More Than Stone

Of course, I was very behind in putting together my post. So late in fact, that I just pulled out a post from a few months ago that I thought fit perfectly with the subject of “Persecution, and
Suffering for Righteousness:”

Matt 10:22
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved

Mark 13:13
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Luke 6:22
Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

Luke 21:17
All men will hate you because of me.

These 4 verses are thrown around in the US Christian culture a lot. It’s a “badge of courage”. The problem is that Jesus was not only talking to His disciples, many of whom were martyred, but also, across the ages to Christians in places like China, Sudan, and the Middle East. I do not think that Jesus was talking to us, here and now, to give us an excuse to be careless and unkind. If my basic understanding of the Scriptures is correct, those who were persecuting Jesus, and then the church, were the religious system and the empire of Rome. Persecution came as a result of challenging the Pharisees. Persecution came because Jesus challenged the empire that oppressed and abused those who were weak. I do not see evidence that persecution came because Jesus hated first.

“All men will hate you because of me.” How we love this statement. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, it somehow proves that we are genuine followers of Jesus. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, it puts us in good company. We love it because, if we can say it’s true, we will grow spiritually through the persecution. The problem is that most people that throw this statement around are taking it out of context and using it to be insufferably arrogant and cruel.

Think about the times you have heard one of the above Scriptures used. What was the context?

· People will hate you because they don’t like their sinfulness being exposed.
· People will hate you because they look pretty good until contrasted with true righteousness.
· People will hate you because you don’t laugh at their dirty jokes.
· People will hate you because you believe in 6-day creation.
· People will hate you because you picket at abortion clinics.
· People will hate you because you call homosexuality an abomination.

AMEN, Brother! REJOICE in the persecution!!! Now, perhaps the above examples are the far leaning “right” kinds of examples. However, I recall a conversation recently with a friend. This friend is not what I would call a fundamentalist. I was talking to him about Rob Bell, and how I love the fact that Rob focuses on the redemption of the world and Jesus’ love, the fact that Rob doesn’t use all the “churchy” language like “substitutionary atonement”. My friend replied, “It doesn’t matter how we talk, or if we change our approach to presenting the Gospel, because the world hates us.” It doesn’t matter. Really? It doesn’t matter…because all men will hate us. Then what are we doing? What’s the point? No wonder we all just sit around waiting to get to heaven. There’s no point doing anything in this world, because all men will hate us, anyway.

Isn’t this just a tired old excuse to be judgmental and hateful? Or an excuse to not have to examine the way we’ve been doing things in the Church? Or an excuse to stay locked within the church walls fraternizing with all the other Christians that the world hates? Could it be that when Jesus said the world will hate us, he meant that they will hate us because we are breaking the dominions, empires and structures of this world that oppress? That we are truly setting captives free, not just from their own sin, but also from the sins of others? That we are setting people free from religious institutions that keep people from the freedom that Jesus promised? Could that be what he meant?

Jesus challenged the power hierarchies. He challenged the hierarchies of kingdom, religious structures, wealth and social status. When Jesus said the world will hate you because of me, could it be that we would be hated because we;

· Love everyone, not just those we call our “brothers and sisters”.
· Invite the lame, poor, maimed and blind to our parties.
· Do not continue to amass wealth within an unjust system.
· Proclaim that in the Kingdom of God there are no slaves or masters, no men or women, no teachers or students.
· Challenge the systems that tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders.
· Have fellowship with outcasts, thus rejecting the views of those who demand separateness from an unclean world.

Could that be what Jesus meant?

Take some time to check out the other synchrobloggers

David Fisher - Be the Revolution
Fishing for Trouble - Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Mike Bursell - Mike’s Musings
Restoring Our View of Humanity - Eternal Echoes
Persecuting the Marginalized - JohnSmulo.com
The Ends Justify the Means - Calacirian
Billy Calderwood - Billy Calderwood
Seeking First Righteousness - Tim Abbott
Jamie Swann - More Than Stone
Persecution and Martyrdom - Handmaid Leah
“Don’t squash the counter-revolutionary/the plank in my own eye” - Jeremiah
The Martyrs of Epinga at Notes from the Underground
Terrorism in Christianity at The Rivera Blog
Persecution or Poor Elocution? “Hello,” said Jenelle