Persecution Complex

The scriptures referred to are 1 Peter 3:13-22.

There is something certain Christians in America do that really bothers me. They act as if they are persecuted by society at large. And that's an insult to our fellow Christians who live in countries where they really are persecuted, like North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iran. In Eritrea, Christians have been arrested and detained for lengthy periods, sometimes in shipping containers. In Pakistan, strict blasphemy laws are used to imprison and execute Christians. In China, Christians can be arrested and detained for meeting in unauthorized gatherings or for not hewing to the state-sanctioned ideology. In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal to convert from Islam to another faith, resulting in detention and deportation. From 2014 to 2017, ISIS militants were literally crucifying Christians. While in this country we cry persecution if someone asks us to make a gay wedding cake or says, “Happy holidays.”

The first Christians really were persecuted. Last week we read about Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The book of Acts also reports the execution of James, the brother of John, as well as the many imprisonments of Peter and Paul. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul gives us a brutal list of how he has suffered for the faith, which includes being given 39 lashes on 5 occasions, being beaten with a rod 3 times and being stoned once. (2 Corinthians 11:24-25) That stoning ended with him being left for dead. (Acts 14:19-20) Now none of these were empire-wide persecutions. There were local persecutions, sometimes by government officials and sometimes by mobs.

Though the emperor Claudius expelled all Christians and Jews from the city of Rome around 49 AD, the first official persecution of Christians alone took place under Nero. In 64 AD a great fire burned 10 of Rome's 14 districts, about 2/3s of the city. Citizens were suspicious because the fire spared Nero's property, as well as that of a friend. And while half the population of Rome were left homeless, the emperor went and built on the ruins a huge personal residence called the Domus Aurea or Golden House. Because of the rumors that Nero started the fire, he chose to make scapegoats of the Christians. Some were torn apart by dogs for the entertainment of spectators, some were crucified and some were set on fire to illuminate Nero's gardens. According to tradition, Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down.

Our next documented persecution happened about 110 AD. Pliny the Younger, the governor of Bithynia and Pontus, wrote to the emperor Trajan for advice on what to do with Christians. He said he had been trying suspected Christians on the basis of anonymous accusations. He gave the accused 3 opportunities to renounce the Christian faith, pray to the Roman gods instead, offer wine and incense to the images of Trajan and the gods and finally curse Christ. If they didn't recant, they were executed. He also had 2 female slaves who were deacons tortured for information.

Pliny saw the Christians as just another fraternity or club which Trajan had banned as centers of discontent. Yet Pliny does give us some insight into Christian practice. He says they meet on a certain day before dawn and sing hymns to Christ as to a god. They bind themselves with an oath not to commit crimes like fraud, theft or adultery. Then they share a meal of “ordinary and innocent food.” Nevertheless, he sees Christianity as a “depraved, excessive superstition” which is spreading not only in the cities but in rural villages. Trajan basically approved of Pliny's measures but said that Pliny should not seek out Christians to try and that he should not consider anonymous accusations.

Still this was a local matter. It wasn't until around 250 AD that the emperor Decius began an empire-wide persecution of Christians. He issued an edict that all inhabitants of the empire were required to make sacrifices to the Roman gods and get a certificate saying that they complied. Anyone who refused to do so by a specified date risked being tortured and executed. Bishops and church members were targeted. The bishop of Rome at the time, Pope Fabian, was one of those who refused to comply and was killed. The persecution lasted 18 months, until Decius died in battle.

The last great persecution of Christians by a Roman emperor took place under Diocletian in 303 AD. Originally Diocetian simply wanted to forbid Christians from entering the government bureaucracy and the military. His co-emperor Galerius argued for extermination. Diocletian gave in and then ordered that all copies of Christian scriptures be burned, their places of worship be destroyed and their assemblies be forbidden. He had the tongue removed from a deacon in his court and another Christian in his palace was scourged, had salt and vinegar poured into his wounds and then was boiled alive. This persecution lasted 10 years until his successor Constantine became emperor and Christianity was declared legal.

So no matter how bad someone thinks Christians have it in this country, things are not that terrible. We still have the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress not only from establishing any religion as the official one but also forbids preventing people from practicing their own religions. In fact, what we really seem to be seeing is Christians getting ostracized by other so-called Christians, usually over their political views. David French, a constitutional lawyer, professor, columnist, and veteran, who is by no means a liberal, has nevertheless left his Presbyterian church due to intense personal attacks and hostility by his congregation for his stand against Christian Nationalism. He is not the only Evangelical Christian to find himself effectively excommunicated by other Evangelicals, not for theological heresy, but for insufficient loyalty to certain political policies and politicians. Fortunately, there are churches that do not act this way. Yet, even on the left, there are issues which must not be questioned. Both sides have sacred cows that cannot be sacrificed for any reason.

So how should we deal with this state of affairs, where being a Christian is not yet a capital offense but not being a specific type of Christian can cause you problems?

Today's passage from 1 Peter is very instructive. While addressed to the Christians in Bithynia and Pontus, this letter was written before they were governed by Pliny the Younger. Yet the social cost of being a Christian was high enough that the letter is addressed to “God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout” the region. (1 Peter 1:1) This letter may have been modeled on similar ones sent to the Diaspora of Jews in the empire. Like Paul's letter to the Romans, it calls for Christians to submit to the authorities. (1 Peter 2:13-14; cf. Romans 13:1-7) So obviously these letters were written before Peter and Paul were martyred by Nero. At this point in time Christians were considered just another branch of Judaism, much like the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. To see how things looked after Christianity was recognized as a separate religion and it became dangerous to be a Christian, read the book of Revelation.

So 1 Peter tells us that we need not be worried about being harmed if we do what is good. Yet it acknowledges that it is possible to suffer for doing what is right. After all, that is what happened to Jesus. And Jesus is our model for how to behave.

So first we are told “Do not fear what they fear.” What does that mean? What do people who harm others for doing what is right fear? They fear exposure of the wrongs they have done. They fear other people taking the side of those who do right. And they might fear being seen as bullies for picking on those who do no harm. The ancient historian Tacitus, who saw Christianity as a source of abominations, nevertheless thought that what Nero did to Christians engendered a feeling of compassion for them, because it was done, as he said, not for the public good, but to satisfy one man's cruelty.

Next we are told “do not be intimidated, but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord.” If we believe that Jesus is the Lord of all and trust in him, we need not back down in fear. As it says in 1 John, “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) And as it says in Psalm 118, “The Lord is on my side, I am not afraid! What can people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6) Well, they can kill you. Yet the apostles, most of whom were martyred, did not let that risk stop them. They knew Jesus had conquered death. As Paul wrote from prison, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (Philippians 1:21) In other words, living meant serving Jesus and dying meant Paul would be with him. If you do not fear death, you can do anything.

Then we read, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.” The Greek word for “defense” is apologia from which we get the term “apologetics.” This is the discipline of defending the faith. Unfortunately some Christians have taken it to mean things like trying to argue that Genesis 1 is a scientific account of the origin of the universe. But besides the fact that Genesis precedes anything resembling science by centuries, that isn't the purpose of the Bible. It isn't offering answers about how the universe works; it's about why we are here, why we have inherent worth and why we should trust God. The purpose of the scriptures is to help us get closer to God.

I prefer the kind of apologetics practiced by C.S. Lewis. During the Second World War, when Nazism showed what happens when folks completely disregard Jesus' teachings or twist them into a grotesque parody of Christian values, he wrote Mere Christianity. Sticking to the basics, he showed that Christianity makes sense. In fact it makes more sense than other ways of viewing the world.

I agree with Lewis that in defending the faith it behooves us to stick to the essentials, most of which are laid out in today's passage. The essentials are all about Jesus: who he is, what he has done for us, what he is doing in us and what our response should be.

Who is he? Our passage says clearly that Jesus Christ is the Lord, who is at God's right hand and that all angels, authorities and powers are subject to him.

What has he done for us? Though he is the Lord, he “suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” He died to save us from the mess we have made of ourselves and the world. But he is not merely another martyr for a cause. He didn't stay dead. The “resurrection of Jesus Christ” shows his triumph over death and validates that what he taught is true.

What is he doing in us? 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 2 says that Christians “have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ...” In other words, the Spirit is making us holy and setting us apart for God's purposes. The Spirit is making us more Christlike, more like Jesus, who is the perfect image of God, the image into which we were created. We have marred that image to the extent that it can be hard to see God in us. The Spirit, who dwells in the believer, is in the process of remedying that. God is remaking us to who he created us to be, just as he will one day create a new heaven and a new earth for his new creations in Christ, where he will dwell with us and wipe away our tears. Right now we are in the midst of that process of becoming like Jesus. It's rather like rehab or the physical therapy I had to do to learn to walk again. We are learning to walk with Jesus.

How should we respond? As it says in our passage, “Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned, those who oppose you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.” This reminds me of how people leading non-violent protests, like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, showed how unreasonable and cruel their opponents were and how they essentially shamed the government into changing its policies. In the second chapter of this letter, it says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12, NIV) Doing the right thing and showing mercy will do a better job of bringing people to Jesus than being loud and obnoxious. Remember we are told to defend our hope “with gentleness and respect.” As this letter says just before our reading, “Finally, all of you, be harmonious, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate, and be humble. Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult but instead bless others because you were called to inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 2:8-9) In other words, if you do face opposition or even persecution, be like Jesus. In fact in everything, be like Jesus. That's the whole point of being a Christian.

Who is God?

The scriptures referred to are Acts 7:55-60 and John 14:1-14.

There are more than 31,000 verses in the Bible. And in the liturgical churches we read from a lectionary, a selection of 4 passages to be read on each Sunday of the year. It takes 3 years to go through them all. And while the Sunday readings do not include every passage in the Bible, they do include all of the essential and important ones. And yet some weeks I look at the readings, and I find nothing in them that I haven't already preached on many times in the quarter of a century that I have been doing this.

Then there are Sundays like this one. I have several juicy passages I can preach on but there are too many themes in them to make into one coherent sermon. This is especially true of our passage from John's gospel. This is Jesus' last chance to talk to his disciples before he is arrested. If you include his final prayer, his speech covers 5 chapters! It's like he is trying to remind them of everything he can think of that they will need to get through the next few horrible days of his conviction, crucifixion, burial and an awful Sabbath in which they must think of what they did and didn't do to him, and their hopes will seem as dead as their leader.

But while there are several verses on which I could preach an entire sermon, there is a theme that runs through this section of what could be thought of as Jesus' farewell address. It is this: that, as Jesus says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Later, in chapter 17, Jesus, in praying for his followers, asks “that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me.” (John 17:22-23) That is why at the beginning of today's gospel reading Jesus says, “Believe in God; believe also in me.” Because, as he says later, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is not merely a prophet. He is not merely a godly person. He is God in human form. He is God living a human life and dying a human death. You want to know what God is really like? Look at Jesus.

You may have, like I did as a child, thought of God as Someone who is remote from human life and who is usually unhappy with us. Especially in the Old Testament, God seems to be angry a lot. Human beings are always doing the wrong things and God is always upset over this state of affairs. Then there are things like the flood, the fire and brimstone that destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the exiles of both Israel and Judah. Bad things happen to people as a consequence of their choices and actions. But sometimes good people like Job also suffer. The Bible does not shy away from the fact that life is not always pleasant. And a lot of people come away from these disturbing stories with the idea that God is not a pleasant person. In fact, surveys find that how people feel about God is a more important factor in whether they believe in God or not than any rational or scientific arguments for or against God's existence. As C.S. Lewis said of his time as an atheist, he did not believe that God existed and he was very angry with God about that. It is rare to find an atheist who has anything good to say about God.

Part of that is because so many Christians have emphasized passages about judgment more than other aspects of what God does. Yet by my personal count, the word “good” appears 720 times in the Bible while “evil” appears 613 times. The word “love” in all its forms appears 518 times, whereas “hate” only appears 184 times. “Mercy” appears 360 times, “forgive” 223 times and “healing” 139 times. The Bible is more about goodness than evil, but just like rubberneckers at a traffic accident, we are more interested in the bad stuff. For instance, if you watch the news or listen to politicians you would think that crime is on the rise. In fact it has been dropping steadily for decades. But stories of people doing horrible things are the subject of more movies, TV shows, books and podcasts than stories of people helping others. And that same morbid fascination with what frightens and angers us applies to how a lot of people look at God and the Bible.

Yes, God does not like it when we do bad things. No loving parent does. If your son hits your daughter, you do not remain neutral. If he does not show remorse, he gets punished. In fact, I found myself more sympathetic to God in parts of the Old Testament after I had kids. You love your kids but there are times when you do not like what they are doing. God is trying to raise a people who will reflect his goodness to the world but, as it says in Isaiah, “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourself clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:15-17) Later in Isaiah God explains why he does not respond to their religious fasts: “On the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You can not fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” (Isaiah 58:3-4) God is not being unreasonable. You can't do bad things to others and expect the God who made them to ignore that and do good things for you.

Still a lot of people think God is more interested in folks attending church, saying prayers, doing religious rituals and wearing or displaying symbols of their faith than in what they do in everyday life. But that's not true. There's a reason why Jesus, when asked for the greatest commandment, which is loving God, threw in a second, which is loving others. If you truly love God, you will love those he created in his image.

The Old Testament is about God trying to get his people to understand that they need to clearly reflect what kind of God he is to the other nations. They keep failing. But he doesn't give up. He will still bless the whole world through his people. In the New Testament we see God enter the world through his Anointed, which is the meaning of Christ or Messiah. Jesus shows God's people how to live according to the laws of love. He prioritizes people's needs over pious scruples. So he heals the sick on the Sabbath. He touches lepers and bleeding women and dead bodies without worrying about the fact that it renders him ritually unclean. He lets his hungry disciples pick and eat grain on the Sabbath, though that is a technical violation of the prohibition against work. He teaches women, though that was a scandalous thing to do in his day. In the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus wrote, “The words of the Torah should be burned rather than entrusted to women.” And a lot of rabbis agreed with him that a woman's wisdom was confined to her domestic chores. But not Jesus. As Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) In Jesus we are all equal.

And if Jesus is God the Son, the perfect image of who God is, then, as he tells Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Again if you want to know what God is really like, then look at Jesus. Furthermore he says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” What does he mean by that?

First of all, Jesus is not only God, he is the way to God. You don't need a magical object or rituals or words to reach God. You don't need to pray to a particular saint or go on a pilgrimage to a specific shrine or holy place. You can go directly to Jesus. As Paul writes, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and humans, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, revealing God's purpose at his appointed time.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6) When you go to Jesus, you are not dealing with God's representative or a lesser being; you are dealing with God himself.

Secondly, Jesus is the truth about God. People have a lot of ideas about God. He's a cosmic killjoy, or a hanging judge, or a sadist who enjoys throwing people into hell, or a passive watcher of our antics, or the indifferent creator who made the world rather like a watchmaker might make a watch, wind it up and leave to let it run by itself until it runs down. But in Jesus we see the truth about God. Yes, he is just and does not condone sin. But he is also loving, merciful and forgiving. As he says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17) Jesus is on a rescue mission. He did not come to wipe out the bad guys like the good guys do in our pop culture. He is here to turn the bad guys into good guys.

And that includes all of us. As Paul wrote, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I am the worst of them.” (1 Timothy 1:15) Why did he say that? Because he is that same Saul at whose feet people laid their cloaks before stoning the deacon Stephen. And in the sentence that follows our reading in Acts, we are told, “And Saul agreed completely with killing him.” (Acts 8:1) Two verses after that it says, “But Saul was trying to destroy the church. Entering one house after another, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.” (Acts 8:3) In the next chapter, we read, “Meanwhile, Saul, still breathing out threats to murder the Lord's disciples, went to the high priest and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, he could bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1-2) It was on that trip to kill more Christians that the risen Jesus appears to Saul and commissions him to spread the gospel and not stamp it out. Saul changes his name to Paul, which means “small,” and he does what Jesus says, often ending up in prison himself and finally dying for his faith. It is because of his murderous rampage before his conversion that Paul says that he is the worst of sinners. And because Jesus transformed him from a warrior to a witness of the good news, Paul realizes that it is God's grace, his undeserved and unreserved goodness to us, that saves us. Paul saw that the truth about God is found in Jesus, namely, that “He is the image of the invisible God...” and that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son.” (Colossians 1:15, 19)

Thirdly, Jesus is the life God gives. As the living Word of God, he was in the beginning when God created life. (John 1:1-2) In the 1^st chapter of John's gospel we are told, “All things were created by him and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.” (John 1:3-4) Yet when he came to earth as one of us, what did we do? As Peter says, “You killed the Originator of life...” (Acts 3:15) We are the ones who are bloodthirsty, who want to eliminate those who upset the status quo, not God. But Peter reminds us that God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is still the source of life. But now it is his life, eternal life, that he gives to all who come to him, trusting in his goodness and in his word. And when we come to God through Jesus, it is forever. He will never leave or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) Even death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:38-39)

Jesus is the way to God, the truth about God and the life of God. Which means that when we are in him and he is in us, we are the body of Christ on earth. And so Jesus says, “the one who trusts in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these...” How is that possible? Because there are many of us. Christians live all over the earth, in every nation, even those where it is dangerous to be a follower of Jesus. Christians have built schools and hospitals. They have brought knowledge and healing to every corner of the world. They have made peace between peoples. They run food pantries and homeless shelters. They have stood up for the oppressed. They hid Jews during the Holocaust. They helped people escape slavery through the Underground Railroad. They advocated for the end of slavery. As the body of Christ on earth, they have taken up Jesus' mission which he stated in the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

And to help us do that Jesus says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father will be glorified in the Son.” He will give us whatever we need to fulfill his mission to spread the good news of the God who is love, not only with our lips but with our lives. Notice that Jesus does not say he will give us whatever we desire but what we ask in his name so that God will be glorified. The chief thing that Jesus did to glorify God was to lay down his life for us. (John 17:1) We glorify him by bearing much fruit. (John 15:8) And that fruit is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) We glorify God by being like Jesus. And we can only be like him by having his Spirit in us and doing the things Jesus would do: help, not harm; teach truth, not lies; feed the hungry, not cut them off; visit the prisoners, not write them off; heal the sick, not neglect them; welcome the stranger, not imprison him; save lives, not take them; make peace, not war.

If people have gotten the wrong ideas about God, it's because we have been displaying a distorted image of him. We need to look at Jesus and adjust the image of God in our minds so that it reflects him. And then we need to use our lives to reflect that image to others, so that they will turn to Jesus and find him to be the way, the truth and the life.