The Witness of St. Alban: 3 Key Moves

We find a startling juxtaposition in the New Testament, a juxtaposition between hatred—the world hating you (1 John 3:13-16) and love—the call to love one another (Matt. 10:34-42).

All of that is really emblematic of the story of St. Alban from the early 200s in England. It comes from the area we would now call Hertfordshire, where the Cathedral of St. Alban presently stands. Alban was an occupational Roman soldier who was there to keep the peace in England, which was at that point subject to Rome.

From Conversion to Martyrdom

At that time, Christianity was outlawed. One of the things this meant was that if you were a priest in the church, you were a marked man and on the run, subject to arrest and even death. And therefore anybody who hid such a priest was guilty of sedition.

But one day, a priest showed up at the door of this Roman soldier, Alban, and Alban took him in, knowing that to do so would jeopardize his own standing. Over the course of several days—we don’t know exactly how long—Alban was so struck by the witness of that priest that he said yes to Christ and was baptized. 

Eventually, of course, the rumor got out. The Romans were very good at their job of occupation, so they figured out who was where and came and knocked on the door. Alban, at the last minute, said, “Wait,  let’s switch clothes. I’ll wear the priest’s clothes; you wear the soldier’s clothes. I’ll be you.” He then opened the door in the priest’s garb and was arrested on the spot. Of course, they found out that the soldier dressed as a priest wasn’t really a priest after all; the real priest was caught a few days later. But for now, our concern is Alban.

Alban was arrested and could have spared his life if he had made a sacrifice to the Roman Caesar, if he had been willing to say, “Caesar is lord. Caesar is deity.” Alban refused, and he was beheaded, becoming England’s first martyr. 

We don’t often think about martyrs, unless you know something about the English Reformation when we think about the history of Christianity in England, but Alban was the first. And out of that, that location and his story have been held in tremendous reverence by the British people ever since.

What I love about this story and its juxtaposition with the Gospels is that they’re completely consonant with one another. In other words, to say yes to Jesus, by virtue of what it means to call him Lord, means every other authority is now subservient to the lordship of Christ. 

And therefore, a choice has to be made, the choice made in faithful loyalty to Jesus, as opposed to these lesser loyalties, even if they’re considered socially good. “I have come to set a man against his own household” (see Matt. 10:35)—that is not something anyone would have expected a first-century rabbi to say, because the family itself was sacrosanct. But that’s the heart of Jesus’ message.

From Commitment to Connection

Today, we are called not only to make that same commitment, but also to think through the implications of what it means to love Jesus,  to serve him above all else and to demonstrate that in very clear ways about the way we care for people. To quote another part of 1 John, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20a).  

In other words, there’s this clear connection all through the Scriptures that God loved us, the unmerciful. God loved us, the unworthy, not worthy of his love. And we have been the unworthy recipients of such a level of manifold grace that we should, even while we were yet sinners, receive the atoning death of Jesus. And out of that, undeserved as we are, we have been received into the kingdom of God and made sons and daughters.

And what that means is, worthiness, as it applies to how we love others, really isn’t a part of the equation.

But here’s the piece that points the way for us. If Alban had just given his life for a fellow soldier, he would have been thought of as a military hero. But the fact that he befriended an outcast, someone who by his very commitment was in opposition to the deity of the sovereignty of Caesar, automatically put him in jeopardy.

And that is also true with us, when we choose to align and love and care for people in a way that actually threatens the power and authority who wants to keep a group of people in a place of subservience. That’s when we get in trouble. 

If we love those who love us, or who are like us, then as Jesus says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt. 5:45). In other words, if we just care for people like us, that doesn’t look a lot like Jesus, nor does it look like the salvation God has put in us, we who are so unlike our Lord.

So to actually begin to care for, speak up on behalf of, build relationships with, people who the social powers consider unworthy is, in and of itself, a threatening act. For example, there’s a declaration about calling out racism and social injustice, especially in our penal systems. “Well, now, that’s a different issue, because they’re getting what they deserve.” Really? They should not be given fair treatment because of the clarity of their crimes? So this kind of attitude provokes ire.

From Salvation to Demonstration

But Christians demonstrate the total and comprehensive salvation that God has given us in Jesus Christ precisely by connecting to the least worthy. To the least worthy. It is consonant with our declaration of whom we follow as Lord, who cared enough to love us, the least worthy, and to bring us into His kingdom. One is a reflection of the other, and more often than not, the kind of prejudice that keeps us at a distance from other groups of people actually finds its root in our own sense of a lack of worthiness before the love of God, which is a lie.

Because as God begins to break down the pride of our hearts, as God begins to show us the places in our own lives where, if it were laid out on the table, all we could do is walk away in shame, it is in those places that God loves us the most deeply. And that’s the thing that challenges even Christians who want to use their religion to justify themselves rather than build for themselves, or more accurately, receive what has been given to us which is a place of mercy. 

That’s why Alban’s witness is so poignant. It’s not just that he befriended a priest. He befriended an enemy of the state. He challenged the deity of the Roman Empire in a way that brought about swift and certain death.

So please don’t sentimentalize this rather extraordinary old man. All he was doing was acting courageously on what God had already given him in Christ Jesus with those who were not ready to receive it. 

So it is with us. Like Alban, we’ve been enlisted. Enlisted into the service of a Savior who continues to shock the world and even provoke its anger by loving the unworthy, the ones who don’t deserve it. Let that be our character, God being our helper. And in so doing, let us demonstrate the faithfulness of what God has done for us and what God is giving to the world. 

Which of Alban’s three moves most impresses you? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Include my username, @revgregbrewer.

This post is an adaptation of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on June 22, 2017, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Bible, copyright ©1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.