Showing posts with label Persecution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Persecution. Show all posts

Nov 10, 2016

Attack on All Saints Sunday

Three of four padlocks added to this door.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.   Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Mathew 5:11-12 (ESV)

These words from the Gospel appointed for All Saints Day proved particularly significant for us on November 6, the Sunday after All Saints Day. We knew that our building project would attract attention, perhaps not all of it welcome. Many people wondered where the money for the construction came from, and we explained to all that we had received donations from individuals, congregations and societies interested in the growth of our mission. Nevertheless, we knew there was the risk of a robbery attempt as there would be those who would not understand that the funds for the building did not come from a stash of cash under our mattress. But we were not prepared for the brutality and malevolence of what occurred.

Before sunrise, five men armed with pistols and knives forced their way into our home. First they threw poisoned chicken over the wall to kill our dogs (our remaining cat ate of the poisoned meat and died, too). I felt worse about this later when we learned they poisoned all the dogs on our block to eliminate any alarms. It soon became clear that we were not the random target of desperate people seeking money. Several times they threatened to torture me (by cutting off my fingers and toes) and kill me. Ostensibly they wanted to know where I kept my stash of U.S. dollars (which does not exist). But underlying that motive was a desire to intimidate and humiliate me on a personal level. After they had gathered all the money and items of value that we had in the house, they bound, gagged and blindfolded me. Before they left, at least one of them urinated on my alb. Based on these actions and many of their remarks, I have to say that this was not simply a robbery, but an expression of hatred and contempt for our mission and what it represents.

Where does this hatred and contempt come from? One could talk about the current political and economic situation: the shortages of food and medicine, the skyrocketing inflation, and the rising level of street crime. You could seek to explain the proximate causes of these things. But something more underlies this opposition to our efforts to help people and offer them the hope of eternal life in Christ.

Our Lord warns His discipĺes thus in John 15:18-22, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.   If I had not come and spoken to them,  they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." 

St. Paul exorcised a slave girl possessed by an unclean spirit, and that angered her owners because they profited from her as a medium or "channeler" (Acts 16). The silversmiths of Athens  staged a riot against St. Paul, because he preached that it was no use praying to silver figurines and that threatened their business (Acts 19). Here in Venezuela there are those who profit from the growing social disorder and the spiritual darkness. We tell young people that there is a better future for them than lives of drug abuse, sexual promiscuity and petty crime. There are those who would rather see them enslaved by those things.

Thanks be to God that, although we lost some material possessions, we now are safe and sound (although now we are taking additional measures to secure our home). When I first arrived in La Caramuca, there was no fence enclosing the property. Now we are talking about installing a security camera system and an electrical fence around the perimeter of the property. We are concerned not only for our own safety, but also the safety of those who seek shelter with us.

The Gospel reading above offers Christians comfort in the face of persecution, "for your reward is great in heaven." Later that afternoon we observed All Saints Day in the Divine Service. I had a gun pointed to my head and was asked, “Are you prepared to die?” By the grace of God I was able to answer, “Yes”. For that reason, our epistle lesson, Revelation 7:2-17, also resonated with me. “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sits on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”.

Apr 23, 2015

Our time has come

Ascension Lutheran Church
Ascension Lutheran Church

Our mission is affiliated with the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, a national church-body with only 15 congregations scattered from one end of the country to the other, and a total of 930 baptized members in a nation of 30 million people. The national church has requested prayers for one of its largest congregations, Ascension Lutheran Church of San Felix de Guayana in eastern Venezuela.

The city of San Felix is located on one side of the Orinoco and Caroni rivers with the city of Puerto Ordaz on the other. Much like Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, the two communities form one metropolitan area, known as Ciudad Guayana, which constitutes the sixth-largest city in Venezuela.
Pastor Elias Lozano
Pastor Elias Lozano

Ascension Lutheran Church has been nestled on the same hillside property for more than 40 years. Now an agency of municipal government wants to seize all of the land and destroy all of the exisiting buidlings, including the church itself and the house where Pastor Elias Lozano and his family live.

Ostensibly, this is for the purpose of constructing a housing project.   Of course, this action demonstrates appalling disregard for a house of prayer and the fundamental rights of the people who gather for worship there. But anyone who has paid attention to international headlines can sense that this is part of a trend toward diminished priority placed on religious liberty around the world, even in the United States.

Perhaps one might ask how you can compare unjust confiscation of property with the beheading, burning and crucifixion of Christians in the Middle East and other places? Because once the basic principle of freedom of religion is undermined, it is only a matter of time before violent persecution of religious dissidents follows. As Christians, we recognize that the impulse for persecution, no matter how mild it may seem in the beginning, or how severe it may become, stems from the same spiritual source.

 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.   And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor Me." John 16: 1-3 ESV
Worship at Ascension Lutheran Church.
Worship at Ascension Lutheran Church.

Jesus repeatedly told His disciples that His hour would come, the time when He would suffer and die on the cross to atone for the sins of the world, before rising from the dead on the third day. In these verses from the Gospel of John, He warns them that their time will come, when they will suffer and even die for the sake of their faith. Jesus both warned His disciples of persecution and hatred, and gave them encouragement that all these things would happen in accordance with God’s counsel and will or by His permission. The hatred of the world, of the children of unbelief, would be shown in various forms or degrees. First would come ostracism by their fellow Jews and denial of the right to public worship. But bigotry and hatred against Christ and His followers would not be satisfied with such measures, but would not even shrink back from murder as a work of great merit and well pleasing to God. These words have been and are being fulfilled continually.

St. Paul repeated this warning in 2 Timothy 3: 12-13, "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. " All who truly are eager to live a life of godliness in Christ, through the power which He imparts, all believers that give evidence of their faith in Christ in a life that accords with the will of God, must bear also the cross of Christ, whether in the form of ridicule and ostracism, or actual martyrdom.

The early Christians first earned the wrath of others of Jewish background who did not believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior because He did not meet their expectations of a superhero who would overthrow the hated Roman Empire and restore Israel to its ancient glory. As the Gospel spread throughout the wider Greco-Roman world, Christians were persecuted by those who personally profited from idolatry (Acts 16: 16-24; 19: 23-41) and those who feared that exclusive worship of just one God would anger rival deities and thus bring down all kinds of misfortune on the people. In Acts 17: 16-34, St. Paul noted that ancient Athens had altars dedicated to all the known gods and goddesses of the Mediterranean world, plus one to "the unknown god", just in case there was one that they had overlooked.

Finally the early Church faced a series of systematic campaigns to "stamp out" Christianity from the highest levels of Roman government. The problem here was the refusal of Christians to participate in even token worship of the Roman emperor, for they believed such absolute devotion belonged to God alone. But the Church endured these onslaughts and by the end of the fourth century A.D., Christianity had become the majority religion of the Roman Empire.

In the centuries that followed, the militant religion of Islam became the most visible threat to the lives and liberty of Christians. Even within "Christian" lands, those who stood up for the pure Word of the Scriptures against the over-reaching authority of the institutional church and the civil goverment often became targets of violent persecution.

And so it remains to this day and until the Lord returns in glory. I was blessed by God to grow up in a country with one of the highest standards of religious liberty in the world and in history. But recent events have shown that even those of us who have enjoyed this privilege should not take it for granted.

So let us pray for the liberty of Christians in Venezuela, the United States and China, and the very lives of those in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Let us rejoice that the Lord is with us always, even to the close of the age. Amen.