*Sightings *5/17/10

— Martin E. Marty

Almost always *Sightings* takes off from a current text or image lifted from
news and opinion sources. This week our  ¢â‚¬Å“current ¢â‚¬  text is 1900 years old. It
happened that Sunday I was to engage in a moonlighting vocation, namely
preaching a sermon, something I ¢â‚¬â„¢ve enjoyed doing for sixty-two years. To
some, this activity in a sanctuary may seem to occur in a polar-opposite
locale from the  ¢â‚¬Å“Public Religion ¢â‚¬  sites that we ordinarily visit. However,
sanctuary acts are to relate to the public, and public acts have or can have
anchors in community and personal life. Those of us who are called to
preach on Lectionary  ¢â‚¬“ ecumenically-chosen biblical  ¢â‚¬“ texts often have to
take their chances. This week the seasonal text was from John 15:20-27,
read as farewell words of Jesus to disciples. Preachers everywhere are in
trouble almost right off. Jesus:  ¢â‚¬Å“If they persecuted me, they will
persecute you also. ¢â‚¬  While I have preached among the poor and suffering,
few were persecuted. More often the words fall on the ears of comfortable,
middle-class persons, or in the academies, people with pensions, good names,
often tenure, honorary degrees,  ¢â‚¬Å“Good Citizen ¢â‚¬  awards. Now what?  ¢â‚¬Å“They ¢â‚¬  *
did* persecute Jesus back then, and he promised like treatment for his
followers. Here the contortions begin.

Contemporaries in comfortable worlds go hunting for persecutees, and often
even place themselves in the mirrors, as being the hunted. These days the
whole concept of being persecuted gets trivialized. Forbid  ¢â‚¬Å“National Day of
Prayer ¢â‚¬  people from receiving demanded public space and time, and you will
hear moans and whines:  ¢â‚¬Å“They are persecuting us! ¢â‚¬  Tell that to the people
who are tortured and condemned for their religious, in this case Christian,
commitments and witness. Maybe some who cry  ¢â‚¬Å“Persecution! ¢â‚¬  do so not for
political reasons, as they seek to be empowered in their weakness and
humility. Better to punt and scoot past the verse I quoted to other really
rich and promising words in the  ¢â‚¬Å“Farewell Discourse. ¢â‚¬  But, then, is there
something to the point for moderns as they hear these words from a gospel?

Here is where contemporary relevance does come in. Monitoring newspapers,
newsletters, magazines, print-outs, and media stories and images, as we are
called to do, has us finding horror stories each week from around the world.
How many? It is hard to know, given the dispersal of two billion
Christians in two hundred lands, many of them suffering in silence,
unnoticed, as embarrassments to their enemies, or too insignificant to be
counted up. Yet we get clues, however they are gained and however widely
they vary. My favorite guess, or reckoning, appears in the *International
Bulletin of Missionary Research, *Volume 34, No. 1 of which appeared in
January.

The count?  ¢â‚¬Å“Average Christian Martyrs Per Year, ¢â‚¬  178,000 right now, 210,000
projected for 2025. Of course, as I read such figures annually and
occasionally ponder explanations about how computers help bring up such
figures  ¢â‚¬“ how can anyone know?  ¢â‚¬“ I indulge in the hermeneutics of suspicion.
What are the motives of the calculators, friends of martyrs, and
statisticians? Just as quickly as such questions come to mind, one does
well to postpone dealing with them and instead to think about what even one
such death means, what one harassed and stalked community suffers, what
motivation it should develop for people of good will in statecraft,
non-governmental organizations, and religious communities of all sorts, to
change circumstances, to bring the number down. 210,000 in 2025? That text
from John 17 still haunts.

Martin E. Marty’s biography, current projects, publications, and contact
information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty
Center
at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Attribution

Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author
of the column, *Sightings*, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
Chicago Divinity School.