Questions near the end

I saw him as I reached the top of the overpass. My mind registered “kid” and I knew I wasn’t going to give him anything. As I walked by I noticed he was older, old enough maybe to be on his own, and looked like he needed real help. I said “sawadee khrap” and he wai’d me, bending over at the waist. As I walked by I thought, “Okay, so I don’t give to kids because they’re part of rackets, or being taken advantage of by adults…but I can’t let that kid just sit there.” I was going to 7-11, so I got him a juice. I have a little rule of always getting something that costs more than what I’m getting myself, but it’s really meaningless and self-deceiving when you realize that 49 times out of 50 I buy myself food without getting anyone else anything at all. On my way back over I asked him if he wanted it and he nodded. As I reached the end of the overpass I peeked back and he was sucking away at the straw already. I turned down the stairs and broke to pieces inside. Why does he have to be there? Why can I do so little? And why do I fall apart now when this is happening all over the city every day?


At first glance I wondered why he was begging. He looked to be in his 30s, seemed to be eating plenty, why doesn’t he have a job? Then I noticed the deep indentation in his head, as big as a fist. Where did that come from? How does that happen to someone? Why are there so many people with such severe disabilities here? How will he have any other option than begging? The Catholic Church is doing impressive work with a couple quality education/work skills centers, but it’s like a drop in the bucket among the millions in Southeast Asia with serious disabilities. I gave him 40 baht, little more than a dollar, yet something I rarely do. As I dropped it in I saw only a few coins in the cup.

I always thought of him as the out-of-place looking guy in the church. Everyone else was so young, hip, westernized, while he was older, dressed different, walked stiffly. I thought he came from a different culture than many of the other members and from a lower social class. Only once did I ever talk to him, and very briefly at that. Then last week he walked over to us and gave us an umbrella. Why did he gift us like that? How are we of all people the ones who deserve a new umbrella? And how could he have possibly have known that my umbrella had just fallen apart the Tuesday before?

We went up and down the streets for the second time in three weeks. We walked by the park, checked the overpasses, combed the aisles of the 7-11’s. We talked to the kids who washed windows and even went down the red-light district that he eventually showed up in the last time this happened. After a couple hours we gave up. He’s only 11, but this isn’t close to being the first night he’s spent alone on the streets. We prayed against the predators, for food, shelter, and safety, and just asked that he’d make it through another night. I don’t know when this will end. Sometimes when you ask the same thing too many times the questions start to dry up.

It will not be so among you

One day back when I taught in jail, I mentioned that I was under 6’1”. The men in the class interrupted the story with disbelief. “Six foot one? No way. You’re way taller than that!” I asked them how tall they thought I was, and they thought it was around 6’4”. One student, a young man of about my age, said, “I’m six foot three, and you’re definitely taller than me.”

I figured that could settle it, so I had the student come up and stand next to me. Even though I had the advantage of shoes (inmates in jail are effectively shoeless), he clearly stretched out a couple inches above me. Everyone was surprised, and I took it as a teachable moment about power dynamics and how they change perception.


My position in the classroom gave me an outsized appearance of power, an effect so strong that it altered the physical impression of how big I was. Part of this effect has a physical source – the fact that I can wear shoes and have “outside” clothing makes me stand out over the slipper-wearing, uniformly-dressed inmates. (Read about the famous Stanford Prison Experiment for more insights on the effect of this power dynamic.) But a lot of it is just psychological. I had the power. I was the authority. They were the inmates. They couldn’t even go to the restroom without asking, and at any moment I could kick them out of school permanently or even get them sent to solitary confinement with just one word. My position of power was so great in their eyes that it manifested itself in an exaggeration of my physical stature.

I need to remember this story because the same dynamic occurs in less obvious ways in many other relationships. When we go out to do service, how often do we end up in a position of power over the ones we are there to serve? Are we always in a position to give materially, making others feel ashamed to always be the ones to receive? Are we always teaching, therefore acting as the intellectual and spiritual superiors, and not putting ourselves in a position to be taught? Do we ever find ourselves using our age, our years of experience, our education, our leadership position, our credentials, our fluency in English, or even our race or nationality as a bludgeon to help us assert our authority in a situation? Or do we subconsciously see ourselves as better than another based on one of those things, potentially allowing it to manifest itself in subtle ways in our actions?

Jesus taught his disciples not to be like that. He taught them that it was good to wash another’s feet, and good to allow your feet to be washed. He taught them that it was essential to give aid to the poor wandering messengers of God’s truth, and commanded them be those poor wandering messengers who would rely on the aid of others as well. He taught them to be served as guests in the homes of “sinners”, to give feasts to those who couldn't reciprocate, to associate side-by-side with women who prostitute and men with leprosy, and to make even the littlest children the focus of their full attention. He taught them to throw away the way the world uses power, and to understand a whole new system of the upside-down Kingdom power.

Lord, I want to be a servant among the poor, not just to the poor. Teach me to consider all others better than myself and to submit to those who I would be reluctant to trust. Help me to learn how much you have to teach me through the words and lives of those who don’t have the world’s authority, but have your blessing. Give me true humility in all my relationships. And may all those who interact with me find more dignity and greater self-image after they see me than they did before.


“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;” Matthew 20:25-27, Mark 10:42-44

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” – Philippians 2:3

“The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:11-12 (see also Mark 9:35, 10:31, Matthew 19:30, 23:11-12, Luke 13:30, 14:11)

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5

“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces.” Luke 11:44

"So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:15

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 18:5 (see also Mark 9:37, 10:14, Luke 9:48, 18:7, Matthew 18:6)

“So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13:14-15

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (see also 3:18-23)

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21

“Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.” Romans 12:16

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23

A typically atypical night

Four of us come together to pray, but spend 45 minutes pouring out the stuff we’ve been seeing in the city first. We cut discussion short and get to prayer.

Two of us jump on a bus while our two friends take off on bikes.

The walk from the bus stop is the usual…rich Western tourists, rich Muslim tourists, and old men with young “girlfriends”.

We see our friend Ron the second we get to the redlight district. We trade pleasantries and he lets us know which of our friends is around in the redlights today.

We find Nuy right away. She shows us her pretty-smelling flowers, asks Rosey if she has coloring, and then pulls us over to a storefront to get started.

Practical thoughts on Luke 14:12-14

In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14, Jesus says to a dinner host,

When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.  You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

This teaching has been in my mind a lot the past 8-9 years.  At the biggest party I ever threw, I had this verse stuck in my head as I planned.  I put effort into trying to fulfill it as well as I could at the time.  In the end I was disappointed with how it turned out, but I just figured, “well, at least I tried”.  Recently I was thinking again about that effort, and I realized that there were a number of key reasons that my attempts did not go the way I wished them to.

• I invited about 10 rich people for every poor person.  That meant that the rich people were more likely to feel comfortable coming to the event than the poor people, even if all the poor people came.  
• I held the event in a rich neighborhood, in a building built by rich people for rich people, in a place many of the rich people I know had spent much time.  The poor people I knew had to travel to get there, to be in a place they had never been, in a neighborhood they weren’t comfortable in, in a building they had no connection to.  And really, I expected that to work?  It’s no surprise that only 2 of the 20-something poorer people I invited actually came.
• Why did I invite 10 times as many rich people and hold the event in a rich church in a rich neighborhood?  Because most of my family members are relatively rich, and because most of my closest friends are relatively rich.  The proportion of rich people to poor people there was right in line with the amount of emotional and relational energy I was investing in the lives of the rich as opposed to the lives of the poor.  The fact that I was living in south-central Los Angeles and working full time at Catholic Charities at the time doesn’t let me off the hook, it only indicts me further for my lack of participation in God’s idea of community.

This gives me some food for thought for the next time I want to live out this verse.  But the most important lesson is this – if I am truly to follow Christ and his teachings, then applying verses like this is a process that starts right now, in the decisions I make in my everyday relationships and choices of community.  Yes, I need to do my best to follow the principle when I’m throwing that party, but if I’m not developing relationships and community with the poor now, then by the time the party comes around it will get pretty difficult.

Be needy, at least some of the time

Last week a discussion leader asked us to respond to the idea that “God’s heart is found in the poor”.  This question led me down a surprising path.  As I reflected on the Sermon on the Mount, the Good Samaritan, and Matthew 25, it felt clear that we can see Christ reflected in the needy, and that we can grow closer to God with our interactions with the poor.  So that caused me to think, “Am I really being of the greatest service to others if I am never in need, if I am never poor?”  To put it another way, in true Christian community shouldn’t I also at times be the person being served, the person in need who others can have the chance to see Christ through?  Jesus made that clear to his disciples when He washed their feet.  We tend to think of that as an example of how even the great must serve, but there’s an equally important lesson that is drawn out by Peter's initial refusal – we must all be willing to be served as well.  And we can't be truly served if we've already made ourselves completely self-sufficient.  If we have everything we think we need, then can others serve us on equal terms, or are we just play-acting the roles?

The passage that really drives home this question for me is when Jesus gives his disciples instructions for spreading the gospel.  They can’t take supplies.  They can’t take provisions.  They can’t even pay their own board.  They have to go out with nothing but the sandals on their feet and accept the hospitality of the communities they enter in order to do their work of preaching.  They must rely on the service of others, because they have nothing else to turn to – they have made themselves poor for Christ.  Are we willing to go to that same extent, not only to practice our willingness to trust God, but in order to allow others to bless us by letting them serve us in real need?

India

There's something in our hosts, our new friends, our modes of transportation.  The questions asked by Surya in the bookstore, Sunil on the street, and the auto-rickshaw driver.  The books for sale, the kids in the school uniforms, the fantastic food.  It is a feeling of belonging that descends upon me within days of entering this country, a feeling I've really only felt elsewhere on a little stretch of Century Boulevard.  The feeling that somehow, this place and these people, this region and this culture, hit me too deep in the present to not play a part in my future.  I still don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that it means a lot.

The question I have now for myself is, "What would I do here?"  I don't know the answer to that yet.  Do I need to know before I come?

Deja Vu

In July 2004, six late-night hours in the streets of Mumbai changed my life.  The climax of the experience was staring at police as they ripped apart a shanty-town made of poles and tarps.  These “tourist police” were “beautifying” the area, removing the community from the beach so that tourists would not have to see them and get an unfavorable impression of the city.  I was furious.  I tried to communicate to the police that this tourist was much more upset by their actions than if I had just seen the community without the ransacking.  But all I could do was stand there and watch and hope to guilt-trip the police into leaving, then assist the residents with a pittance afterwards.  Other than when the police tried (and failed) to order me to leave, I didn’t seem to have much of an effect on them.  By the end of that night I had developed a strong feeling that God might want me in a place like Mumbai for the rest of my life.  And part of that feeling was the idea that then I could do more, then I could help give some form of real hope to those who suffered the whims of so many oppressive forces.

A few weeks ago we were on the streets of a different city, sitting with a women and children we love.  We shared a few bags of food with the mother, gifts to help make life a slight bit easier in the face of the recent arrest and deportation of her 11-year-old son and illness of her 5-year-old daughter.  After a short visit we left their spot on the sidewalk.  We had only walked about thirty feet when I saw two police officers coming down the sidewalk on a motorcycle.

The motorcycle was already ten feet past me when I realized what was about to happen.  If only I had jumped in front of the cycle and delayed them by asking directions!  (We really were somewhat unsure about what bus to take that hour of the night.)  Instead, I saw the officers pull up to our friends, and soon mats were rolled up and bags hastily grabbed as they abandoned their spot.  Only the illness of the daughter brought enough compassion from the officers that the family was able to avoid a worse fate (though more would come the next week).  And as I watched, once again powerless, my mind flashed back to the night in Mumbai so many years earlier and I thought, “So what has even changed…”

As is so often true, I have to start by reminding myself that I am not their savior.  I need to put down the burdens that are not my responsibility, let God do God’s work, and just focus on being as obedient as possible to what He has asked me to do.  Then I have to remind myself that the greatest difference is now I am here, actively loving them.  I’m not just abstractly feeling love for them, caring about and thinking of them for years but not actually participating in their lives at all (as is true for that first community that moved me).  Instead of just seeing one person come into their lives on one night, this family has a relationship with our community that stretches back almost two years, and they know that we will be here for them again the next time something happens.  Finally, the staff and the family are talking and sharing together about long-term hopes that could soon see fruition; hopes of land, stability, consistent income, schooling for their children, and a place in a real community.  The complexities involved in creating these opportunities and coming to a place where both we and the family can really believe in such a future are many, and it is not the sort of thing that could ever have been brought into place by a one-time encounter.  Whatever the outcome of those plans, we are doing our best to really love them, and that is what Christ asked us to do.  In the face of so many sad events that so often feel beyond my control, I have to remember that God has just asked me to love my neighbor the way He has loved me, and not feel despair on the occasions when that just doesn’t feel like enough.

Choices

I originally wrote a 1300 word post about the complexities of the idea of “choice” with women involved in the sex industry.  It mentioned kidnapping, physical force, rape, teenagers who are sold by their parents, arraigned marriage, women whose husbands abandon them, lack of education, lack of familial support, having to feed your children, homelessness, awareness of options, economic barriers, untreated trauma resulting from sexual abuse, debt bondage, escape fantasies, materialistic culture, societal values, social stigma, and several other topics.  But it was too long and buried the main point I wanted to make.  Thankfully, Nicolas Kristof wrote a piece yesterday that addressed many of my ultimate concerns (that’s the second time in a week we’ve said almost the same thing), so read his better-written piece on the ignored girls of human trafficking instead.  Just remember that girls like the ones he describes aren’t only in America, but in countries where the more “obvious” forms of trafficking exist as well.  But all that wasn’t the main point of my post anyway.

This was the main point:  We often judge the people who need help, try to figure out whether their situation was their own fault or not (he's a drug addict, she's mentally ill, he had all the chances in the world, she was asking for it, plenty of other people in his situation turned out fine, etc.) and then spread out our compassion and love accordingly, with little going to those people who we judge "deserve" their lot.  However our judgments of people’s motivations and perceived degree of choice in their situation affect our natural willingness to love them and help them out, we must remember that Jesus did not work like that.


In the gospels we read the stories of forgiveness for the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus the tax collector, the crying woman, the publican who beat his chest before God, the thief on the cross, the Samaritan who was living with a man who was not her husband, and the paralytic whose friends lowered him through the roof.  Jesus never asks how they got in their situation.  Jesus doesn’t berate them for creating their own mess.  Jesus never passes up a needy sinner on the road in order to reach out to someone whose desperate situation may have been less “their fault”.  What Jesus does is reach out with love to every lost person he sees, show his compassion to every desperate person before him, and teach his disciples to do the same.  We don’t know the back stories to why the violent man in the caves became demon-possessed or why the beggar Lazarus had never found employment, and the gospels are certainly silent as to why Mary Magdalene had been involved with prostitution (if that tradition is indeed accurate).  And if Jesus never asked those questions, do we need to ask them?  If Jesus never judged the needy based on their “culpability” for their situation, need we judge them?

 

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do what we can to understand why so many people end up in situations of oppression and address the root causes on a societal scale.  But I am saying that we need to do whatever we can to show Christ’s love to those who are hurting, without the judgmental attitude that they deserve their lot.  Should it matter to me why the boy in front of me started begging, stealing, selling his body for sex?  I know that it shouldn’t.  Do I need to set up a scale to determine who is worthy of Christ’s love and who is not?  I know that I cannot.  What I can try is to love them now, show my care for them as a fellow child of God, and pray that their future chances are better than the ones they’ve had to choose between so far.

Sorry that this is so out of context

I ask her how she's feeling and get a sarcastic response. Our mutual friend berates me for even asking - of course she's not doing well. I rephrase the question - is she feeling light-headed, dizzy? She is. I make sure she gets more water. I ask her if I can touch her foot and she gives me permission. Someone reminds me that this is a gloves situation and they hunt down a pair for me. I take off the ad hoc wrappings and begin to apply my own. I think about cleaning the wound, but the large amount of blood on the floor concerns me and I decide that blood loss management has to take priority over infection for the moment. I secure the bandage, get her foot elevated, and begin applying pressure to the wound, then ask her if she's comfortable taking the tourniquet off her ankle now. To my relief she obliges - at first she had been too afraid that the heavy bleeding would resume. I ask if she can wiggle her toes and she can. We keep the foot elevated with my pressure on it and encourage her to drink more water. I continue to ask her questions to make sure she's staying conscious and coherent. I pray that she'll stay stable until the ambulance comes and takes her to the hospital. The strong pulse that I begin to feel in her foot as blood soaks into the bandage again gives me comfort.

The ambulance arrives, but the paramedics are a little slow to react to the situation. Since they can't get the stretcher in close enough (too much blood and broken glass), I ask her if I can help her up, and end up lifting and carrying her to the ambulance. They begin to place her in but I've already turned around and begun removing my gloves in the proscribed non-contaminating manner. In a surreal moment I toss them on the floor in the middle of the blood and glass and everything else - can't think of a better place to put them for now. I go back outside for a moment and make sure the paramedics have been informed of the significant details of the situation. They have. There's discussion of who will go with them to the hospital but I'm not paying attention. I don't remember what happens next, but I'm not outside and I'm not looking when the ambulance leaves. The last memory I have of her is making eye contact as she thanks me just after I've set her down into the wheelchair/stretcher. I know our friend was there too, but I can barely remember.

As they left, I realized that I'd likely never see them again.


I wrote that over a week ago, the day after those events happened. I was trying to process what just happened and how I was feeling about it. I didn't send it to anyone at the time because I was having enough difficulty understanding all of my thoughts myself that I didn't feel okay having others read what I was thinking yet.

My writing continued:

At that time following my first aid training and the correct safety protocols felt more important than my own emotional response. That suppression has made it more difficult for me as I try to deal with my feelings now. Last night was one of the worst nights of sleep in my life. The hallucinations (note: my confused waking-dream state I get at night when I'm very sick or under severe stress) were heavy, far worse than I've had in a long time. After many hours of sleeplessness and tossing and turning and hallucinating and mosquito bites, a massive thunderstorm hit and the loudest thunderbolts I have ever heard began booming outside my window. In a way it was a comfort - at least now I had a reason for not falling asleep, and the fury of the storm made me feel like God was acknowledging the turmoil that had just happened and heaven was raging too. In my sleep-deprived state of hyper-attribution, it also worried me, because the violence of the storm felt like a confirmation of the seriousness of the events.

Today I prayed for good news, but when bad news came back I realized that I did not feel disappointment - I already assumed the news would be bad, and good news would have been the shocking surprise. At about the same time I accidentally saw their pictures from just a day earlier - I almost cried. I've had five or six "almost cries" already, but did not release my first tears until an hour ago. There will be more.



I wish I could share more with all of you, but there are many reasons why I cannot, so for now you have to be content with just hearing my feelings. It was hard for me even to say this much - for most of the time since this happened I've been focusing on anything but that, distracting myself with news and sports and other duties here. Please pray for them, and pray for me and the rest of the team here as well. A lot has happened in the 1.5 weeks since I wrote that down, and in many ways we are moving on, but that doesn't change how significantly difficult their situation is, how much it was exacerbated last week, and how much it affected all of us. God is their only hope, and my limited mind is still having trouble feeling secure in that hope.

As a final thought - I know that many of my feelings, most importantly my feelings of borderline despondency and lack of hope, are seriously misplaced. They are in part the result of a major exaggeration of our significance.  I can fall pray to the assumption that we are saviors, that our influence is vital under these particular conditions and that the new set of conditions precludes any hope of them, as my friend would say, "finding my happy days". (Lord, please, be with them) I know that is not true - there is one Savior, and he completed His saving work that I may know that I don't have to. Our trust is in Him. In Him we have hope. Thank you for praying.

Thoughts on Egypt

During the protests in Egypt I did not express an opinion on whether Christians should participate. And now that the protesters have succeeded, I still don't know. Mubarak was a dictator who imprisoned, tortured, or killed thousands of his political opponents, stole billions of dollars while many of his people suffered in poverty, and ruled a government that was full of corruption. But does that mean Christians are obligated to attempt to overthrow such dictators? And by what means? Does it matter that the alternative to Mubarak may be even worse? I don't know. So I couldn't say that Christians "should" work to overthrow him. But as I have prayed and reflected on the present, past, and future in Egypt, there have been a few things that I do feel I can state with confidence.



First, I believe that as Christians we cannot support what Mubarak did or trust him to "protect us". Some Christians told me that while Mubarak was bad, "at least he kept the Islamists in check", and "the alternative will be even worse".

I do not know whether the alternative will be worse. But no alternative can justify throwing our support behind a dictator who steals from the poor, imprisons tens of thousands of his political opponents, and uses torture and murder as weapons to control his people. What good would it do us to save our lives in such a manner, if we lose our souls in the process? What message would that give the world about who Christ is and what He would be in favor of? Better to lose our life to persecution and thereby save our souls than to preserve our lives through the support of such evil.


For those who wish to turn to Egypt's dictator for safety, I think the words of Isaiah 30 and 31 resonate today. The context is similar - the Jewish king was so afraid of the Assyrians and what they would do to Israel that he was willing to turn to the ruler of Egypt for protection. God's response through Isaiah is summarized in the first three verses of chapter 31:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against that wicked nation,
against those who help evildoers.

But the Egyptians are mere mortals and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
those who help will stumble,
those who are helped will fall;
all will perish together. Isaiah 31:1-3

We are to trust in God for protection, not Earthly rulers who are using unjust means.


My second thought deals with persecution. Persecution is painful, difficult. We need to support and pray for those who are persecuted, and publicly speak up to their persecutors in defense of their lives. But sometimes we may get so caught up in trying to avoid persecution that we forget - blessed are the persecuted!

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. - Matthew 5:10-12

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything...

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. - James 1:2-4, 12

But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life. - Luke 21:12-19

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. - Philippians 1:12-14

There is much more - 1 Peter 3 and 4, 2 Corinthians 12:10, 2 Thessalonians 1:3-5, Acts 5:41, James 5:10-11. Far from being something that hurts believers, persecution strengthens faith and grows the church. The first few centuries of Christianity showed this abundantly. I do not believe that this means we need to seek out persecution. But when the choice is between facing persecution or supporting sin and injustice, then like the early martyrs we can embrace persecution with open arms.


Finally, I believe there is one clear proactive response to such situations. That response is embodied in the greatest commandments - Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbor as yourself.

Imagine that there were two alternatives during Mubarak's thirty years in power. On the left, the church could have openly supported Mubarak's policies, been glad when he imprisoned and tortured those the church considered to be its enemies, done what it could to ensure that he stayed in power for as long as possible, and campaigned for someone just like him (such as his son) to take over when he died. Until that happened, we could have fervently prayed that Mubarak and his followers were able to stay in power and keep control over our enemies as long as possible.

And on the right, the church could instead have openly loved those that it considered to be its enemies. Millions of Christians could have actively worked day after day for those thirty years to show concrete acts of love to their neighbors. When people were unjustly imprisoned, the church could have spoken out on their behalf, even if they were part of the "enemy" faction. When torture, rape, or murder were sanctioned by the government, the church could have spoken out against it and stood with those who suffered, even if those suffering had hurt Christians in the past. And for thirty years, we could have fervently prayed for the souls of those who considered us their enemies, that through our love and the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts they may come to have an eternal relationship with the true God.

Both choices would have had to face the truth that no human reign lasts forever, and that Mubarak or his successors were bound to one day fall. Until that happened, which strategy would have glorified God more? Which would have a greater chance of bringing an Egypt where Christians could live without "fear of man", but fear God alone? Which one was more likely to bring home the lost sheep that our Lord so deeply loves and wants to come into His fold? Which one shows more of God's love?

And, when Mubarak's reign finally did fall (as it did last week), which strategy would be more likely to have planted the seeds for a future Egypt where Christians are safe and respected as a part of the Egyptian community?

Mubarak's time is over. But Egypt's is not. These are not choices to be made in certain eras or by certain church leaders, but choices that every Christian has to make for herself every day and will still have to make no matter what government controls the nation. Do we trust in man to protect us from those we fear? Or do we make the choice to fear God alone, trust in God alone, and turn to our enemies with open arms and the love that Christ poured out to us when we were opposed to Him as well?

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. - Luke 6:27-28

When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it. - 1 Corinthians 4:12

So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. - Matthew 10:26-31