THE FULL MONTY:
Matthew 5:1 - 7:29
To read if you have time to take-in the whole story.
THE CONTINENTAL OPTION:
Matthew 5:1-48
Read this if you only have time for a few, key verses.
ONE SHOT ESPRESSO:
Matthew 5:11-12
‘God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.’
Who wants to get blessed? According to the TV evangelists, we all do, and God is in the business of complying. For the mere investment of an online gift, you can receive all God wants for you: wealth and success; a great marriage; healthy children; all your loved ones coming to faith…
It’s a compelling offer. All you have to do is give, and all of this comes to you. Unfortunately, it’s not the offer that the Bible makes. Wherever this promise of a pain-free life comes from, it is not the Sermon on the Mount. To be mocked and lied about, to be the subject of evil slander, to be persecuted - these are the blessings Jesus promises. Does this mean God wants us to suffer - that pain and persecution are his plan for us? No, but it does mean that we have misunderstood the nature of his blessings. Why does Jesus say not only that persecution needn’t rob us of blessing, but that persecution itself can be a blessing? There are a number of reasons, all of which can help us to stand in solidarity today with those who suffer more than we do for their faith.
Persecution as a sign of the Kingdom
We can rejoice when persecution comes because it serves as a sign of the kingdom. According to Jesus, it always has. Prophets - those who announce the in-breaking of God’s rule into our world - have always been resisted and opposed. The very opposition shows that what they’re bringing is ruffles feathers. Communism persecuted faith because faith called into question its assumptions. Fundamentalist Islam, in some cases, does the same. Wherever totalitarian rule arises - from Ceasar to Kim Jong-Un - the Christian commitment to the lordship of Christ will be called into question. This does not make hardship any less hard. The pain of those who suffer doesn’t magically disappear because the kingdom is at hand, but it gives their pain significance; persecution only arises where God is on the move.
Persecution is a precursor to victory
From the early Christians in their defiance of Roman rule, to Ghandi and Martin Luther King in the 20th century and China in the 21st, history shows that the oppression of the powerless by the powerful almost always comes before their loss of power. Violence is a sign of weakness and a violent state machinery points not to strength but the fragility of the state. Again, this doesn’t change the reality of suffering, and the ‘shall’ of ‘we shall overcome’ can be a long time coming. But it does tell us that violent oppression is a symptom of the loss of power. Where you see persecution, begin to look and pray for change. It may be a slow train, but it’s coming.
Persecution is a parable of prayer
Jesus tells us often to love our enemies; to pray for those who make us suffer. How will we do so if we don’t know who they are? Persecution brings your enemy out into the open. Oppression steps out from the shadows and identifies itself, and that which is identified is available to be loved and prayed for. If you were to take a map of the world and to mark on it the places where the people of God are treated harshly, you have already begun to answer the disciples request to Jesus, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ Prayer is asking for the kingdom to come where it hasn’t yet. It is longing for God’s will to be done where it isn’t. What better place to start than those places where opposition to the rule of God is openly declared? When opposition comes, don’t take it as a threat. Take it as a guidance system for your prayers. Take it as target practise.
If prophets have always been resisted, if opposition has always come where the kingdom is announced, why are we so troublefree?
All of these realities are implied in Jesus’ description of persecution as a blessing. There are two further applications here that arise when it is not you but someone else who is suffering. The first is that persecution is an opportunity to bless. Just by standing with someone who suffers; by remembering their name; by praying for them; by supporting and loving their family, you have the opportunity to be a blessing. What a gift it is when God’s invitation to you to be a blessing to others is so openly and obviously labelled.
The second is that seeing believers persecuted in cultures other than our own gives us the chance to ask: why aren’t we? If prophets have always been resisted, if opposition has always come where the kingdom is announced, why are we - uniquely in the history of the Church - so trouble-free? Is there something we can learn from those who are oppressed, about what it means to stand against a culture? Is this perhaps the greatest blessing that persecution brings, that those who have been targeted become the teachers of us all? Might it be them, not just their sufferings, that are God’s gift to the Church?
By standing with someone who suffers, you have the opportunity to be a blessing
As a teenage disciple, I was deeply shaped by the writing of two men. Richard Wurmbrand was a Romanian pastor who passed through a series of prisons and torture rooms. His experiences included three unbroken years of solitary confinement in a cell deep underground with no source of natural light. His devotional writings are among the most beautiful ever written. Of his sufferings he said:
‘We didn’t see that we were in prison. We were surrounded by angels; we were with God. We no longer believed about God and Christ and angels because Bible verses said it. We didn’t remember Bible verses anymore. We remembered about God because we experienced it. With great humility we can say with the apostles, “What we have seen with our eyes, what we have heard with our ears, what we have touched with our own fingers, this we tell to you.’
His organisation Voice of the Martyrs has highlighted the plight of suffering people the world over, and movingly calls God’s people to pray. Brother Andrew was an adventurer of a different sort who, from his safe home in Holland, travelled to the world’s most troubled regions to encourage the suffering Church. He experienced incredible miracles of protection and provision but saw first-hand the tragedy of persecution. He founded Open Doors, the global mission that to this day supports and prays for those who suffer. I had the privilege of hearing both these men speak. I wouldn’t be the person I am now without their words. They wouldn’t have become the giants they became without the sufferings of the Church. Persecution did not diminish them, it made them huge. They were God’s gift to me: his blessing. Will you let God bless you, today, with the words and witness of his suffering people?
TAKE AWAY
Two easily-digestible tweet-sized bites
THOUGHT:
We have a choice. To block the trials of persecution from our lives and pretend they have no place in God’s economy, or to receive, from the hand of God, the gifts he longs to give us through his people. I know which choice I want to make. I’m tired of the shopping channel. Give me real faith, any day.
PRAYER:
I pray for those who suffer for the simple fact of having faith. Those locked up while I am free. Bless them, God, as they have blessed me.
Gerard Kelly is co-founder, with his wife Chrissie, of the Bless Network - a mission and training agency at work across mainland Europe with a hub community in Normandy, France (blessnet.eu). Follow @twiturgies for Gerard’s popular twitter prayers and see his blog at godseesdiamonds.tumblr.com.
