…continued

Roy

When you were talking about the experience of the prophets Craig, and you said that sometimes God had to use the prophets to speak into a context, I wondered about the role of martyrdom as a witness. Where there is persecution individuals are likely to be martyred. My Greek is weak, but I do remember that the Greek word for martyr is also translated as a witness.

Craig

It is. And if we use it today, we think of those who were burned at the stake or whatever else, which illustrates something significant, doesn’t it? In our age all the Saints are dead people. And many of those we think of as Saints have been decreed so by the Pope, or by a church hierarchy, and many of these were martyrs. But let’s not forget that Paul addresses his letters to the saints in the city he is writing to – people who are alive and are witnesses to Kingdom values. We think of capital-S saints and we’ve forgotten that Paul’s theology of sainthood doesn’t support that idea at all.

Roy

I might be introducing something totally irrelevant here, but maybe the notion that it is hope that comes to us through the resurrection of Christ might help us see beyond our immediate suffering? And I’m not talking about pie in the sky when you die, but the idea that through our death and through our witness some good may come.

Craig

We’re back to eternal perspective again then aren’t we?

Roy

Yes, but as a present reality rather than all in the future.

Craig

Yes, an eternal perspective affects the present. We need to be very careful how we understand and use this idea though. It can be used to romanticise, and thus minimise, distress and pain.

Roy

When Jesus speaks of being blessed when people insult you he is saying something about shame. If somebody insults you, you are demeaned by it. Like the Russian troops at the moment – if they are seen to fail they’re shamed and there’s a dishonour that flows from this judgement. Whereas Jesus is suggesting it might be possible to rejoice when people insult, persecute, and say all kinds of false things to malign and misrepresent you. Even to rejoice and be glad. That’s a very, very significant shift in attitude.

James

Peter says exactly this in his first letter. He says, ‘if you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed but praise God that you bear that name.’ There’s a wow about that to be honest. It’s just so counter-cultural.

Craig

It is. And we are also on psychologically dangerous ground. When we believe something is true, but we have no hope of actually experiencing it, we can be doing strange things to ourselves in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance. I think that the reality might only be experienced if we know what our motives are, and if we’re fully secure in our identity. We’re therefore able to choose to act in a certain way because we know we’re not what other people say we are. The words of shame don’t land as they are intended to because what we believe to be true and eternal has a firm foundation.

Roy

Yeah, I think about people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. They were ridiculed and mocked. They stood up for non-violence whilst experiencing violence. I remember watching the film Selma and seeing Dr. Luther King being mocked. But somehow it was the white authorities and the the governors, be they Democrat or Republican, who were the ones who were shamed. It was their attitudes and their policies that looked stupid. There’s a reverse shaming going on. 

We think about Roman power and might, because surely that’s part of the context here – Roman dominance, military might and wealth. But actually, despite persecution, misrepresentation and shame, the church thrived. And Rome eventually came to an end.

Simon

Yeah, that’s good. And I think of Martin Luther King’s famous line which we can debate till the cows come home: that the arc of history bends towards justice.

Roy

Thank you.

Simon

And I think that If we can envisage a multi-dimensional universe rather than a multi-layered universe, the idea of a reward in heaven can suggest that, while things in our physical selves are being harmed, there are other dimensions beyond our immediate environment and our lives, including the possibility that maybe we are contributing towards that arc of history. 

Traditionally lines like that have been taken to mean ‘your life is going to be terrible, but one day you will get your reward in heaven’. But we can also conceive the possibility that things are changing right now because of what we’re going through. Right now good things may be happening, which might be within our spiritual selves, or it might be in the spiritual atmosphere that we are contributing to. There is a reward, there are good things coming to us in an unseen heavenly dimension right now, and not just in the future.

Craig

So that ends hopefully then, does it?

James

There’s part of me that says it’s not always about winning or losing. Sometimes we need to lose well as Christians. The way we respond counts because, as you say Roy, our reaction sometimes reverses things. It points back towards those who would seek to insult or do harm. So I think Jesus lost well. If anyone was persecuted, harmed and reviled, he was. He got all the way through his life and insults were still being hurled at him. Right at the end he’s still asking his father to forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing. In the eyes of the watching world he is the biggest loser. But boy, isn’t he losing well, only to be vindicated and justified according to the way he understands himself. And the present reality gave way to a different future. A future he knows he’s also part of.

Roy

Yes. And when he refers to the prophets, he’s not seeing them as helpless victims of their age. He sees how they’ve paved the way.

James

And he’s holding them up as prime examples for people to follow. Witnesses.

Craig

We’re all reading from the same playbook then, aren’t we?

Roy

My mind goes back to Northern Ireland. I think about some of the people who embraced suffering, who didn’t respond like-for-like. They are remembered. Maybe it will be similar in Ukraine. I’m not saying that this excuses the fact that people are suffering and dying, but how will the war be remembered?

Also the witness of the martyrs in New Testament times was eventually transformative. There is something about the Kingdom of God that comes through people taking this stance.

James

Well, it’s selfless, isn’t it? And it’s something to do with certainty. It’s willing the best for others. It’s love.

Roy

In the days of Cuthbert the monks actually went out into the plague villages and many of them lost their lives in caring for those who were sick and suffering. But the result was that more people were inspired by the lives of those saints. and actually signed up for the monastic way of life because they saw it as a life that reflected Christ.