Our readings this week are Hebrews 11.29-12.2 and Luke 12.49–56, and again they are pretty challenging.  Perhaps challenging to our expectations, though, more than our behaviours.  One common perception is that faith is a crutch, a way of making life easier. Some parts of the church go even further – there are denominations that shamelessly equate faith with prosperity.  If we take the scriptural witness seriously, though, particularly passages like those in front of us this week, those perceptions are not really options.

The author of Hebrews tells us that exemplary lives of faith (vv 35-38) are ones of torture, mocking, flogging, chains and imprisonment.  Perhaps being stoned to death, sawn in two, or killed by a sword.  A life of going about destitute, persecuted, tormented – wandering in deserts, mountains, and caves…  Sign me up! Right?

Even Jesus in the gospel reading this week highlights the challenge of his own experience as a man of faith as he walked a life towards the cross, ‘I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!’

Suffering and persecution as a core tenet of Christian faith can be easy for us to overlook, because – generally speaking – living a Christian life in 21st century rural Yorkshire isn’t that risky.  Yes, occasionally we may have to make a stand on a moral point here or there against the people we find around us, but generally that will just cost us a baffled look, or a sarcastic comment.  Not so for many people around the world.

One of the publications that drops through my letterbox is ‘Voice of Persecuted Christians’, produced by Release International.  They are a charity actively engaged in working with and alongside Christians who are persecuted for their faith across the world.  Its contents are not always an easy read – just flicking through the latest copy now, ‘Gideon Dawall, a Nigerian pastor whose wife and five children were killed when Fulani militants set fire to his property…’, ‘Nawab Bibi has to make a ten-hour trip to visit her husband in prison…’, ‘Victor was shot in the arm after refusing to deny Christ…’

We may not be actively persecuted for our faith, but we are part of a church that is, even today.  Perhaps that is where the other half of our readings comes into play.  The writer of Hebrews also tells us that a life of faith can be seen in those ‘who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.’ (vv33-34)

Jesus, again, is quite clear that the faith he peddled isn’t one to sit back quietly: ‘‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!’  I think he’s referring to the natural division that arises when those who follow him stand up against the systems and powers of this present age and confront them with their failings, and offer a different way of being.

If we have been granted a safe place in history on which to stand, should we not be using it to pull others to safety?  If we have the privilege of freedom of speech, should we not be crying out for freedom?

Perhaps we need to start praying more regularly for our persecuted brothers and sisters across the world - openly, privately, boldly, or quietly – because we can, and they need our prayers.  Release International is the charity whose mailing list I’m on, and their website offers regular prompts to pray for Christians across the world, as well as other resources.  (Other charities are, of course, available).  

So if your heart is stirred by their plight, get engaged – in learning, giving, praying, or lobbying – but let’s not live in ignorance or denial.