church that tries only to keep itself pure and uncontaminated would not be a church of God’s service to people.  The authentic church is one that does not mind conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did – and with Marxists and those of various political movements – in order to bring them salvation’s true message.”

Yet as we reflect upon Oscar Romero’s words, poignant as they are, somehow we become aware of our failings.  That just maybe we are a church that tries to keep itself pure and uncontaminated, frowning upon those whose lives we regard as less perfect than our own.  Maybe we are the ones who live a life worse than death because we are scared to speak up against oppression or abuse or deprivation within our own shores or those of distant lands.  We acquiesce with the perceived status quo rather than plunge our lives into those risks which history demands of us.