Never Surrender!

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C
Mal 3:19-20
2 Thes 3:7-12
Lk 21:5-19

We’ve surrendered. We’ve given up. We suffer persecution and do nothing. We aren’t even aware we’re being persecuted.

Some of the persecution we suffer is outright.

Go to the other side of the world, and we find Christians being tortured in China. Caught distributing Bibles, the police tied John's hands behind his back, stood him on a wooden box in the prison courtyard, and put a noose around his neck. For twelve days, John stood on the box. No rest, no food. His legs swelled to twice their size. Finally, delirious, John fell. Impressed with his faith, the guards cut him down, and he lived.

Other persecutions of Christians include selling women and children into slavery. In Sudan, to become a Christian brings a death sentence under Sudanese criminal laws against apostasy. Soldiers will raid a village, kill the men, then sell the women and children as slaves. One slave, a 17 year old boy, was nailed to a board by his master and left to die. Other times government forces will raid a Christian village, burn it and all the crops. Any who survive can only escape across the desert in 115 degree heat. Sudanese Christians live with daily danger of being persecuted.

We are truly persecuted for our faith today. Around the world Christians are still being martyred by the thousands. Pope John Paul II called the 20th century the “Century of the Martyrs”, with more Christians killed for their faith in the last 100 years than in all other years since Christ combined. We don’t see Christians martyred in America today, but in a way we’re all martyrs. The word martyr means “witness”, and while we don’t shed our blood for Christ, we still suffer pain. While we may not die for our faith, we may commit social suicide for giving our testimony.


We're the lucky ones. In our country, Christians do not have to worry about being killed or tortured or sold into slavery. But, don't think we are not persecuted. Just by more subtle persecutions.

There’s a lot of Catholic bashing going on today, and we’re blind to it. Some of it is because we’re the big kid on the block, and it’s the American way to take pot shots at large organizations, whether it’s the government, or Wal Mart, or the Catholic Church. But it seems that the last acceptable prejudice out there is anti-Catholicism. Our clergy are portrayed in movies and on television as either corrupt perverts or bumbling fools, but never with any respect. We’re annoyed to read that the Southern Baptist Convention shuns prayer with other Christians. Even pronouncing that Roman Catholics are not legitimate Christians. Any time our bishops speak out on a moral issue threatening us today they’re brushed off as part of the wacko religious fringe. How can they talk about morality after what they’ve done? You’d never hear people talking about the Jews or the Muslims the way they talk about us. And nobody says a word to defend us.

We’re persecuted by a law that states that it’s ok to rip a baby out of its mother’s womb because the right to make a choice is greater than the right to live. We’re persecuted by the fact that our tax dollars are used to fund Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the country, without our consent. We’re persecuted by a science that says it’s ok to manufacture fetuses and clones for medical research. We’re persecuted by the media that throws ever more graphic sex and violence at our senses, numbing us and making the bizarre seem ordinary.

Why don’t we speak up to give witness to the gospel? Is it because we’ve bought into the culture’s values ahead of our own? Is it because we want to fit in, to be liked, to not rock the boat? Is it because we’ve bought into the ideas of relativism? Who are we to tell other people how to act or how to live their lives? Whatever they want to do is ok with me as long as I don’t suffer because of it. Is it because we don’t want to be labeled alongside those “right wing Christian conservative wackos” who everyone seems to hate? “Traditional Family Values” has become a political hot button, but what about traditional gospel values? Why should we be ashamed of telling others about what our faith in Jesus Christ means to us? If the message of Jesus is one of compassion, love, and justice, why are so many opposed to it? Why isn’t being a Christian something to be proud of in our society?

For many years in this country Catholics were persecuted outright, denied jobs and homes and even attacked physically because of our religion. Well, now we’re 23% of the population, the largest single denomination in the country, and still we act as if we’re being oppressed. We cower in the shadows, and the only time the country hears from us is when there’s this scandal or that, or when we’re criticizing our own church. Where are the voices ringing out the gospel message of Jesus? We are called today to give testimony. Where is that testimony?

There’s a difference between standing up for what we believe, for bringing the message of Jesus Christ to the world, and forcing our beliefs on others. However, we seem to equate the two, so we don’t do either. Don’t you dare bring a bible to school or work because you might offend someone, but don’t dare limit what someone says or does on television because that would be squelching free speech. Freedom of religion has become freedom from religion.

We need to offend people more. Jesus’ message is offensive to the world because it rips the façades away and lays bare all evil. It exposes the false prophets and false gods to the light. It shows us what it truly means to be human, and it’s not about possessing the most stuff or having the biggest house or letting anyone do whatever they want to do. It’s about true freedom, freedom from sinfulness, freedom from attachments that distract us from what’s truly important. That’s why people hate us and our message. Because it hurts them to see how they really should live. It hurts them to see that they need to change their attitudes about things.

But we’ve surrendered. We’ve given up. We are overwhelmed by the images and messages around us and think we can’t make a difference. We’ve become desensitized by the sex and violence we see every day in the media, so much so that we’ve come to accept it, even promote it. Language that only a generation ago would never have been condoned in public is now commonplace. Traditional relationships have been thrown aside, and the acceptable, “normal” thing to do these days is not to get married and raise a family, but to shack up and hook up. I don’t know how our kids will ever get a healthy concept of relationships if all they see on TV is people jumping into bed ten minutes after meeting each other. We let every form of immoral behavior slide in the name of blind tolerance. Jesus tolerated people; he didn’t condone or tolerate their behavior. I wonder if Jesus saw the sin of the woman caught in adultery as just another “lifestyle choice”.

The messages are mixed, and the gospel is losing. Because we’ve given up. We have not persevered so our lives are not secure. We are afraid of the persecution we’ll experience if we stand up for Jesus. I’m afraid of the persecution I’ll suffer if I stand up for Jesus.

Today's gospel is indeed frightening. But it is not frightening for the reason some fundamentalists would give: the fear of the end. It is frightening because Jesus demands that we give witness, become martyrs, if we want to be saved. It is frightening because the Lord demands that we stand up for him, his kingdom and the Christian way of life in a materialistic, self-centered world. It is frightening because it demands that we accept grief from those who mock us. It is frightening because it proclaims that only by patient endurance can we be saved.

Jesus warned us that following him would require sacrifice. He warned us that it would not be easy. We will be called to give testimony, and we are called to be tireless in our struggle against evil. To be a Catholic today requires that we be a counter-cultural people. What a force for good we could be! We can’t give up, we mustn’t give up, because only by our perseverance will we secure our lives and the salvation of all humanity.