SPECIAL DAYS: First Sunday in Lent

February 21, 2002 - Lesson: Matthew 5.1-2, 10

Sermon Title: Faithfulness Under Fire

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INTRODUCTION:

Six days after St. Thomas More was found guilty of treason on July 1, 1535, he marched to the gallows. He accepted a helping hand as he climbed the steps to the scaffold, and said to the person who helped him: When I come down again, let me shift for myself as well as I can.

    1. He died under the persecuting program of Henry VIII.
    2. He refused to approve the King's divorce under the Act of Succession.
  1. Persecution is not an option it is a given.
    1. You cannot avoid it.
    2. You cannot hide from it.
    3. It can happen to anyone no matter what your beliefs or place in life.

Uncle Dave worked on a chicken farm.

He told stories that helped one to understand the behavior of chicks and chickens.

A chick, different from the rest of the little flock could be subject to being pecked to death.

The same thing was true with the older birds.

A chick seems innocent and helpless, but it is not.

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    1. We tend to romanticize the notion and time of childhood into an age of innocence, it would probably take each one of us about 10 seconds to recall a time when we felt like one of those blighted, berated baby chicks.
    2. Children can be magnificently cruel and vicious to anyone in their midst or their "flock" who is different.
      1. In my neighborhood were two boys.
        1. Their nicknames were "Rubbish" and "Garbage."
        2. Words used that were cruel and demeaning.
      2. If we have not been called names we know those who have.
        1. "Fatty", "Stupid", "Dumb", "Ugly", "Short".
        2. It was being the last kid picked to play a game. The leader didn't want him. And probably excuses were made so that he could not play.
    3. IT HAS BEEN WRITTEN:

As adults, we like to think of ourselves as mature, tolerant, sophisticated. We are comfortable with accepting all of the quirks and differences that make up our pluralistic, multi cultural society. Despite racial bigotry, gender bias, economic oppression and a host of more subtle discriminations of all sorts, we still believe that ours is at the core, a civilized, "politically correct" world, where undisguised persecution cannot, could not and would not happen.

      1. It does happen.

I was a member for more than 15 years of the Human Growth and Development committee of the Mukwonago Area School District.

I watched, listened and learned the in's and out's of harassment.

It comes in all shapes and sizes: physical, mental, psychological, sexual.

The school district passed rules to prevent it and programs to sensitize students to the results of unacceptable behavior.

All the programs and rules do not prevent it from happening, either at school or away from school.

The word persecution can be understood to mean: Harassment and suffering which people and institutions inflict upon others for being different in their faith, world view, culture, or race. Persecution seeks to intimidate, silence, punish, or even to kill people.

      1. Prejudice leads to persecution.

It makes no difference if you are a black in the inner city of Detroit or a white farmer in Zimbabwe.

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  1. The Christian not only anticipate but expects persecution.
    1. Jesus is talking with the disciples about the signs of his coming and of the end of the age.

This is what he has to say: 12"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; 15for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17You will be hated by all because of my name. Luke 21:12-17, (NRSVA)

    1. You will be hated by all because of my name.
  1. In preparing for this sermon I realized that I knew little about the nature and extent of the persecution against Christians in the world.
    1. I went on line and typed in "Persecution Christian." the results were amazing and dismaying.
      1. The Focus on the Family web site had a wealth of information and other connections.
      2. The more you learn, the more dismayed you could become.
    2. In a letter Dr. James Dobson writes: "I want to share a concern that has received very little national publicity, despite its tragic and disgraceful implications. It focuses on the unprecedented persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters in countries around the world. More than an estimated 160,000 believers were martyred in 1996, and countless others were subjected to unimaginable horrors. (1)
    3. International Persecution of Christians by Perry L. Glanzer (2)

"Christians today are the most persecuted religious group in the world, and persecution has intensified during the past few years. Torture, enslavement, rape, imprisonment, killings ... even crucifixions are among the atrocities perpetrated upon believers around the world, much of them stemming from two ideologies that prevail internationally: communism and militant, politicized Islam.

"Persecution is most fierce in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria, Cuba, Laos and Uzbekistan.

In her book In the Lion's Den, Nina Shea, director of the Pueblo Program on Religious Freedom at Freedom House, explains in great detail the extent of this persecution of Christians. For example: China requires all Christians to worship in atheistic government-controlled churches. Refusing to do so, some 60-100 million risk their lives and liberty to worship in underground "house churches."

"Some Christians have been savagely beaten to death by police for their religious affiliations. Meanwhile, thousands of others are being "reformed by labor" in China's vast religious gulag, the subjects of inhuman, intense, spirit-breaking physical work. Catholic and Protestant believers also report that 1996 was the harshest year of persecution in China since the Mao period.

"In the Sudan, a jihad, or holy war, is being waged against Christians and the non-Muslim population. Christians are sold into slavery for as little as $15 a person, and the United Nations reports that slavery there is on the rise. Christian mothers are forced to convert to Islam or watch their babies starve because the government has withheld food from them. Christian boys are taken from their families, put in government camps, forcibly converted to Islam and sent into war to be sacrificed as cannon fodder.

"In Saudi Arabia, Christianity is completely banned, and churches, Bibles, and Christian artifacts, symbols and literature are forbidden. Police seek out and raid secret worship services taking place in private homes. Thousands of foreign and national workers are in prison for their faith, and some have been beheaded. Human rights organizations report that oppression against Christians has worsened since the Gulf War.

"In Egypt, a group of Christians, believed to have been evangelized by the Apostle Mark in the first century, is vanishing under a violent onslaught by Muslim extremists. Tens of thousands of these people have been forced to flee their homes and either leave the country or convert to Islam. Many of their villages in the upper region were completely destroyed by violent, militant Muslim youths in early 1996."

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    1. Nina Shea of Freedom House is also doing her part. In her book, IN THE LION'S DEN, she writes: (3)

"Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment and even death, their homes and communities laid waste for no other reason than that they are Christians. The shocking, untold story of our time is that more Christians have died this century simply for being Christians than in the first nineteen centuries after the birth of Christ. They have been persecuted and martyred before an unknowing, indifferent world and a largely silent Christian community."

      1. We don't know
      2. Do we want to know?
      3. If we know will it change anything?
  1. We are living in a land in which we experience, for the most part, limited and benign persecution.
    1. It may be a comment or a slur, but it does not attack the very core of our being like it does in other parts of the world.
    2. One day it may come to us and then what will we do?

John Buchanan is senior minister of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, Illinois. For 1996-'97 he was chosen Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

This meant that he had to take a leave of absence from his pulpit for that year. But on Stewardship Sunday, he returned to preach and let them know how upset he was that they were doing so well without him.

He entitled his sermon "The High Cost of Believing," and shared with his people how he had learned the "high cost of believing" when he signed just the past week a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamani and President Rafsanjani of Iran on behalf of the PC (U.S.A.), "expressing sadness at and protesting the death of an Iranian Christian pastor who disappeared and was hanged two weeks ago." He then went on to tell how one of the earliest trips he took as moderator was to Cuba. (4)

We were dinner guests in the apartment of the Moderator of the Cuban Church General Assembly and his wife. When I was assured I could ask anything I wished, I asked about how the state applied pressure to believers. The moderator's wife told me about her son, a good student at the University of Havana and a fine athlete and basketball player. Because the team represented the university and the nation, he was thrown off the basketball team and allowed to return only if he quit the church and renounced his faith. The young man did. What parent could not understand and feel deeply this Cuban family's agony? There was a lot of pain in her voice when she told me he had moved to Germany, and they had not seen him for a long time. "We have talked about our faith for years. Now we have had to learn how to live it," she said.

      1. Now we have to learn to live with it.
      2. Her son is gone.
      3. There is the pain of separation and the agony of loss.

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  1. As the Cuban family had to learn to live with their loss, so may we have to learn to live with ours.
    1. We can run, but we cannot hide.
    2. We can ignore but we cannot escape.
    3. We can only be faithful under fire.

CONCLUSION:

  1. This sermon opened with a ironic comment by Thomas More, we will close with something that he did that struck right at the core of his beliefs.
    1. While in the Tower of London More has a conversation with his daughter Margaret, Meg, she tries to convince him that he can sign Henry VIII's Act of Succession.
    2. He cannot sign it.
    3. His belief in God is strong and secure.
    4. His conscience will not let him.
    5. He will die before he compromises his faith or his integrity.
    6. Thomas More uses the illustration of water.
      1. Honor, integrity is like holding water in your hands.
      2. If you open you hands, what then?
  2. What then?

    1. David C. Barrett, "Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission: 1997 "International Bulletin of Missionary Research." January 1997, p. 25.

    2. Family.org - CitizenLink Research - International Persecution of Christians Last Updated March 1, 1998

    3. Nina Shea, IN THE LION'S DEN, (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), p. 1

    4. John M. Buchanan,"The High Cost of Believing,"Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Ill., October 20, 1996.

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