… continued:

James

Jesus clearly expects that there is a likelihood that persecution will be a present reality for people who live differently. And Paul takes up this theme, calling it suffering for Christ’s sake. I’m wondering what our response would be to such an experience. Are we, in some way, currently seeing this in Northern Ireland? I’m not suggesting they’re being persecuted for their faith in any way. I think it’s for their skin colour predominantly, but I’m reminded of the way Jesus uses the word ‘evil’ for instances when people speak falsely with no justification. It’s chiming with Simon’s desire to fuse two kingdoms together – the present reality and the Kingdom of God. Jesus would seem to be suggesting that there are other forces at work, and that they have a part to play in our experience of persecution. I’m then taken to Paul’s warning not be overcome by evil, but rather to overcome evil with good. And I think there’s an instruction here as to how we might respond. Certainly when we see those who we might identify as being genuine victims of persecution. Although I think we sometimes believe we might be suffering persecution when nothing of the kind is happening. We can adopt a victimhood mentality too easily, I suspect.

Roy

I would say that in embracing the challenge that Jesus issues here about not retaliating, not resorting to the use of power, or wealth or physical force, the Kingdom of Heaven is breaking in here and now. Absorbing suffering without retaliation challenges the bankruptcy of those who wield power and force. Isn’t Jesus saying that this is a better way to live? 

You see it with American foreign policy at the moment. The idea that in order to get rid of evil, to bring light into darkness, they can use exactly the same tools. Meeting force with force. And I think Jesus is saying that a very different way is possible. Violence only begets violence. Violence will rarely produce real peace.

Craig

I would agree wholeheartedly with you, Roy. I want to push back a little bit though. I can think of times when refusing to compromise my values has been opposed by individuals I had been working with in ways that involved threats, intimidation, and bullying. And there are still times when I wake up in the night with my heart pounding because the impact this had on me still resides in my body. I would do exactly the same again because I believe with great conviction that the values of the kingdom of God mean nothing if we don’t put them into practice. But they do open us to charges of naivety, and I think the path of resistance must be chosen by us in the full awareness that the consequences may be very real.

And I think your own son Joshua may also suggest that there is a time when we do need to resist evil by pushing back in some way. I am still challenged and a little shaken by the conversation Simon and I had with him just a few weeks ago.

James

I think that violence obviously has an impact on the person who is the receiving end, but it also has an impact on the person who is dishing it out. There is internal damage done to a human being as they mete out violence and destruction on another person. I was reading recently, and I know it feels like a sound bite, that suffering happens to you, but evil happens in you. I can see where they were going with that idea in terms of the impact that evil has on the soul, the character, the internal part of a human being.

Roy

Because we are not living as God intended.

James

Absolutely.

Simon

I’m also hearing Joshua’s voice at this point. I can’t remember whether we made this point, but I certainly remember thinking it. So, where Paul says that he would happily lose his salvation to save his fellow Jews, I think Joshua feels something similar with the war in Ukraine. Call retaliation sin if you like, but it would be a greater sin to do nothing. We must sometimes do violence to protect the people we love. And yes, fine, let’s call it evil, let’s call it sin, but I will take that on. I will take that pointing finger to protect the people I love. And I’m just glad that I’m not put in that position where I need to make that kind of decision.

Craig

I’ve paraphrased the verse using the word ‘flourishing’ that you introduced right at the beginning of this series Simon: “Flourishing are those who maintain alignment with genuine reality, even under the pressure of opposition.” So those who side with what is real, even though the majority of people can’t see what is real, are standing for eternal values.

Simon

Joshua is saying that this is all very well until you face a nation with a deliberate policy of genocide, who are ethnically cleansing, seeking to eradicate a whole group of people and their history and their culture and everything. Ukraine is just part of greater Russia as far as Putin is concerned. We’re saying this Kingdom of God is not going to happen in some distant future. It impacts reality now. It has real consequences. So we can’t be trite and live as though it doesn’t matter that all these people are killed because they’ll get their pat on the head in the future. If we’re saying the kingdom of God is about now, then I’m totally torn down the middle. This whole series started off with a question about whether Jesus’ teaching is naive, and Joshua didn’t address that question directly. His curveball was ‘fine, if you want to call it sin, call it sin. But I don’t think people can stand by. This isn’t just people falling out. This is pure evil.’ I feel like we must resist evil.

Craig

Good answer. This feels like a real wrestling match with the Beatitudes, doesn’t it? Yeah. We’re talking about being ostracised, slandered and harmed, for siding with those who are being victimised. We’re talking about speaking truth to power, which has inevitable consequences. And we’re talking about refusing to participate in injustice, and we can’t be silent when powerful people demand that you to side with them. I think about the way a bully surrounds themselves with sycophants. He rewards those who aren’t going to say no to them. If we refuse to participate in injustice it will have consequences. And that, sadly, is a present reality for some in our world today. There is no place for naivety in the world as it is now. 

Simon

Let’s move on to the next verse: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 

We’ve already reflected on some of the ideas here. The reward is contemporaneous – it’s in the present tense so it is not a future reward. I guess the first thing worth noting at this point is that this is the first time Jesus addresses them as individuals. The text switches from the third person – look at those people who do that and see that they’re flourishing and living the good life. Now he switches the focus to ‘you’, and this links to the future verses in this chapter which are also in the second person. So I’ve already said that I think this is a collection of Jesus’ teachings that he gave many times rather than one particular sermon. So this may be a bridge between the Beatitudes and the next section, which is to the folks who are listening. It’s no longer hypothetical. It’s ‘when this happens to you, then you are blessed… and this is what you’re going through’. So it’s important to the people who are hearing or reading this part of Matthew’s gospel. This is a word of encouragement to the church as the words are being spoken and it tells us a fair bit about what it was like being a Christian in that first century.

Craig

I think it’s significant as well that Jesus is linking back to the prophets. There are lots of ways of reading the Old Testament, but I like to think of it as a grand narrative. It begins with individuals like the patriarchs walking very closely to God and it ends up with God only being able to speak through a few prophets who end up having to do some very, very weird things to get noticed. And that is one of the overarching themes of the Old Testament. Founders of the nation are presented as walking side by side with God and the story ends up with God being forced to shout through the mouths of a few strange individuals who are willing to align themselves with him. Once the story has got to a stage where God can only speak through prophets, things are not going well. And so to be told that you are similar to an Old Testament prophet is saying so many things all at the same time. It may be an encouraging word to those who are determined to live like that, but it is also a warning to others. It is also saying something vitally important about the state of the nation.

Simon

We think that Matthew’s gospel was written for a Jewish audience. And the prophets were generally persecuted by their own people. If you were being persecuted by an outside imperial power you’d probably make reference to the Egyptians or to the Assyrians. The fact that this is about the prophets is telling you that right now this is an early community that is being persecuted by their fellow Jews. And for us, I guess if we try to pursue this way of Jesus it means we might expect other Christians to think we’re idiots.

James

When it is our own people persecuting us the reviling is often verbal isn’t it? What shape does persecution have to take for it to be persecution?

Simon

Although there are a few Christians in the West who would like to take us back to the medieval period in terms of being able to stone and burn our co-religionist enemies, I think we are generally past that. So it’s a good question to ask James. It feels, especially at this moment, that there’s a danger when we claim victim status if it gives us a moral authority to behave badly ourselves.

James

Yes. One of the latest podcasts from More or Less on Radio 4 was looking at claims of persecution and the number 400 kept cropping up in all sorts of people’s claims. This raised suspicion: people were claiming that 400 churches have been burnt to the ground or attacked in an assortment of countries, including France and the US and Canada. And the number 400 suggested a common thread. The investigation showed there was something going on, and that people were wanting to claim Christians were being persecuted when actually it was far from the case. I think we’ve got to be careful about how we identify what persecution is.

To be continued…