Sermon preached at Evensong on the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2026

What do the following recent films have in common: The Odyssey, Lord of the Rings, Oppenheimer and Barbie?

In differing ways, they all explore what it means to be a hero as the main character embarks on the classical hero’s journey to save the world, battle some monsters (real or imagined), gain honour, and return home again.

But what is a hero?

Recently, a news stories about real life heroes went viral. Two young men, students in Leeds, ran into a burning house to save an elderly couple and their grandchild. When told they were heroes, the young men said they didn’t feel like they were; they had just done what needed to be done. The mother of one of the young men commented with pride and a little surprise: “He couldn’t wash the dishes, but he went and rescued a couple of people from the fire!”

So what makes a hero?

The Christian story is about a kind of heroism that echoes the classical hero story while redefining heroism in light of the cross of Jesus Christ. One scholar calls it ‘cruciform heroism’, a paradoxical heroism shaped by the cross. Christian heroism is not primarily about gaining power, success or admiration, but about faithfulness, service and rendering glory to God.

In our second lesson from Acts, we see what this might look like in the life of Saint Paul. If you look at the statue of him to the right of the altar, you may notice that Paul looks bold and swashbuckling with a sword that represents the word. But the Paul we encounter in Acts is just getting started. He is a humble man who faces doubt and fear, rejection and discouragement, but who finds courage and faith in God.

In our lesson, Paul arrives in Corinth. He arrives not in triumph but, by his own account, “in weakness and fear and much trembling.” The Corinthians are part of ancient Mediterranean celebrity culture, which admired confidence, eloquence and high status. Paul – apparently – has none of these things. He may have been a brilliant theological thinker, but as his critics in Corinth noted: “His letters are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible,” people in Corinth say. They were dissatisfied with Paul, even though he was their founder.

In other words, had the average church in Greece been recruiting an apostle, Paul wouldn’t even have been shortlisted for an interview!

And yet God chooses him to help change the world.

But it certainly doesn’t look promising to begin with.

Together with his co-workers Priscilla and Aquila, he makes tents to pay the bills, shares a house, and turns up week after week to preach in the synagogue, until he is kicked out. The kingdom advances through work, friendship, conversation, persistence, and hospitality. A new – major – Christian community comes into being.

Our sermon text from Acts 16 doesn’t mention any miracles or dramatic encounters. Just Paul, Priscilla and Aquila doing the kind of ordinary ministry we might recognise in our own day, with its ups and downs, joys and burdens.

Paul is discouraged at times. He experiences opposition and rejection. The political authorities leave him alone for now, but things are always uncertain. He keeps wondering if he is supposed to go somewhere else – because it’s hard. But then he receives a vision with direct encouragement from the Lord: “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you.” Why would Paul hear those words unless he did feel afraid?

This matters because we often read Acts as though the apostles were full of absolute confidence. But here Christ’s words address Paul’s worry and weariness. But after this word from God, he stays after all for another 18 months, until the church is ready and he receives a new call.

Throughout the New Testament, we do not get a superhero version of Paul, but a cruciform Paul. He is rejected, misunderstood, beaten, and taken before tribunals or thrown in prison. He is sometimes anxious and fearful or doesn’t know what to do next. Every step requires dependence on God’s grace and guidance. What motivates him is not admiration or glory but a desire to do ordinary things to glorify God. He is sustained by the friends with whom he ministers with and by the spiritual encouragement from God.

The hardships and persecution Paul experiences shape his understanding of Jesus Christ and his cross. He comes to see how Jesus’s suffering, shame and death are transformed in the resurrection and become the source of our strength. In his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of “power being made perfect in weakness” and how Christ himself was “crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God” (13:4). For Paul, the weakness of which he speaks is about rejecting strength that is based on fear, domination, or coercion. Instead, it is about being faithful to God alone, by serving others no matter the personal cost.

For he looks to Jesus as the pioneer and perfector of his faith, as can we. Like the great classical heroes of the ancient world, Jesus shows his strength with nobility and honour. He does this not by seeking his own glory or wellbeing at the expense of others, but by remaining loyal to God. He surrenders himself to pain and death and thus conquers sin, suffering, disease and ultimately death. The cross is not a tragedy, but the place of Jesus’s victory.

Throughout the church’s history, there have been those who have followed closely in Jesus’s footsteps and paid the same price of their lives. Whether we think of the early church’s martyrs or the modern 20th century martyrs whose statues adorn the Great West Door here at the Abbey.

But what we read about here in Acts 16 is in many ways more relatable. It is a picture of faithful discipleship that is less about ‘one great moment’ of personal self-sacrifice and more about taking one faithful step after another as life goes on. 

Our own cruciform heroism may look more modest, playing out in our everyday lives with their own difficulties, sorrows, or worries.

So perhaps the examples of Christian witness in the 4th century may be more helpful than the dramatic martyrdoms of the earlier persecutions. The 4th century Emperor Julian the Apostate had abandoned Christianity and was trying to revive pagan religion. But he was jealous of the success of the early Church. What particularly annoyed him was how the Christians were practicing compassion for the poor and vulnerable. He wrote in a letter: “It is disgraceful that … the impious Galileans [by which he meant the Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.” He also complained about their “benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives.”

Supported by their deacons, Christians across the Mediterranean world had built up charitable social care structures when people did not care about the poor. Julian saw that these ordinary acts of compassion were transforming the Roman world and would Christianise the Empire with their cheerful generosity. It made him squirm.

What might heroism look like in our lives today? How might we follow the example of Paul and the early church in serving faithfully in the places where we find ourselves, even when we feel anxious, fearful, or discouraged? Can we see the ordinary ways that we show up for others as acts of courage, patience and loyalty that are at least as challenging as battling sea monsters?

Perhaps you are a parent and carer who gets up in the middle of the night, day after day, to care for a fussy newborn? Or for a beloved partner whose health has suddenly deteriorated? You may have committed to visiting a difficult relative living with dementia at the weekend when you’d rather be somewhere else. At work you may find yourself speaking up about ‘doing the right thing’ instead of cutting corners.

The heroism highlighted by the media is about a quick burst of boldness and strength – and certainly very worth celebrating as it requires courage and generosity. Yet cruciform heroism matters just as much. It requires a different kind of courage and fortitude. It is perhaps more of a long-distance ultramarathon rather than a sprint, not just a single battle but an epic journey. And the only way forward is one faithful step after another.

We do not walk alone for there is One who promises:

“Do not be afraid . . . for I am with you.”