I discovered nearly thirty years ago that when clergy have nothing left to say about Christ, Christianity, or the Gospel and its relevance in contemporary life, they turn into politicians. Not in any obvious way, of course, but when you listen to a sermon that is mostly recycled talking points from one of the political parties, perhaps with a few references to God sprinkled into the text, you realize that the preacher has really just about shot his or her bolt when it comes to perspicacious spiritual commentary.
Similarly, when politicians get preachy, when they decide that they’ve become the moral voices of their society [don’t laugh, now], it seems clear that they’re either in political trouble or running for re-election. A few years ago, a prominent politician, who had promised that her party, when in power, would be the least corrupt in history, started to become remarkably “Christian” in her public speaking when it became obvious that her party had no intention of being any less corrupt than the former. Repeatedly, she would refer to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the “homeless family” whose needs would have been cared for by contemporary politicians. The irony, of course, is that the “homeless family” wasn’t homeless at all, but merely satisfying government bureaucracy, a census, by being forced to travel at great inconvenience to the birth city of Joseph. They actually had a perfectly good home in Nazareth and, if not for government requirement, Jesus would have been born indoors in his own family’s house.
So, it is with great caution that I approach a concern I currently have with a world situation, one that I think is under-reported and not entirely embraced by either church politicians or “churched” politicians. However, it is becoming apparent that the recent and dramatic changes in Middle Eastern politics, named the “Arab Spring” and “Facebook Revolution” by the more dewy-eyed members of the media, are creating difficult, outrageous, and impossible conditions in the lives of Middle Eastern Christians. Bombs detonate in Ethiopian churches during Christmas services; Christian women are taken from the streets in Egypt to be beaten or mutilated; members of Egypt’s Coptic Church are seeking asylum from persecution in other nations, especially the United States; Algerian Protestant churches are being closed by the government; Christians are immolated by mobs in Pakistan; anti-Christian violence continues to escalate in Iraq. Those of us who are not church leaders are beginning to find these circumstances more in need of address than the usual political boilerplate.
As there is no formal process of address, and as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has yet to make any cogent statement about these events [although, to be fair, her official website carries no more recent public statements than those from this past September], I find myself in that remarkable place inhabited by Christians aware of a great, even massive, injustice, yet without the wherewithal to address the circumstances politically. That means we will rely on the traditional power that we do have, which is that of prayer. However, as I recently stated in a sermon, “Sometimes prayer isn't simply sitting quietly where no one can hear you but God. The Baptist comes to mind this season, for example. Often it is forgotten that what he did by the Jordan was an act of prayer; defiant, raucous, red-blooded, and history-altering prayer.”
So, with that in mind, we will pray on Sundays, as part of our intercessions, for the Christians of the Middle East. I would also invite those interested in addressing this international situation to join with me in urging our diocesan bishop, who frequently enjoys world-hopping on church business, to aid us in organizing a more tangible program. We may also, through correspondence, see if the Presiding Bishop’s office is willing to use its influence with the White House to see that the considerable resources of our State Department might be employed to some effect.
But, in particular, reminded as we are that Christians in the Middle East live the same covenant and bear the same responsibilities to the Gospel as those of us in Roxbury, let us pray for our brothers and sisters-in-Christ, that God’s favor will deliver them from the all-too-familiar sins of tribalism, hatred, and mortal disregard, and that we may be empowered to act, too. As St. Francis once prayed, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.”