by Norman Walford
The history books have not been
kind to St Gregory the Try-harder.
He has no Wikipedia entry. Until
recently if you Googled him you wouldn’t have got a single hit, though happily
that’s starting to change now. In the annals of church history he has become,
strangely, something of a nonentity.
Why he has been neglected for so
long is a bit of mystery. It may simply be that our Gregory never achieved
anything in his life worthy of being recorded for posterity. That is after all
the common fate of those who try to live the Christian life according to the
try-harder philosophy (I wouldn’t want to dignify it by calling it a theology.)
As I mentioned last week, there is a basic spiritual principle that the harder
we try the less we achieve. Some people sadly go their whole lives and never figure
this one out. Others—and I include myself in these—understand the principle
pretty clearly but nonetheless find themselves falling in and out of the
try-harder mentality on a regular basis. Perhaps Gregory was just one of these.
But I’m going to be charitable and
look for an alternative explanation as to why Gregory the Try-harder has been
so totally forgotten. And I wonder … these epithets can be notoriously fluid
(‘the Try-harder’ is an epithet, by the way, for those who don’t know—and I had
to look it up so don’t worry.) So I’ve been
wondering if our Gregory might have got mixed up with one of the many other Gregorys
in history whose lives and spiritual accomplishments have been altogether
better documented. And there have been quite a few. One of the first who
springs to mind is St Gregory the Wonderworker. After all, that name would certainly
sit a lot better on the name board outside the front of our church than what we
have now. Could the two, at some point over the many centuries that have
elapsed, have somehow got confused? Could the Wonderworker and the Try-harder
in actual fact be one and the same man? I wonder…
St Gregory the Wonderworker was born
a pagan in the year 213 AD—exactly 1800 years ago. He travelled to Palestine, and
in Caesarea he was converted to Christianity through the ministry of the famous
theologian Origen who was residing there. After this he returned to his hometown
of Caesarea—Neo-Caesarea it’s called to distinguish it from the other one—in
Pontus, now northern Turkey, where he was made bishop. It’s said that when he
became a bishop there were just 17 Christians in his diocese (things were a
good bit smaller in those days). When he died there were just 17 pagans. The
rest had been converted. A Wonderworker indeed.
Gregory then commented that the bishop
didn’t necessarily have to be drawn from the social elite of the city, but that
a candidate from a more humble, perhaps even menial background could equally be
considered. At this point, probably as a joke, someone cried out, “So, what
about Alexander the charcoal-burner?”
Gregory took the mention of the
name, even in jest, as being a potential divine Providence and asked to see the
man. So Alexander was brought in—the filthiest, dirtiest man in the town,
covered in charcoal dust from head to foot, as befitted his profession. Gregory
saw through the dirt and the grime to the man of God underneath, and promptly
consecrated him as the new Bishop of Comana.
St Alexander the Charcoal-burner turned
out to be an outstanding bishop. He held the post for many years, and finally
died a martyr’s death, probably during the great empire-wide persecution that
took place during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius. It seems that he was
burnt to death, as was common at that time, thus ending up as … dare I say it …
charcoal. An appropriately symbolic end for such a humble man.
At this point some of you may be
thinking, he's making it up. Actually not. The story is quite well attested.
(Though in fairness perhaps it should be pointed out that Alexander was in fact
a highly educated and spiritual man who had deliberately adopted the most
humble and menial job he could find, that of charcoal-burner, as a conscious
exercise in Christian humility. Gregory had begun the interviews by making the
candidates take a vow to answer all questions with total truthfulness, so the
truth of Alexander’s origins had quickly come out.)
So is it time to paint over our sign
and replace it with "Church of St Gregory the Wonderworker"? Sadly
not. It's just the wrong Gregory. I wish I could convince myself otherwise, but
I’ve had to conclude that the Wonderworker and the Try-harder were two separate
individuals.
You see, our Gregory’s mind doesn’t
work that way. Our Gregory is a pragmatist. And a politician. He sees the basis
of successful ministry as being to keep as many people as possible happy, for as
long as possible. And that is very hard work indeed. Which is one reason why he
tries as hard as he does, and to so little avail.
What he has probably never fully
understood in the course of his long and undistinguished ministry as that
however hard you try, it’s never going to be quite enough. There’s always room
to try harder so you never quite get there.
In his own way he’s probably happy.
In his own way he may feel fulfilled. Hard work can do that for you. Even when
the results are meagre. Even that meagerness can be turned round to look like a
virtue.
What a pity he can’t look beneath
the dust and the grime to see a few Alexanders hidden under it all. Then he
might indeed be St Gregory the Wonderworker. As it is, he is and will remain, our very own St
Gregory the Try-harder.
.
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