Worth It

Inspector Arthur Steed:            You might lose your life before this is over.

Maud Watts:                               We will win.

Suffragette (2015)

Thanks to Phil_Bird at freedigitalphotos.net for this photo of the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst that stands in Victoria Tower Gardens in Westminster.

It’s been just over two years since Suffragette came out now.¹ I’m not, consequently, altogether sure why it’s taken me so long to get round to writing this post: perhaps I’ve just needed all those months to recover from the emotional turmoil to which the film mercilessly subjects its viewers. In any case, the essence of the argument I’m about to make was, I recall, already formed in my mind when I left the cinema (or rather, the music and drama room at my university):² I turned to my friend and made some remark to the effect that Suffragette really makes you think about what you’d give up for a cause.

Our heroine is a young, working-class mother of one called Maud Watts. When we meet her, she has little to no interest in the female suffrage movement, but through a combination of chance encounters, her friends’ involvement in the movement, and a gradually dawning awareness that having a say in political matters might offer the chance of a better life, she ends up taking part in a few votes-for-women-ish activities. In fact, she ends up suffering some pretty hefty consequences for doing so. Maud is arrested; jailed; stigmatised by her neighbours. As her involvement in the suffragette movement increases, her husband throws her out of the house; she is denied any opportunity to see her son, George; she is defamed in the press; she is fired from her job. She is imprisoned again and, when she goes on hunger strike, subjected to force feeding. The height of the emotional turmoil I mentioned above, however, is when Maud finds out that her husband feels unable to cope and is putting George up for adoption: she has no idea where he’ll be taken and desperately begs him to remember her name and find her when he’s grown up. At the start of the film, Maud wasn’t a suffragette; by the end, there’s practically nothing left in her life except being a suffragette. She does at least manage to hang on to her life, despite the warning of the police inspector as in my opening quotation, but his words are still oddly prophetic, given that, at the climax of the film, Maud ends up accompanying Emily Davison to her fateful publicity stunt at the Epsom Derby.³

And it does make you think, as every new wave of trouble comes crashing over our protagonist: is it worth it? I don’t think anyone reading this would deny that the goal of the female suffrage movement was an entirely desirable one (indeed, I certainly hope not), but Suffragette makes a stark exhibition of an awful lot of eggs that might have to be broken for the sake of producing that omelette. When does one stop? After which blow is one permitted to stay down? After which loss does the column reckon up, despite the enormity of the possible gain, as a negative number; do the scales begin to tip in the other direction, despite the great weight of the pursued goal? Does it ever, even? Is Maud’s cause so worthy that it would see her bear every loss possible, that it would see her subjected to every variety of pain and misery known to humanity, and would still not allow her to relinquish it? Would it take and take and take from her until she has nothing left but the cause itself, and yet still consider that no more than her duty?

And if the stakes are as high as that, how can she be sure it’s worth it? On what ground can one be sure that the next blow and the next loss are worth bearing? Whose word can one take to know that the cause matters that much?

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”⁴

When God raised Jesus from the dead, he proved that he is able to repay every loss that someone might suffer in service of his cause – the gospel – even down to one’s very life. This was proof that Jesus’ offer of eternal life to those who followed him was no empty claim, but a demonstrated guarantee. And if that part of the claim was proven, so was the accompanying promise of a hundredfold repayment in this time of every loss sustained. As to what that actually looks like in practical terms, I’d say that the hundredfold Jesus is talking about comes in the form of the Church. Clearly nobody who leaves behind a brother or sister for the sake of the gospel finds himself surrounded by a hundred biological siblings in recompense, but he does find himself part of a community of believers, millions strong, which constitutes his spiritual family.

One of the most inspiring moments of Suffragette is when a reading is made from a book that has been passed on to Maud as the last of a long line of heroines of the cause, exhorting her to be encouraged, though she seem to be marching alone, by the unsilenceable roar of the crowd that will follow her. We too have the phenomenal encouragement of being surrounded by a crowd – or rather cloud⁵ – of comrades in our cause, our spiritual siblings, but that isn’t the first place we look for a reason to keep running the course laid out in front of us. The first place we look is Jesus, who ran it first. He opened up the way for us to walk in faith, and guaranteed to uphold us to the end of it. Maud and her fellow suffragettes are the vanguard of their cause, marching into unmapped territory, and they can’t know for certain what’s in store, what they will or won’t manage to achieve. Not so for the Christian.

I’m not saying, incidentally, that because they didn’t have a hundred per cent guarantee of success, the female suffrage movement shouldn’t have been prepared to undergo severe trials for the sake of their cause; on the contrary, I’m deeply glad and heartily grateful that they did. I’m just pointing out how awesome it is that we have, in the risen Christ, an absolute guarantee of the victory of our cause, and consequently how great and peerless a reason we have to be prepared to undergo severe trials for the sake of our cause. Nor am I saying that this is a principle I have any real experience in putting into practice, which I’d hazard is true of many of us in the nice modern developed Christian-to-post-Christian west – but it’s worth getting the principle right so that I’m not left floundering when I am called to put it into practice.

In sum, we can be sure that the next blow and the next loss sustained for the sake of Christ and the gospel are worth bearing first because no burden is heavy enough to tip the scales against the weight of glory God has prepared for us in eternal life; and second because our obtaining that eternal life is a complete certainty, guaranteed by the fact that Jesus has already obtained it for us. Whatever following Jesus demands of us, we are repaid a hundredfold in this time, and in the age to come eternal life. Should our cause take and take and take from us until we have nothing left but the cause itself – nothing left but Christ and him crucified – that’s not even a bad place to be. Christians throughout the ages have lost their lives for their Lord, and many more will surely do so before this is over, but we will win. Strictly speaking, Jesus already won on our behalf.

It’s worth it.

Footnotes

¹ Here’s a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=056FI2Pq9RY. Gosh, I’m getting all emotional again just watching that.

² Standard Campus Cinema plug: http://www.campuscinema.co.uk/.

³ Personally, I subscribe to the theory that Davison wasn’t actually trying to kill herself, but to attach a banner to the king’s horse: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/26/emily-davison-suffragette-death-derby-1913.

⁴ That’s from Mark 10: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10&version=ESVUK. Compare also the parallel passage in Matthew 19: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=ESVUK.  

⁵ I here allude to the beginning of Hebrews 12: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12&version=ESVUK. Lots of cool stuff to be said about that cloud, but not for this post, methinks.