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The Seventh Sunday Of Easter
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Scripture citation(s): Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
✛
I Belong to Christ!
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A young boy, about 11 years old, sat under a tree in his Indonesian village. An older English woman[i] sat next to him, and listened as he quietly recounted the story of the camping trip his Sunday School class had recently taken into the bush. On the last day of their trip, as they began to return home on foot, the class was spotted by a band of Laskar Jihad militants patrolling the area.
Led by their Sunday School teacher, the class fled into a copse of trees hoping to evade the militants. Very near to the copse were some goat herders and the militants stopped to ask the shepherds if they had seen a group of children. The shepherds denied seeing anyone, and the militants departed. As it was growing late in the day, the students took shelter overnight in an abandoned Red Cross field station. The next morning, just as they were setting out for home, the militants returned.
They seized the teacher, wrapped him in the Sunday School banner and eviscerated him in front of the children. The leader of the militants threatened that if any one of the children did not deny Christ, the same would happen to them. This threat was met by silence from the children. So the leader pulled one boy out of the group and commanded him to deny Christ. When he said nothing, they chopped off his arm. This leader of men, crouching down, looked into the boy’s face and said, I don’t want to hurt you, deny Christ and we will let you go. The boy replied, But I am a soldier for Christ. So, the militants chopped off his other arm. Again, the leader told the boy that if he denied Christ his friends would live. The boy replied, I don’t know what else I can tell you. My life belongs to Christ. So the leader eviscerated the young boy and he died.
The shepherds, whom the militants questioned the day before, were seen to be driving their herd of goats towards this scene. When the militants caught sight of them, they simply got back in their truck and drove off. The class, aided by the shepherds, returned to their village without further incident.
The English woman, who sat under the tree listening as a child told her about a Sunday School camping trip, is a woman who has dedicated her life to documenting the plight of persecuted Christians in some of the world’s most troubled regions. She shared this story during an academic convocation when I was just a first year seminarian. Hearing it, and other accounts she shared with us, was a turning point in my vocation. I don’t really remember anymore what I thought being a priest was supposed to be about before that convocation, but whatever I thought before; it has never been the same afterwards. I have not forgotten that boy, nor have I wanted to forget him, who in the face of cold hatred, and hacked to pieces, preached a simple sermon with his life, What else can I tell you… I belong to Christ.
For that boy, without the luxury of a comfortable and vague religion that makes no demands on his person, confessing Christ was a life or death proposition. Attending Sunday School was a decision that could not have been taken lightly considering the consequences. The possibility of betraying Jesus, to whom many see as just one benign guru equal among many, was not an abstraction for him, but a matter that carried with it mortal, and eternal consequences. I suppose I could choose the luxury of a comfortable religion, but how can I avail myself of it in the face of a communion that I profess to share with that martyred brother of mine. How can I, who has been knit together with him in the communion of the Holy Spirit, exercise my vocation as a priest or a baptized Christian with a wink and a nod at anything that betrays Christ, and betrays that child’s sacrifice for the love of Christ? To do so, is to betray a brother that I will never know in this world, but also to betray Christ who prayed for me (and for you) on the night that he was betrayed and handed over to his enemies.
On that last night, Jesus sat at supper with his disciples. He ate a meal with them that would take on such significance that in it they experienced a communion, a sharing in common, not just of bread and wine, but the living presence of Christ that bound them together with God and with one another.
After supper was ended Jesus washed his disciple’s feet, and told them if they did not submit to this lesson of humble service, they could have no part in him, that communion would be broken. Then, Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he loved them. Then he began to pray the prayer that is our gospel reading today. It is the last word Jesus shares with all of them together before his crucifixion, excepting Judas who has already slipped off into the dark to his own betrayal of Jesus. In this prayer, Jesus prays not only for his disciples present with him, but for other believers not present. Readers, across the generations, like you and me, rightly read themselves into this prayer.
“I do not pray for these only,” says our Lord, “but also for those who believe in me through their word.” That is you and me— we are the fruit of the preaching of the Apostles, and your presence here is a testimony to the power of the Spirit working through the church to make disciples in all times and in all nations. Jesus continues praying that all of us will be united in the Father, just as Jesus and the Father are united. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me.”
But, never does Jesus make communion between God and believers, and amongst believers, an end in itself. He is not creating a closed circle, or an exclusive club. “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one… so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Our communion with God, and Christ and with one another must lead to mission, that emulates Jesus’ own mission to make God known. And to make him known at whatever cost to our comfort, our convictions or lack of them, or to our life. Our mission is to make God known in a hostile world.
That night at supper Jesus told his disciples, “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering some service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father.” John 16.2-3 But how will sinners, much less the enemies of Christ, both in the church, and outside the church ever know God, if disciples like you and me are not making him known? How will sinners ever be won over to the love of God, if disciples everywhere are not taking to heart Jesus’ prayer for them to be one, and to make God known? How are sinners going to be saved unless disciples, like you and me are so bound together in the Spirit, and filled with God’s love for his people, that we go out from here animated with an earnest zeal for God’s glory which for us is to live and speak with a resistless energy of love that will melt the hearts of sinners to the love of God?
Many years ago, I heard the true story of a boy who could think of nothing more worth saying than, I belong to Christ. And though separated by time, and geography, and even death, I heard his words, and my soul was converted. And I am lead to wonder what kind of lasting and gnawing effect that boy must have had on his killer. He did not meet hate with hate, or violence with violence, but spoke with a resistless energy of love that melted the heart of this sinner, anyway, to the love and service of God.
So, I wonder: Is God still being made known among us by fruitful disciples of Jesus?
Are we abiding in him in the midst of a hostile world?
Can we say, with all sincerity, “I belong to Christ!”
_______________
[i] For more information about this remarkable woman and the work she does, visit www.hart-uk.org
