Persecution

Persecution – Sermon by Paul Newell, 17 October 2010

Text - 2 Timothy 3 10-17

"Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and haunt him."  Not the actual final words of Claire Raynor, the former nurse, agony aunt and champion of the NHS who died earlier this week, but what she told her relatives she would like her final words to be.  I guess that most of us would want our final words to be memorable, something witty perhaps, maybe a final piece of sage advice or just a fond farewell.  It is probably something that happens more in fiction than in reality.  I am sure that we have all seen films or TV dramas where the victim has managed to provide some clue of their killer’s identity just before dramatically drawing their last breath.  In literature there are the famous last words of Sidney Carton before he is executed at the end of ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ - “it is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done before…”  There are of course some famous examples from real life – Captain Oates’ “I am just going outside and maybe some time” before his act of self-sacrifice for his fellow explorers in the Antarctic.  And of course perhaps the most famous and moving final words of all, those of Jesus himself on the cross as reported in Luke’s gospel – “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

So what of Saint Paul, the great letter writer of the New Testament?  We know that 2 Timothy was the last letter that he wrote as he was imprisoned in Rome and that he knew that he was soon to be executed.  He wrote asking Timothy to come to see him but worried that he might not arrive before his death he included in his letter what he wanted to tell him in person.  So what were some of his final words?  Well in verse 12 of tonight’s passage he tells Timothy “… all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  Not exactly the most encouraging words to send to someone out spreading the gospel of Jesus.  But perhaps we shouldn’t expect anything else from the persecutor turned persecuted.

So what does the persecution of Christians look like nearly 2,000 years on from Paul’s letter to Timothy?  Certainly there will be Christians somewhere in the world – and indeed followers of other religions – who will face the same sort of persecution that Paul received.  Imprisoned in a dungeon in chains for preaching the gospel, deserted by friends when they need them most and dying for their faith.  But here in safe, middle-class Sutton Coldfield it is unlikely that we will have to face those levels of persecution for our Christian faith.  However that is not to say that being a Christian in the 21^st century is easy and I would argue that it is probably more difficult now being a young Christian than it was for those of us who were born and brought up in the 20^th century.

Putting to one side all the distractions of modern life; the computer games, the chat rooms, mobile phones, hundreds of TV channels, DVDs, CDs, weekend sporting activities, Sunday shopping – what are the real challenges for the youth of today in following Jesus?  And how has that changed over the last 30 years or so? 

Well to start with we live in a much more multi-cultural society now.  Whilst St Peter’s is Church of England, it is certainly no longer the case that Christianity is seen as the only religion of England or that the church is seen to be as important to modern day Britain as it once was.  I think this was really brought home to me this week watching the scenes from Chile as the miners were being rescued.  Camp Hope as it was named had four different denominations of Christian churches set up in the tented village, the faith and the prayers of the miners and their families seemed very central to their lives.  And whilst adversity often brings people closer to their religious beliefs, it did make me wonder whether we would have seen such scenes here.  In our desire to be tolerant and understanding – and dare I say “politically correct” – it is almost as if as a society we have oppressed our Christianity in order to allow others to follow their faiths.

It was encouraging to read research published last month that the long decline in church attendance has finally stabilised.  However, whilst 1.67m attending Church of England services each month sounds like a lot of people, it still represents a significant shortfall in the attendances that we would remember from our youth.  Wherever you go there seems to be church buildings that are being used for other purposes or lying empty and those that are in use have empty pews and aging congregations.  Going to church and Sunday School on a Sunday used to be part of the fabric of our society and something that a significant proportion of the population did on a regular basis.  Here at St Peter’s we have tried to alter the way we do things, to try to bring our worship up to date and make it more relevant and accessible to 21^st century life.  For the last couple of years we have had the Forum for young adults and families meeting at 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.  Last month we re-launched Sunday School as “The Lions Club”, a new name, some new leaders and different activities.  However the numbers attending both these activities remain disappointingly low.

So if the youth of today are not getting their spiritual lead from society and are not attending church, where else can that lead come from?  The obvious answer to this is school as this is where they spend so much of their time.  However long gone are the days of the school assemblies that we remember, the singing of traditional hymns and saying prayers.  Unless you are a church school, it is a case of having to cater for the masses not prepare your pupils for their first Mass.  And because increasingly we are not seen as a Christian dominated society our religious education is similarly no longer dominated by Christianity.  And it is at school that young Christians are probably most likely to be persecuted for their faith.  Not to the degree that Paul was of course, but in ways that can be just as painful to young people making the difficult journey from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.  Peer group pressure should not be underestimated.  Of course it only becomes pressure if it is to do something that you don’t want to do.  Turn the clock back 30 years and I don’t recall getting any hassle for going to church because most of my friends went to church with me.  In fact being brought up in the 70s in Yorkshire I got much more stick for being a Villa fan and not supporting Leeds, than I ever got for going to church.  However times change.  I was very surprised to hear recently that people are leaving Scouts because it is seen as being “uncool”.  Now I am sure it is not the activities that they do that are seen in that way, how can mountaineering, rock climbing, shooting, camping and hiking be “uncool” to teenage boys even in the 21^st century?  It was the institution of Scouting that was seen as uncool and the wearing of the uniform.  So if peer group pressure is enough to make impressionable teenagers give up activities that they enjoy, like mountaineering and rock climbing, what chance have we of getting them to do things that they are less likely to enjoy – like coming to church?

Perhaps part of the answer to that almost impossible question comes from tonight’s passage - “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”  “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed…”  We are all here because we have learned and we believe – perhaps not always as firmly as we would like but we believe nevertheless.  And the message from Paul is clear, we need to persevere, we need to persevere.  We need to bounce back when we have a fall, we need to overcome the disappointments when our efforts are not rewarded or when our ideas fall on deaf ears, we need to find strength in the words of the bible and inspiration in the words and deeds of others and accept that we will be persecuted for our faith – even if that persecution is a 21^st century Sutton Coldfield persecution and not on the scale that Jesus and his early followers suffered. 

Returning to the theme of final words, I don’t know what Paul’s last words actually were.  Here was a man who had persecuted Christians, who had then, quite literally, seen the light, been converted to Christianity and preached the gospel.  Who had then himself been persecuted for that faith and finally killed for it.  “What persecutions I endured” his wrote in verse 11.  But having suffered persecution and facing death Paul wrote “Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them” and so we should have faith that the Lord will also rescue us from the persecutions that we face as modern day Christians.  Amen.