Summary
“But who do you say that I am?”
Jesus asked this question of his disciples during his ministry. Yet, it is not a question that only those who shared his dusty road heard, but billions more have heard it as well. I think it is a question aimed at each of Jesus’ disciples throughout the millennia, including you and me today. Each of us needs to become still, and truly listen for Jesus’ voice asking us this most important of questions, “But, who do you say that I am?”
As I think of this question, I think that the answer that Jesus is seeking, is not so much a verbal answer, like, “The Messiah! Or, my Savior! Or, God.” Which are all correct answers of course, but rather, I think what Jesus is seeking, is how are we going to answer that question with our lives? What does the answer mean, for me?
If I, like Peter in today’s gospel answer, “You are the Messiah.” Am I just stating a fact of my belief, or does Jesus being the Messiah, and my Savior mean something more to me? Does my answer to Jesus’ question mean something in regards to the way that I live my life? Can the world see in the way that I live my life, how I have answered Jesus’ question? I hope so.
This past week I listened to someone whose answer to that question, was very evident to me. This past Wednesday evening I attended the ceremony awarding this year’s Stefanus’ Prize. The Stefanus Prize is given out every second year to a person, or persons who are working to protect the rights and lives of persecuted religious minorities somewhere in the world. The prize is awarded by the Christian NGO Stefanus Alliansen, whose 50th anniversary we celebrated in February of 2017 right here at the ALC.
For those who do not know the history, I think it is important to give this story some context. During the Cold War, in the early sixties, a group of Norwegian Christians purchased the freedom of an imprisoned Romanian pastor and his family. The Reverend Richard Wurmbrand had been imprisoned off-and-on for seventeen years in Communist Romania for preaching and working to spread the gospel. Upon being freed Wurmbrand was brought to Norway right before Christmas and he and his family ended up finding the American Lutheran Congregation and attended worship, here in this sanctuary. At the end of their first morning here, the ALC’s pastor asked member Jill Holby if she would invite the Wurmbrand’s home for cake and coffee. That afternoon Wurmbrand proposed to Jill that she start a ministry to reach out to the persecuted Christians living in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Jill kindly said she could not, but she introduced him to a friend of hers, who became the founder of, Ministry Behind the Iron Curtain. The ministry has grown and changed, and is now named after the first Christian martyr, Stephen and is called, The Stephen Alliance, or more properly, Stefanusalliansen. The ALC and Stefanus have a special connection.
So, I was not surprised to be invited to this prize ceremony, but I had not gone prepared to be touched by the witness of these two Iraqi men who received the prize, one a Christian and the other a Muslim.
Father Ameer Jaje is a Roman Catholic priest of the Dominican order. He has lived his life as a part of the ever shrinking Iraqi Christian community, and Saad Saloum a Sunni Muslim has a heart for the oppressed of his country.
I learned that these two men were founding members of the Iraqi Council for Interfaith Dialogue. This group tries to simultaneously implement changes to the Iraqi constitution to protect religious minorities, while also creating opportunities on the grass-roots level to foster dialogue and create positive relationships between the varying peoples of Iraq.
Anyone who has cared, has read and heard over the last two decades of the struggles between the Shi’a and Sunn’i Muslims in Iraq, a struggle that came to a head with the advent and expansion of the extremist Sunni group, the Islamic State. Though one of the primary targets of ISIS was the Shi’a population, that conflict boiled over into relations between those two Islamic sects and the various Christian churches, and other religious minorities, like the Yazidis, Zoroastrians, and omores.
Perhaps you remember the Iraqi Yazidi community that was being targeted for genocide by ISIS a few years ago. The Yazidi’s had to flee up a mountain, and only survived because of the willingness of the Kurds to help rescue them, with the aid of Allied arial support. Well, the same reality has been true of the other minority religious communities, over the last couple of decades in Iraq, but especially in the last few years.
Mr. Saloum as a member of a majority community has gone above and beyond what he needed to, and has worked diligently and tirelessly to save these communities within Iraq, even to the point of being threatened.
But, it is Father Ameer, as a Christian, and a member of the small Roman Catholic church in Iraq who has answered Jesus’ question so forcefully by his public actions, and the sharing of his thoughts and beliefs, both in writing and in speech, who has shown the world that he believes Jesus is the Messiah of the world. By putting his life on the line to try and stand up for his Christian sisters and brothers, and the other persecuted ones. He lives what he believes.
Father Amir in an interview shared, “In Iraq obviously, Christians have been persecuted because Fundamentalist Islamists have plans to empty Iraq of Christians. They talk about “purifying” Iraq and all the Middle East of all that is not Islam. The reality of this is that, the number of Christians has reduced greatly. Some Christians see themselves as the Jews who were once numerous but are very few now. In the same vain, some Muslims will say, “Today is Saturday and tomorrow will be Sunday” (meaning, today it’s the turn of the Jews and tomorrow, it will be the turn of the Christians). However, some Muslims think otherwise. In Iraq where I live, some Muslims say to me, “You are the flowers in our garden, if you leave, you will leave our gardens with no flowers”. This group of Muslims just want a peaceful coexistence with Christians because it has always been like that. But the Fundamentalists always seek to frighten and terrorise Christians to force them to flee.
I maybe too optimistic but it is my hope that Iraq will never be emptied of Christians. There are Christians who are convinced of their mission, of their vocation in those countries and they want to stay even at the expense of their lives. I know many Iraqi Christians who would say; “Even if I die, it does not matter! My death will be a witness”. So they do not want to leave and it is because of that, despite the fact that many Christians have left, I think that Iraq will never be emptied of Christians.”
Father Amir has truly shown the world his answer to Jesus question, by picking up his cross, and following Jesus, ready to lose his life for Jesus’ sake and that of the gospel.
Jesus says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for that of his friend.” I hope Father Amir never needs to do that, but I know he is ready, for he is living out his answer in the lives of all those who are persecuted, by giving Jesus’ love to each person whom he meets.
Who do you say that Jesus is? What does that mean for you? Can the world even notice that you have answered the question?
Amen.
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