St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, November 14, 2010
Blessed are the Persecuted – Rev. David Mundy
Isaiah 12 Luke
21:5-19
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Last
weekend, there was a rally in Toronto that few of us were likely aware of. It
involved several hundred people, many of Iraqi origin, who were both honouring
and lamenting for a Christian congregation in the city of Baghdad. A few days
before, Al Qaeda militants wrapped in explosives stormed the Catholic Our
Lady of Salvation church, and held the 120 worshippers hostage. Despite
negotiations, the militants detonated their explosives, killing more than 50
worshippers and injuring virtually everyone else.
It is a
strange reality that, during the violent and oppressive regime of Saddam
Hussein, Christians were protected in Iraq. At the end of his regime there were
about 800,000 Christians in the country. At least 300,000 of them have fled
since the U.S. invasion, and many more have been harassed and killed. The
people at the rally in Toronto prayed for those who have been persecuted and
suffered for doing nothing other than identify themselves as Christian in an
environment hostile to their Christian convictions. Again this week, more Iraqi
Christians have been murdered in this most recent campaign of terror.
Sadly,
the lot of these beleaguered Christians is not unusual in our world. I have
mentioned before that it is estimated that more Christians died for their faith
in the twentieth century than in all the previous nineteen centuries
combined. And persecution of Christians
has continued through this first decade of the 21st century.
Perhaps
we expect danger for Christians in a country such as Iraq which is regularly
listed as one of the three or four most dangerous nations on the planet. But
there is threat to Christians in many other places as well, including nations
which are major trading partners for Canada. The Christian population is
growing by leaps and bounds in China, where there is supposedly a greater
freedom of religion granted by the government. Yet, there are regular reports
of arrests and imprisonment of Christians and members of other religions. This
is especially so for Christian congregations which don’t conform with strict regulations for gathering.
These
faithful Christians are part of a long heritage of standing up for the faith
despite the cost. We know that the
earliest followers of Jesus as the Christ were hunted down during the Roman
regime. So the symbol of the fish was developed as a way for Christians to
secretly identify themselves to one another and, in the city of Rome, they
literally went underground to worship together in the catacombs. The rumour was
that they were cannibals because they ate the body and drank the blood of their
leader.
Here we
are on a pleasant morning when we share in the privilege of baptising two
beautiful babies, and the treatment of Christians in other parts of the world
may be furthest from our mind, yet the gospel lesson today is about the
persecution of those who express their loyalty and love for Christ. Can you
imagine if choosing this sacrament was actually dangerous for the parents, or
put these children at risk?
Jesus
was in Jerusalem with his disciples and they find their way into the temple
precincts. These young men from the “boonies” were
probably overwhelmed by the scale of the temple because the Roman governor,
Herod, had created an architectural wonder which rivalled anything else in the
world. While they were gawking like tourists, Jesus tells them that the whole
thing would come tumbling down before long, which was
an accurate prediction. A Jewish revolt in 70 AD was crushed and the temple was
destroyed as punishment.
Then
Jesus offers a rather perplexing warning, telling them that trials and
tribulations would be part of the cost of following him. It may be that, by the
time Luke wrote his gospel, several decades after Jesus’ death and
resurrection, the persecution described here had begun and this is meant to be
an encouragement and the promise of new life.
This isn’t
the only place we find this rather sobering message. In what we call the Sermon
on the Mount Jesus offers the beatitudes, a series of blessings. He saves the
most unsettling for the last. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase puts it this way:
10 You're
blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution
drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.
11 Not
only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you
out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is
too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable.
12
You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't
like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company.
My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
Give a
cheer? I don’t think so! I think persecution is highly overrated, to be
perfectly honest. Still Jesus does say that if we walk with him it may be mean
that we are ostracized, or criticized, or mocked, or even physically harmed.
That is not the “don’t worry, be happy” message of faith we would prefer to
hear.
Have you
ever felt persecuted in your lifetime, for any reason? Chances are really good
that the answer is no, much to our relief. You may have difficulty even
imagining examples. In our congregation there are only a handful of people of
colour, so showing up as a “pale face” means that you will fit it. In a recent
interview with Canadian comedian Russell Peters he mentioned the racism he put
up with as a child and teen. Even though he was born in Canada his Indian
background meant that he was called names I won’t repeat here.
Some of
you were bullied or mocked as children, or perhaps even within an adult
relationship and that may have felt like a form of persecution.
I may be
wrong, but it’s unlikely that any of us have been persecuted for our faith,
because we live in a country that ensures religious freedom and of course we
are part of a Christian majority. You would think that, because we aren’t
persecuted for our faith, because we are in the majority in our culture, that
this freedom would ensure that we would live boldly as Christians. The opposite
seems to be true, and every survey over the past thirty years indicates that
our willingness to be identified as Christians, including worshipping together,
is in decline.
And
truth be told, we can come into this place on Sunday morning and pull on a
cloak of Christian respectability and then take it off and leave it at the
door, if that’s what we choose. Really, the only reason people might mock us or
belittle us for our faith is if we actually allow that faithful relationship
with Christ to influence our Monday to Saturday way of being and doing. When we
are Christ’s people and when we shaped by that relationship it will inform our
ethics and practices in the workplace. It will affect the jokes we tell and the
language we use. It will hold us back from attitudes that may be racist, or
homophobic, or sexist.
Years
ago I was waiting in the lobby of the downtown church building in the city
where I served at that time. It was actually a highrise
with the church on the ground level, and several storeys of church space and
apartments. We would rent out our space to businesses and government agencies
for meetings and on this day a group was coming down the stairs on its way out
for lunch.
One of
them was telling a raunchy and profane joke to the rest, and when she came into
view I saw that it was a member of my congregation. The look on her face when
she saw me was “busted!” and I could tell she was embarrassed.
The
Christian scholar N.T. Wright has written a book with the title After You
Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, which invites us to consider how we are different once we
have come into the grace of Christ. Most of us teach our children to make
choices that can be difficult along the way, to “go against the flow” of
So what
do we choose to do in light of the message we heard from scripture this
morning. No one is saying “I’m going to leave here to get beaten up for
Jesus this week!” That would be absurd, but we can strengthen our resolve
to be faithful in our witness in every way possible.
We can
both remember and be in solidarity with Christians in other parts of the world
who are our brothers and sisters in faith and who may be persecuted. It might
not be pleasant to hear that Christians are harmed because they believe but
surely in this country where we are so secure and free to express ourselves we
have an obligation to care.
We can
have the courage to speak and live our truth in situations where it might not
be all that comfortable to do so. Earlier in our service today the parents of
the children baptized along with all those of us who were willing to renew our
baptismal faith made vows and promises which said that we will live for Christ,
and that we will seek justice and resist evil in our world.
We can also do everything
possible to ensure religious freedom for everyone in our society, regardless of
their faith tradition. Some of you may have noticed that the Islamic Centre
that opened this past summer in Courtice no longer
has a sign out at Highway 2. There is a simple and sad reason for this. It has
already been vandalized so many times that they have decided to worship and
pray without advertising their presence in the community. Not only is this
shameful, we should realize that when any group has its religious freedom
compromised it is a threat to us.
During the Second World War
Christians in Nazi Germany had to make difficult decisions about how outspoken
they would be about that demonic regime. Some decided that they would remain
silent. Others choose to speak out. One
of them, Pastor Martin Niemoller initially supported
Hitler, but became disillusioned and eventually was a courageous and outspoken
critic. As a result he was arrested and put into the Dachau concentration camp,
although he was fortunate to survive while thousands of others perished. Later
he wrote this about his early silence about what happened to others.
They came first for the
Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
“Blessed are the persecuted” may
not be our motto, but we can choose to follow Christ wherever that may take us.
And in the end that is will be a blessing for each one of us.