First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23
February 08, 1998
I begin with the following story, e-mailed to me on Friday by my daughter.
It seems that on a day when they weren’t busy dispensing wisdom and truth, the great historical religious leaders enrolled in a class entitled: “How to Program Computer Software.” To test their respective skills, they agreed to a great contest. After hours of competition and elimination, only two remained for the final event….Jesus and Mohammed. The judge described the software application required and gave the signal to start writing code. Feverishly, Jesus and Mohammed typed away on their keyboards. Routines, classes, applets and applications flew across their screens at incredible speeds. Windows, dialogs and intricate graphics formed on their monitors. All the while, the clock raced against them.
Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning and the power went dead. Moments later it returned, barely beating the closing whistle. The judge said: “Mohammed, reveal your finished software.” Angrily, Mohammed stated that he’d lost everything in the power outage. Whereupon Jesus smiled, clicked his mouse, and a dazzling application appeared on the monitor. The judge pronounced Jesus the winner, making special note of the characteristic that set him apart from all the other competitors. Jesus saves.
Twenty years ago, no one would have thought of linking religious humor with computer humor. Because no one would have understood it. Today, almost anyone can “get it.” And, if shared with a Christian audience, most can “enjoy it.” Because our guy wins in the end.
Which wasn’t always the case, of course. Neither for him….nor his friends. We all know that persecution was something he predicted, something he experienced, and something that has occasionally reared its painful head upon those numbered as his disciples.
Moments ago, I read the ugly underside of Matthew’s nativity narrative. It’s not good Christmas fare, so we seldom read it at Christmas time. But following the departure of the wise men (kings….magi….astrologers….whatever), Joseph is told in a dream: “Get out of here. Flee the country. Go to Egypt. For Herod will not stop looking for your boy until he finds him. And when he finds him, Herod will kill him.”
So to Egypt they go. Just in the nick of time. For Herod sends emissaries to Bethlehem with orders to kill all infants and toddlers under the age of two. Which happens.
These were, of course, Jewish babies. But I suppose you could stretch things a bit and call them the first Christian martyrs. For they died because of Jesus….in spite of the fact that they never really knew him, and (given their age) couldn’t possibly have loved him. Their only crime was being the wrong age, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
Did this really happen? Some have questioned it. But most scholars suggest that it did, even if there is no independent corroboration for the story in Matthew’s gospel. It was certainly in keeping with the personality of Herod. For while Herod was, in some ways, a very good governor, he was also a very suspicious man. And cruel! It is said that Herod murdered his wife (Mariamne), his mother-in law (Alexandra), his eldest son (Antipater), two other sons (Alexander and Aristobulus), 300 unnamed court officials, along with the greater part of the Sanhedrin (the supreme court of the Jews). And when Herod was on his death bed, fearing that there would be no one to mourn his passing, he arranged for several prominent Jews to be murdered. This enabled him to die, knowing that tears would flow….even though there was scant chance that any of the tears would be for him.
Moreover, Egypt would have been a natural place for Joseph to flee. For, in Alexandria alone, there were over 1 million Jews at the time of Jesus, with entire districts of the city in Jewish control.
How many infants did Herod slaughter? Probably not many, given that Bethlehem’s entire population barely numbered 300. So even taking in the suburbs, how many infants and toddlers could there have been? Still, one would have been too many….if that one was yours.
So why am I telling you this? Perhaps to set a historical stage, the better to describe a current…. and somewhat violent….drama. For while you may not be aware of it (as I was not really aware of it), the persecution of Christians is very much on the rise. Many Americans are just beginning to learn of this. And for those who will not believe anything I am about to say, I simply ask that six months from now (when this becomes more widely acknowledged) you pause and remember that, once upon a time, you heard it here.
Statistically, it is reported that in 60 nations around the globe, there are 200 million Christians living under conditions of active persecution, with another 400 million Christians living in situations of severe discrimination and restraint. Sometimes this takes the form of harassment. Other times, it can only be described with words like “torture,” “rape,” “enslavement,” “imprisonment,” “forcible separation of children from parents,” “murder,” and “massacre.” There have been more Christians killed (for faith-related reasons) in the 20th century, than in the previous 19 centuries combined. Should the trend continue this year, over 150,000 persons will be killed for their allegiance to Jesus Christ….amounting to 17 Christians per hour….every hour of the day….every day of the year.
Where are the worst atrocities taking place? There appear to be eleven nations which are the most flagrant offenders. They are commonly grouped in a pair of clusters. The first cluster consists of militant Islamic nations, most notably Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and Uzbekistan. The other cluster consists of nations still under the banner of communism, including China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba and Laos.
At issue in the militant Islamic nations is the concerted effort to marginalize and oppose anyone who does not publicly acknowledge the sovereignty of Allah. At issue in the Communist world is the recognition that the church played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the fear being that, if it happened once, it could happen again.
Concerning the crisis, it is hard to know how vivid a picture to paint. But permit a few brush strokes.
1. Pakistan. Last February, a Muslim mob of 30,000 went on a rampage in the Punjab, setting fires in the Christian village of Shantinagar. The town of 15,000 was nearly razed, with thousands left homeless. An interesting sidebar is that 2,000 Bibles were also destroyed in the attack.
2. Sudan. The N.I.F. (National Islamic Front) is waging a Jihad (Holy War) aimed at the conversion of its Christian and non-Muslim populations, resulting in 3 million displacements and 1.5 million deaths since the mid-eighties. The village of Regife presently lists 4,000 homeless, 370 huts torched, 3 churches destroyed, countless herds slaughtered, and a pair of elderly gentlemen burned as examples. Abductions and forced imprisonments regularly take place as incentives for conversion to Islam.
3. China. This story is more complex. By most counts, there appear to be between 40 and 60 million Chinese Christians. Press releases from China speak of “a golden time” with a church a day being restored. Yet the majority of China’s Christians do not exist in state-approved churches. For religious activities in the state churches are highly restricted, and no form of catechism can be targeted at anyone under the age of 18. Instead, most Chinese Christians exist in underground churches, 300 of which were closed or destroyed in Shanghai (alone) last year. In order to force one group of underground Christians to reveal the existence of other groups, beatings, cattle prods and forced labor camps are among the methods of persuasion employed. Catholic bishops routinely disappear, and one elderly Jesuit has already served over 25 years in a Chinese gulag. Another priest (75 years old and sickly) is in his third year of a labor camp existence, simply for saying mass without permission.
I could go on. In the past few months, I have read stories of Christians exiled in Kuwait, Trappist monks (including an 82 year old doctor) with their throats slit in Algeria, Sudanese Christian children sold at open air slave markets for $15 per child, and Vietnamese priests jailed for teaching catechism to their followers.
For a long time, this was only being talked about by journalists commonly associated with “the Religious Right,” along with a few Jewish intellectuals including A.M. Rosenthal (retired executive editor of The New York Times). But the knowledge-base is widening, as is the audience. I have, on my desk at home, no small number of human rights briefings from our own State Department, acknowledging the concerns and documenting the cases, nation by nation. I just read a 39-page governmental release on China, dated just eight days ago. Where am I getting this stuff? From various search engines my wife uses in surfing the Internet.
A government document entitled “US State Department Confirms Christian Persecution” was released on August 1 of last year, suggesting that there are 78 nations where Christians are being actively persecuted or passively restrained. On February 4, just four days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported on a “Washington summit” which included evangelicals and liberals, Protestants and Catholics, along with Republicans and Democrats, seeking to unite behind legislation that will redefine United States policy, as concerns our response to violations in the most flagrantly-offending nations. I could tell you more about the bill under discussion (co-drafted by Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Rep. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania). But I don’t want you to dismiss the point of my message by side-tracking yourselves into the particularities of the politics involved.
Of greater concern to me, as a Protestant clergyman, is the prolonged silence of most American Christians. To be sure, there are a lot of people who simply lack information. But there are many informed people who have chosen, for the time being, to look the other way. Several excuses suggest themselves. All of them have credibility. A few of them even have justification. Let me quickly survey them.
First, is the excuse from distance, both racial and geographic. Most of the lands under discussion are far away. Most of the persecuted people are as strange as they are foreign. Yes, they are Christians. But, for the most part, they are not Caucasian or European Christians. Instead, they are Arab and Oriental Christians. Which shouldn’t make a difference. But I suspect it does.
Second, is the excuse from political idealism (especially applicable to the Communist world). This argument unfolds as follows: “Things are changing. Walls are crumbling. Governments are toppling. Long-frozen ideological rivers are flowing. Sure, it’s a little rough in the shake-out period. But give things time.”
Third, is the excuse from suffering. Jesus said we would suffer. Jesus, himself, suffered. Jesus even called those who were persecuted for his sake, “blessed.” Therefore, why should we be different….or expect more? The extreme form of this position even glorifies suffering, suggesting that it is the blood of the martyrs that waters the gardens of faith.
Fourth, is the excuse from millennial eschatology (a $20 phrase for the belief that the world will end, somewhere around the year 2000). Such persons argue: “The worse things get, the closer we are to ‘end times.’” Meaning that if things get especially bad, the return of Christ must be incredibly near.
Fifth, is the excuse from inwardly-focused spirituality. This suggests that religion’s ultimate concern is about each believer’s vertical relationship with God, rather than one’s horizontal relationship to the world. The extreme of this position ignores all forms of outer darkness, the better to concentrate on the quest for inner light.
Sixth, is the excuse from the Apostle Paul, who (it will be remembered) counseled the Roman Christians to cooperate with governmental authorities and obey the civil magistrates, even if they be disagreeable on good days and obnoxious on bad ones. But, concerning Paul’s advice, one has to remember three things. First, when Paul wrote his letter to the church at Rome, Roman restrictions were relatively benign. More severe forms of persecution were still to come. Second, Paul believed that Jesus was going to triumphally return in a very few years (“We shall not taste death until we have seen the Lord’s Christ”). Leading Paul to counsel: “We may have to put up with some oppressive behavior for a short while, but it’s just a matter of time. Hang tough!” Third, Paul never really took his own advice. Rather than suffering stoically under the authorities, Paul spent much of his Mediterranean ministry “in the face” of the authorities. From the standpoint of 2000 years of Christian history, we view Paul as an adventurous apostle. But in the midst of the first century, I have got to believe that the authorities and magistrates viewed Paul as a perspicacious pest.
Seventh, is the excuse from expedient access. We mainline Christians love this one, given that it smacks of realism and political savvy. It argues: “Look, it’s bad. We know it’s bad. But if we make too many waves, we’ll be out of here on our ear. So maybe, in the short run, it is better to avert our eyes and maintain our presence. Live to fight another day….half a loaf being better than none.”
But none of these excuses will wash. Nor should they. It is time to open our eyes and say what we see. During the last two days, I have read a fascinating book about the Vatican and World War II. Entitled The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI, it carefully (and scholastically) details a missed opportunity to change the face of European history. It seems that in the summer of 1938, Pope Pius XI commissioned an American Jesuit, Father John LeFarge, to lead a trio of writers in the composition of a papal encyclical entitled “Humani Generis Unitas” (“The Unity of the Human Race”). This encyclical, in its final form, denounced both racism and anti-Semitism, with particular focus on Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. But Pius XI died of a heart attack on February 9, 1939. With the ascension of Pius XII to the papacy, the work was suppressed in an archive and its authors were bound by a vow of silence. The encyclical was not discovered until the late ‘60s by a Jesuit seminarian. And, following its discovery, it was withheld from publication until last year. One can only ponder what might have happened had Pius XI lived….and had the Vatican gone ahead with its plan to say what it knew, while putting its weight behind what it believed.
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But permit a quiet, personal postscript. This is so new….so fresh….so raw….that I’m not entirely sure what I should do. I have tried to say what I know, without saying more than I know. Personally, I have never suffered for my faith….unless you count the kid from St. Brigid who wanted to beat me up after a CYO football game when I was in the eighth grade. Moreover, in answer to that old chestnut of a question….“If they put you on trial for being Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”….yes, I think there would be ample evidence to convict me. But I will probably die in my bed before anybody ever takes me to trial.
So, in the meantime, I’ll keep reading. I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep speaking (when occasions present themselves). And I’ll keep reconciling (whenever I have the chance). Quite unlike the militant fringe of my profession, I don’t want to see counter-crusades launched or holy wars waged. Neither do I want to see more butts kicked or more blood spilled. I want to find ways of sharing the ground, as a means of healing the ground. Idealistic? Sure, it’s idealistic. But it has been done. It can be done. And I believe it will be done.
In that spirit, let me tell you a closing story. It concerns my friend, Phil. Phil preaches in Bloomington, Indiana. That’s Bobby Knight country. Phil’s got a big church….and a good church. But before that, Phil preached in Indianapolis, where he had an inner-city church…..and a tough church.
Within that church was a small cadre of older ladies who came together for prayer. These ladies had a strong belief in the power of God to heal whatever ailed them….and whatever ailed their world. They believed in intercession. They also believed in the practice of anointing with oil. It was simply something they did as part-and-parcel of the business of healing.
One day these women came to Phil, led by a lady named Pauline. Said Pauline to her pastor: “We want you to come outside with us. We want you to anoint the church parking lot.” I mean, they were serious. And Phil knew they were serious. With his Ph.D. in Ethics prominently displayed on the wall, Phil was not certain whether his intellectual “comfort zone” stretched to cover the anointing of church parking lots. But Phil knew that you didn’t mess with ladies like Pauline.
Moreover, Phil knew that his church parking lot was often a place of deviance and violence. It was a setting where children came to play during the day. But, come nightfall, young men and women would gather to do drugs, shoot craps and make love. One young man had been shot to death in the parking lot when it became a gang battleground. Which is why Pauline led her little band of prayer warriors out to anoint the asphalt.
So Phil followed them. One women handed him a vial of oil that had been blessed. They went over to a place where a lot of the gambling and drug dealing regularly occurred. Then Phil asked Pauline: “What do I do now?” “Anoint the parking lot,” she said. So he knelt down and poured oil on the asphalt. Most likely, he poured it in the form of a cross. I don’t know for sure, since I wasn’t there. But Pauline and her prayer warriors were. So Phil suggested they join hands and pray. When they stretched out their hands, the children who were playing nearby came to see what was going on. So Pauline said: “Come pray with us.” Suddenly the group of ten became a group of forty. Whereupon Pauline took a piece of chalk from her purse, gave it to a boy and said: “Go over to that spot and write these words: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.’”
Reflecting on that day, Phil penned these words: “That act is still remembered in the neighborhood. And, to my knowledge, no young people drink alcohol, do drugs or shoot craps there anymore. Neither do they kill each other.” Then he added: “I wish I had enough oil to anoint all our cities.”
I will admit that, as a political strategy, what Phil did is pretty silly. But as a prophetic vision, it’s positively scintillating.
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Note: I read more material for this sermon than for any in recent memory. Any number of magazine and newspaper articles (ranging from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to Guidepost Magazine) have reported pieces of this story. A number of persons have directed me to a book entitled In the Lion’s Den: A Shocking Account of Persecution and Martyrdom of Christians Today, and How We Should Respond by Nina Shea. While there is some controversy about this book, virtually no one (interested in the subject) avoids it.
State Department briefings are obtainable on the Internet. Simply type in a phrase such as “The Persecution of Christians” and begin downloading the information that interests you. The book The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI: The Vatican’s Lost Opportunity to Oppose Nazi Racial Policies that Led to the Holocaust was published in late 1997. Its authors are Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky with an extensive foreword by Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Garry Wills. Quite apart from the issues of Christian persecution, this book is a fascinating “read.”
I am also indebted to Carl and Dotty Eicker for their impassioned and informed interest in this subject, to John Stuart who graciously serves (on occasion) as my unpaid and highly-valued historical researcher, and to Phil Amerson for anointing his church parking lot and beautifully retelling the story.
