The Libyan Martyrs: A Call to Martyrdom and Witness.

1 Cor 1:17-31

The Libyan Martyrs: A Call to Martyrdom and Witness.
A Homily Delivered at Evensong for Lent 1, 22 February, 2015

This month 21 men were martyred for the church.  

Their names were: 

Milad Makeen Zaky

Abanub Ayad Atiya

Maged Solaiman Shehata

Yusuf Shukry Yunan

Kirollos Shokry Fawzy

Bishoy Astafanus Kamel

Somaily Astafanus Kamel

Malak Ibrahim Sinweet

Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros

Girgis Milad Sinweet

Mina Fayez Aziz

Hany Abdelmesih Salib

Bishoy Adel Khalaf

Samuel Alham Wilson

Ezat Bishri Naseef

Loqa Nagaty

Gaber Munir Adly

Esam Badir Samir

Malak Farag Abram

Sameh Salah Faruq

and a worker from Awr village whose name remains unknown. 

These men were known Christians who had gone to Libya for work.  The so called Islamic State targeted them because they were Christians.  Their names were on a list because they were Christians. IS went and snatched them from their homes because they were Christians.  They took them to a beach on the Mediterranean Coast and then decapitated them because they were Christians.  The last words of many of them were Ya Rabbi Yasou “… O Lord Jesus.  

“For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we

preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness…But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” (1 Cor 1:22-3, 27-9)

As I stand here in this beautiful stone pulpit, worked diligently and faithfully by the hands of skilled artisans, in vestments wrought by the handiwork of deeply faith Christians from South Philadelphia and England to Toungoo in Myanmar, in a gorgeous brick church with Tiffany stained glass and beautiful Marianne Sloane murals, with a painstakingly carved limestone altar under a beautiful slate roof that so many here gave graciously of their hard earned livelihood to install I can’t help but feel as if I am woefully, painfully unworthy to stand here and confess the Gospel of Christ. 

Unworthy though I am, I can hope only channel the words of St. Paul, and point to those who have witnessed to Christ in far greater and braver ways than I. 

We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to jews, and foolishness to the Greek.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to confound the wise.

Truth be told, I don’t know what is more foolish than proclaiming one’s faith in Christ as Lord just before execution.  It isn’t as though that was going to stop the demons from IS from going through with their grim mission.  It isn’t as though saying that was going to grant them some reprieve.  It isn’t as if they thought that would spare them from their fate. 

And yet cry out they did.  And we now have 21 new saints of the church, to shame the wise, to reduce to nothing things that are.  

IS is many things, evil springs to mind, awful, heinous, demonic in the most literal sense… But they are powerful.  They control a great deal of land, oil, money, and weapons.  They are quite mighty.  But God chose what is weak in the world to confound the mighty, God chose what is foolish to confound the wise. 

It isn’t as if we didn’t know prior to these martyrings that IS was evil.  But God chose what was weak not only to confound the mighty, but to inspire others.  The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, says Tertullian, and the witness these men provided, proclaiming Christ even to the point of death, strengthens me in my own considerable weakness.  If those men, regular men, people who left their homes in search of work and a better life, if those weak, powerless, expatriated men can heap shame and scorn upon those who are strong and mighty, then why can’t I?

For all the mysticism around martyrdom, it is simply the Greek word for witness.  We may not all be called to take up our cross in a way quite so literal as these men did, but we are all, each and every single person here, called to be a martyr, to be a witness to Christ in the world.  We are called to proclaim a God who lowered himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.  We are called to name sins, both our own and those of society around us.  We are called to be visibly Christian in the world.

If these men can stand for something for Christ in the face of death itself, why am I so reluctant to cause myself discomfort or inconvenience?  If these men are willing to be proudly Christian in a land where being Christian is risky, why do I catch myself referring to “graduate school” instead of seminary?  If these men are willing to die for their faith in a hostile land, why do I not shout from the rooftops the salvation of Christ in a land more friendly to the Christian faith than nearly any on earth? 

More than that, why do I not call to account the mighty, and the “wise” when they defy the laws of God?  Why do I not struggle mightily to hold to account our community and our nation when we fail to keep God’s commandments  to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God… to feed the poor, welcome the foreigner, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners.”  My government will not kill me for being Christian, and yet I do not take the risks I know I should take. 

We need no more proof than this to know that St. Paul is speaking the truth when he says God chooses the weak and the foolish to confound and shame the mighty and wise.  Civis Romanus Sum, I am an American citizen, able to traverse the world knowing that my government and its most considerable might protect me. I live in the richest country on the planet, the most powerful state in history, and even my relatively humble life, by American Standards, would be a life of near unimaginable luxury to these men who went to Libya, a country torn by civil war and violence seeking work because their prospects at home were so bleak.  I am mighty, I am strong, and I stand here confounded and shamed by the witness of these men, these martyrs of the church. 

And what is even more shaming is the fact that it takes the martyrdom of these men to shame me when I know full well that there is one who has already been put to torture and martyred in ransom for my life, that it took this reminder to humble me when I celebrate at the altar each week the death and resurrection of our Lord.  That truth written nearly two thousand years ago is no less true today than it was when blessed Paul put his hand to that papyrus telling the church in Corinth that God will cast down the haughty so that those who glory may glory not in their own special, privileged place, not in their wealth, their power, their might, their wisdom, but in the Lord only.

Wednesday we began Lent by marking our heads with ashes, a symbol of repentance and of our own mortality.  To repent is to re-orient yourself towards God, to turn away from sin and temptation and to live more fully in the life into which God is calling you.  That there are people still dying for our faith is a reminder to me that there are many, many ways in which I need to repent, to reorient my life towards God, and I suspect the same is true for most people here.  I invite you therefore into a Holy Lent, that together we may confess and repent of all of our sins, that we may align ourselves with those who, in the name of God, confound the wise and the strong, and that, through our repentance and prayer, we may celebrate with joy the resurrection of our Lord and God’s final victory over sin and death. 

During this period of prayer and fasting, may we also give thanks to God for the lives and deaths of these 21 martyrs, these saints of the church, may we pray for their families, friends and loved ones, and may we pray for ourselves that we may better come to know Christ in order that we too may shame the wise and confound the mighty. 

And may their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

  

Homily for the Martyrs of Japan

Martyrs of Japan

https://liturgyandmusic.files.wordpress.com/2011/02
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Galatians 2:19-20
Mark 8:34-38
Psalm 116:1-8 or
Psalm 16:5-11

The 1500s was a time of incredible change.  The world was expanding rapidly, people were interacting for the first time, and European powers were beginning to trade with places they’d never known of before.  East Asia, South Asia, the Americas: There was a whole new world out there.  

During time, Francis Xavier, one of the first Jesuits, and some others set off for Japan.   It was, at that time, fertile mission field.  The people of Japan were receptive to Christianity, and the Shogunate welcomed them. 

The Christian Missionaries were welcomed for a couple of reasons.  The Shogunate appreciated the trade benefits that the missionaries brought; allowing the missionaries into the country greased the skids a bit for trade with Spain and Portugal, which was something they wanted.  Additionally, the missionaries and the church provided a check on the Buddhist monks. 

When we think of Buddhists these days, we tend to think of people like the Dali Lama, or perhaps a middle-aged hippy Uncle with a soul patch who treks off to California occasionally to “find himself.”  In reality, they can be quite a force to be reckoned with.  Even today in Myanmar, there are always roughly the same number of Buddhist monks as there are men in the Army, and the two provide a check on each other, not just morally, but in force.  In past uprisings and unrest, it has been the monks that have lead the protests, and in some cases, brutal violence.  The Shogun was more than happy to let in someone who would help check and reduce their power.

Eventually, though, the Shogun started worrying about Imperialism, and he wasn't wrong.  The Spanish especially did tend to send Christian Missionaries into countries partially to undermine the power of the “pagan” governments so that they could come in and take control as the rightful Christian rulers.  Eventually, the Shogunate found a trade ship with some arms on it, which was not kindly received.  They reacted,  well… poorly.  They cracked down on Christians, culminating in a battle where 30, 000 Christians faced off against 100,000 Samurai.  Though there was a great cost to the government, the Christians were crushed.

Japan sealed their borders, and effectively cut off in the early 1600s, and they would not open for more than 200 years.

The thing is, there were still many, many Christians in Japan.  And those Christians needed priests.  And Jesus called us to preach the Gospel in all parts of the world. 

And so priests snuck in and were smuggled in to provide sacramental ministry to the Christians who were in Japan.  Both those martyred at the beginning of the genocide and those who were caught during it faced horrific fates.  

On February 5th, 1597, twenty-six Christians were crucified in Nagasaki.  They were the first of thousands to be killed.  Wives and children of those who were martyred were also ordered to be killed. 

A ships captain who helped sneak two priests into the country who was himself Christian was caught and sentenced to be burned.  He preached on the scaffold before his execution and was ordered to stop.  He asked what greater pain they could inflict on him than they were already, and he continued to preach even as he burned.  His body and those of his officers who met the same fate were left for days where they were.  Christians tried to come and venerate the bodies and take relics, and they were beaten severely. 

Christians were crucified. They were hung upside down into cesspits with slits cut into their foreheads to relieve the pressure in their heads.  They were tied naked to stakes as the tide came in, left to either drown or freeze to death.  Many went to their death singing hymns of praise, on their way to paradise. 

Priest captured would be put where they could hear and see their flock captured with them.  If they did not recant and apostasize, their flock would be tortured and executed in front of them until they did.  Rather than torture and inflict pain, Christians were made to bear the suffering of others, taking on responsibility for the suffering and death of those they loved, a story as old as Christianity itself. 

The whole nation was divided into groups of three families.  If one family was found to be Christian and they were not turned in by o

ne of the two families they were paired with, all three families would be tortured and killed. 

There has perhaps at no point since the death of Christ, including during the Diocletian persecutions or the persecution of Nero, been a time when Christians were more literally forced to take up their cross and follow.  When we pray that God regard not our sins but the faith of the church, this is the faith to which we can only hope to attain. 

This faith in a good and loving God, and incarnate God, a God awash in love in the person of Jesus is all the more remarkable for allowing itself to be proclaimed in the face of forces that can only be described as satanic.

A comparable analogue today would be if priests were sneaking into Nineveh in territory controlled by the Islamic State and were ministering to the Christians there.  The threat they would be under is similar, and the need for Christian witness would be similar. That is the gravity of the situation in which these Christians found themselves. 

And yet, the faith continued.  The light of Christ was not extinguished.  When Japan opened its borders nearly 200 years after sealing itself off, families were found that had crosses and crucifixes carved into the back of their Buddha statues.  

And though there are nearly three times as many Catholics today in Philly as in Japan.  More Catholics in Philly than there are Christians of any stripe in Japan.  There are still Christians in Japan.   Even those forces of Darkness could not be overcome by the forces of Christ.

Though the teachings were imperfect, having been handed down for generations without access to training or clergy, the faith continued, the traditions were passed down, and the church did not fail.

The Persecution in Japan was the most successful, and it forced nearly all Christians to take up their cross and follow, but even in the face of that success, Christianity endured. 

We will never be asked to take up our cross like the martyrs of Japan.  We’ll never be asked to suffer in the same way they did.  But we can draw our inspiration from them, we can remember their witness during our own difficulty, we can be brave enough to share the Gospel with those we encounter.  We can strive to witness as they did.  And by doing so, we can honor the sacrifices they made while tied to stakes, awash in seawater, amidst the flames, hanging in cesspits, and bearing the suffering of others.

May we have even a portion of the bravery and faith those brave men and women had, to give up our lives, take up our crosses, and follow the risen Christ.