One of the mysteries of what we might call the Christian era is the extent to which the Church has been persecuted throughout its existence. And it is a mystery. The Christian faith is about love of others. It’s about agape love, which I spoke about recently, loving, not in order to be loved in return, but loving simply for the sake and good of those we love. That is what Jesus taught, it’s what the Church teaches, and it’s what Christians are called to do. And yet the Church has been persecuted throughout its history, and still is today. So why should that be? Why should the Church be persecuted for telling the world that people should love one another?
The mystery of Church persecution is one that even the persecutors themselves can’t seem to answer. Those who have and do persecute the Church have never really been able to explain why they’ve done so. They’ve no doubt had their reasons but, in the end, what these reasons all seem to boil down to is simply that Christians are different to other people.
As we all know, people who are different can make us feel uncomfortable. And one way to deal with people and groups of people who make us feel uncomfortable is to get rid of them from our lives, or silence them, so that they don’t bother us anymore. So, perhaps the answer to the mystery of Church persecution is simply that the world has tried to get rid of the Church because, by its proclamation of the Gospel, the Church has pricked people’s consciences and reminded them of the error of their ways, and they simply want to go about their lives without being reminded of those things and being called to face up to them.
But we shouldn’t really be surprised that this has happened. Jesus himself warned his disciples that they would be persecuted in the way that he was, and the reason for that persecution is given in this morning’s Gospel:
“…the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”
And what better way to prevent those evil works being exposed is there, than to put the light out?
In our own society, we don’t have to suffer the kind of persecution that Christians in many other countries have to endure. We’re not likely to suffer any physical harm or risk death because of our faith. But the Church is persecuted in other ways. There’s been a widely reported anti-Christian bias in the nation’s media and we know that our faith can be ridiculed and suppressed in ways that wouldn’t be allowed if it were any other faith. But, on the whole, I think the problems we face can be put into three categories, all of which are linked and form a more general circular problem.
The first is that, for the majority of people in our society, the Church and the Christian faith are simply an irrelevance. That’s obviously true of those who don’t believe in Christianity, but at the last census, more than half the population of this country said they did. So where are they all? Why aren’t our churches bursting at the seams? The answer seems to be the vast majority of the people in our country who claim to be Christians obviously don’t see any need to come to church, or of the Church in their lives either.
The second problem we have is that of the Church’s compliance with society. By compliance, I don’t mean compliance with the law, I mean compliance with the values and standards of society. When was the last time the Church made a real stand against the corruption and injustice that exists in our society, and made that stand because society’s values and standards are contrary to the Gospel?
The Church is far too content to say nothing and to simply ‘go with the flow’. That no doubt reduces the severity of any persecution the Church might otherwise face, but it results in a Church which is simply tolerated because it’s acquiescent. The Church no doubt knows society is wrong, but it accepts what society does without protest. That actually causes people to think that the Church is irrelevant, because the Church makes no difference to society, but it also leads to a third problem, that of the Church being despised for its weakness and hypocrisy. And that, in turn, leads to the kind of anti-Christian bias we see in the media and in the ridicule and suppression our faith is singled out for.
I don’t think there can be much doubt, that one of the root causes of all this, perhaps the major cause, is the attempt the Church has made to reverse, or at least arrest, the decline of Church congregations, by making the Church more ‘acceptable’ to society. The only way the Church can do that is by acquiescence with society’s values and standards; by going along with the world, or at least turning a blind eye to the world. But the Church isn’t called to be acceptable to the world or any society in it; it’s called to be acceptable to God. And to be acceptable to God, the Church is called to do things God’s way, not the world’s way. The Church is called to encourage others to do things God’s way, not to simply stand by and say nothing while God and Christ are ignored. The values and standards of the world are based on pride and ambition, the desire for power and lust for this world’s riches. The values and standards of the world are anti-Christ, they’re the very darkness that Jesus talks about in this morning’s Gospel. And when it goes along with these things, the Church itself is moving from the light into the darkness because it’s going along with the very things that Jesus himself says will condemn us.
The first great persecution of the Church was the Decian persecution (named after the Roman emperor Decius) which began in 249 AD. During that persecution, many Christians were martyred for their faith. Many others though, renounced their faith but, when the persecution ended, they wanted to be readmitted to the Church. What became the official Catholic position on this, was that these people could be readmitted to the Church but only after they’d served due penance and undergone a programme of teaching. It was a lengthy process, and it took years for those who’d renounced their faith to be readmitted to the Church. But even so, some in the Church wouldn’t accept them, and a schism, a split in the Church which became known as the Novatian heresy, resulted.
In response to this, and in defence of the Catholic position, one of the great Church Fathers, St Cyprian of Carthage, wrote a work entitled On the Unity of the Church. In it, St Cyprian spoke of the Church as the mother of Christians and the bride of Christ. This is what St Cyprian said:
‘… she (the Church) is one mother, plentiful in fruitfulness. We are born from her womb, nourished by her milk, given life by her spirit.
The spouse of Christ cannot commit adultery. She is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home, she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one bed. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and unites with an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church. No one who forsakes the Church of Christ can receive the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. No one can have God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother.
… The Lord warns us, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” [Matt. 12:30] He who breaks the peace and the unity of Christ, is an opponent of Christ. He who gathers anywhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ.
The Lord says, “I and the Father are one” … Does anyone believe that such unity which comes from the strength of God and is held together by the sacraments of heaven, can be divided by the falling out of opposing wills? Anyone who does not keep this unity does not keep God’s law, does not keep the faith of the Father and the Son, does not keep hold of life and salvation.’
The Church has never been acceptable to the world’s societies. It isn’t called to be and was never intended to be. The Church, and the individual Christians who make up the Church, are called to be in the world, but not of the world. We are called to be, and intended to be, acceptable to God, and God’s ways are not the world’s ways: they are as different as light from dark. Let us pray that the Church of today will remember that. That the Church will remain faithful to Christ, and that holy mother Church will bear and nourish many more sons and daughters fit for God’s kingdom where his will, and not the world’s ways, is done.
Amen.
The Propers for the 4th Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday) can be found here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 