Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyrs triumph over suffering and are
faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember them in thanksgiving,
to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may
receive with them the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Let’s begin with some
audience participation. Please raise your hand if you can name the prophet Muhammad’s
mother. No one? I had to look it up, it’s Aminah bint Wahb. And if any of us
had been in the Westland mall in Nairobi, Kenya two weeks ago, our inability to
answer that question would have gotten us a bullet in the head, as it did our brother
in Christ, Joshua Hakim. He was just one the nearly 70 people who were killed
in that attack by the Boko Haram terrorist organization. And this attack, which
specifically targeted non-Muslims and Christians, is just but one example of
the plight that our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing around the world.
I preach this sermon
with a very heavy heart, and a good bit of anger too. This is the good sort of
anger though- the sort of anger that doesn’t allow us to tolerate the
intolerable. Not bad anger which is self-centered. But I am grieved and angered
by two things in particular. The first is the worldwide persecution of
Christians, and the second is the fact that it is going on without much
attention being paid to it. I did a lot of research on the topic, allow me to
share some of what I found:
Eighty-five of our
brothers and sister in the Anglican Communion were recently killed at All Saints’
Anglican Church in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin
Welby, notes that attacks like this are happening all around the world, that
Christians are being singled out for violence. Their service ended the same way
that ours will today- a member of the clergy shouted “go in peace to love and
serve the Lord” and the people said “thanks be to God.” And as they walked out
of the doors of their church, they were greeted by two suicide bombers.
Prior to the US invasion
of Iraq, there were nearly 1.5 million Christians there, today there are less
than 500,000 and 40 of the 65 churches in Baghdad have been bombed in those 10
years.
Bethlehem, a city in
Palestine, the city were our Lord was born has become a ghost town. When I was
there a year and a half ago, we saw the remnants of a thriving Christian
village. The city is now filled with closed shops and houses that used to be
occupied by Christians who have grown weary of the attacks. The Christian
population of Bethlehem used to be nearly 80%, now it is 30%. And the same is
true for Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.
In Maaloula, Syria, a
city where many Christian inhabitants still speak Aramaic, the language that
Jesus himself spoke, Christians were recently forced to convert at gunpoint.
The terrorists that did this referred to the Christians as “crusaders,”
implying that their violence is payback from the violence done to their
ancestors centuries earlier. These Christians are being forced to die or flee
from the cradle of Christianity.
Many Coptic churches in
Egypt have been attacked, and one church was forced to cancel Sunday Mass for
the first time in 1,600 years. Many Christians there are being scapegoated by
the opposition for ousting Morsi.
In October 2010, the
Burmese Air Force was given permission to kill Christians on sight. They were
never told how to spot a Christian, but were given the ability bomb Christian
villages without penalty.
Terrorist groups such as
al-Shabaab and Boko Haram have been responsible for the deaths of over 3,000
Christians since 2009.
Due to State oppression,
we can only guess at the persecution in North Korea. But estimates are that 25%
of the 300,000 Christians there are in forced labor camps because they refuse
to acknowledge the supremacy of Kim Jong Un and the national cult.
The International Society
for Human Rights, based out of Frankfurt, Germany, says that studies conclude
that 80% of all acts of religious discrimination are directed at Christians, in
over 139 nations. Their statistics claim that over 100,000 Christians are
killed each year, for reasons directly related to or motivated by their faith. Around
the globe, Christians are persecuted, tortured, beheaded, raped, killed, and
their homes and churches burned for no reason other than the fact that they are
Christian. That means during the amount of time our worship today will last, 11
of our brothers and sisters will be killed because of their faith.
And all of this is
leading to further destabilization in the Middle East, as Christians are often
seen as the middle-of-the-road peacekeepers between the warring factions. But
in places like Syria, Christians aren’t taking sides and are now the enemy of
both the rebels and Assad.
Before I go any further,
I do want to point out the obvious- much of the persecution against Christians
is being done by Muslims. But these actions taken by the terrorists are done by
extremists, who have a faith that most faithful Muslims would recognize as anathema
to Islam. Many leading Muslim clerics have denounced these attacks. We would do
well to remember that Islam, which is an Arabic word, means “submission.” Islam
is a religion of submitting oneself to the God of Abraham. Furthermore, in its
linguistic roots, Islam is related to the Hebrew word shalom, meaning “peace.” Islam should not be judged based on the
actions of these terrorists, no more than Christians should be judged on the
basis of the Crusades or Inquisition.
Kirsten Powers recently wrote in The Daily Beast that “one would think this horror might be
consuming the pulpits and pews of American churches. Not so. The silence has
been nearly deafening.” Another reporter has called the situation “the greatest
story never told of the 21st century.” Today, I want to tell that
story, and I ask you to help me in breaking the silence.
Why is it that these stories are going largely untold?
Why is it that American Christians are not filled with righteous anger and
sadness about this very grave issue? It is, at least in part, because the sort
of the Christianity that we tend to practice has been so perverted by Western
modernity that it would barely be recognizable to our brothers and sisters that
are being slaughtered. And here, I am placing the blame on the propagation of
the Prosperity Gospel. This is a modern-day American heresy that says that God
wills that all Christians have financial success because of their faith and
their history of donations to Christian ministries. Now perhaps you’re
thinking- “but Robert, I don’t watch Joel Osteen, I don’t believe in the Prosperity
Gospel,” and while I’m glad to hear that you don’t waste time watching these
messages, I’d like to challenge the assumption that we don’t all live by the Prosperity
Gospel.
Adherents of the Prosperity Gospel struggle when Jesus
says “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” And you know- I struggle with that
one too, I bet so do you. When something negative happens to us, we ask “why
me?” as if we thought we had more deposited in our “good will” account at the
bank of God. The Prosperity Gospel also tends to espouse a passive faith, one that
consists of check-writing and occasional good deeds, but resists preaching
conversion. You’ll also hear them preach about the power of positive thought,
that by simply wishing for something, it will be granted through enough
faithfulness. Maybe we don’t buy this brand of theology outright, but elements
of it have slipped into our American Christian vernacular.
As a whole, we have set the bar so extremely low for
our faith in America. And many people struggle to even meet those expectations.
We define an “active” church member as someone that shows up 3 out of 4
Sundays, serves on a committee, and gives 4% of their household income.
Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia have
set the bar so high that it gives us a nose bleed to even think about it. And
they’re not only willing to strive for that bar, but they’re willing to risk
their life to do it.
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas reminds us that “we need a
church that sees the cost of discipleship and gladly pays that price.” One
reason why we haven’t heard more about this widespread persecution is because
it might remind us what we are actually called to do through our faith.
Another reason why we haven’t paid much attention to
this reality is because we’ve become rather fond of getting sympathy and
attention by playing the victim card here in America. Just turn on the
television, watch some cable news, and you’ll find discussions about the
persecution of American Christians. In her recent book, The Myth of Martyrdom, Candida Moss takes a look at the assumption
that the early followers of Jesus were all martyrs. She concludes that what we
have is a version of history that was embellished. She suggests that Christians
were only persecuted in isolated areas and only for a handful of the first 300
years of the Church. She notes the danger in taking a legend and defining
ourselves as if it were a literal history.
Let me be clear, having some of our tax dollars going to
Planned Parenthood is not martyrdom or persecution. Having the motto “in God we
trust” taken off our currency or not forcing children to say the pledge of allegiance
is not a hardship. Last Sunday, I heard a few people complain about the new
music that we’re singing; that’s not suffering. And in fact, two of these new
pieces come from communities that have known persecution. One hymn comes from the
African-American spiritual tradition, the other is Native American in origin.
Maybe they’re unfamiliar tunes, but singing them joins us to our brothers and
sisters in Christ, and at least in my book, that’s a good reason for doing
something a bit different. Not having young adults in our church is not a sign
that we’ve become marginalized, but maybe it has something to do with the fact
that they don’t want to be here, that we haven’t given them a reason to join
us. And while we’re at it, a long sermon never hurt anyone either.
Now I realize that this is a bit harsh, as I said in
my last sermon, my focus this fall isn’t going to be on politics, but rather
would be more introspective. Not always easy though to hold up the mirror and
be told that, perhaps, we’re not really the fairest of them all. But we don’t
want to hear that, so it’s been easier to ignore the persecution of our
brothers and sisters than to deal with that reality. We like feeling righteous,
so we don’t mind claiming persecution. But when we see the real thing, it faces
us to question our baseless claims.
It is a reality that St. Paul knew, as expressed in
today’s reading from 2 Timothy, as he writes “Remember Jesus Christ, raised
from the dead, a descendant of David- that is my gospel, for which I suffer
hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal.” And he adds “but
the word of God is not chained.” So how might we unchain the word of God? How
might we remember Jesus Christ, who is present with those being persecuted?
The first thing we can do is to be in solidarity with
them. We can remember that we are baptized into the Body of Christ, and right
now, part of our body is being tortured. What hurts one part of the body, will
hurt the whole. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “the ultimate purpose of God is to
establish a holy community, which is at last fulfilled in the Body of Christ.”
We can be in solidarity with them by living a faith that is genuine and
respectful to the sacrifices they make. Perhaps, we can prioritize the Kingdom
of God over worldly comforts.
And we can also be in solidarity with Jesus, the suffering
messiah. We can remember the words of the collect from Morning Prayer that says
we walk in the way of the cross, finding it none other than the way of life and
peace. We can embrace the challenges of live, instead of running from them.
The second thing that we do to address this persecution
is action. As the prophet Jeremiah says in today’s reading “Build houses and
live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” In other words, do
ministry where you find yourselves. Don’t wait for something else to come
along, this place is the perfect place to do God’s work. We could put off
action on this subject, but those of us in power, and we are all in power, have
a responsibility to respond. Bonhoeffer also wrote that “silence in the face of
evil is evil itself. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” And
Martin Luther King said “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
Our first action is to ourselves model the peace we want
in our world. We can do this in our daily lives. Paul warns his audience to “avoid
wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are
listening.” Perhaps we can work a bit on that. We fight about so many silly
things. If you want an example of this, just read any article about Congress.
But the problem isn’t contained to the Capitol. The problems of Congress are
the problems of our culture. Our first action is to live the mantra- “let there
be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
And we also need to be a more peaceful nation. The
simple truth is that Christianity is associated with the West, and the West is
associated with the United States, and the United States is seen as an
international bully of sorts around the world. In the book Writing in the Dust, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
reflects on the world, post-September 11 and writes “from the point of view of
a villager in Afghanistan whose family has died in a bombing raid, a villager
who probably never heard of the World Trade Center, the distinctions between what
US forces are doing and what was done on September 11th will be
academic.” The fact is, drone strikes are used as anti-American propaganda. And
if America is going to be seen as a Christian nation, then we must also be
known as a peaceful nation. The only causalities of our drone strikes aren’t just
the targeted terrorists and the surrounding collateral damage of human lives,
but it is also the payback that our brother and sister Christians face on our
behalf.
And so the second action that I would ask you to
consider is standing up for peace. One way to do this is to write our elected
representatives. And you might ask them to consider supporting a piece of
legislation introduced by the Republican Congressman from Virginia, Frank Wolf.
The bill has passed the House by a vote of 402-22 and calls for the State
Department to have a special envoy to focus on the plight of religious
minorities in South Central Asia and the Middle East. The bill sits in the
Senate, waiting for the dysfunction to stop. So you might want to prayerfully consider
asking our Senators to take up this important bill.
And lastly, we can, and should, pray for our brothers and sisters. We
should not forget Jesus’ admonition to “pray for those who persecute you,” remembering
the hardened hearts of the terrorists as well. Prayer is a very powerful tool, as it both
changes our attitudes, but also has an impact on the world as we work together
with God to bring about the Kingdom on earth as it in heaven. So let us pray:
Almighty God, we come before you this morning with
heavy hearts that ache for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering
much on account of their faith. We ask that you grant them a sense of peace
amidst their faces, courage in their daily plight, and steadfastness to
continue their walk in your most holy name. We pray for those who commit these
acts of evil, that their hearts might be turned from hatred to love. We repent
of our selfish desires which pull us away from your ways, our shallow and
self-serving claims of persecution, and our inaction from our places of
prestige. Give us the fortitude to stand in solidarity with those who suffer,
give us grace to follow you in the way of life that goes through the Cross, and
make us aware of opportunities to cry out at the blood of our persecuted
brothers and sisters. Lord, make us instruments of your peace, that in our
peace, others might respond in kind to us. We give you thanks that we are
members of the Body of Christ, and right now Lord, parts of our body are
hurting. Take away their pain, and help us to do the same. This we pray in the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
