Faith Sacrifices & Risks

Active Faith through Trials

James 2:20–26 ESV

Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Intro:

Above the Abbey's Great West Door stand ten statues to modern martyrs - Christians who gave up their lives for their beliefs.

The martyrs are drawn from every continent and many Christian denominations and represent all who have been oppressed or persecuted for their faith. Among them are victims of Nazism, communism and religious prejudice in the 20th century. They are, from left to right:

St Maximilian Kolbe from Poland

Manche Masemola from South Africa

Janani Luwum from Uganda

Grand Duchess Elizabeth from Russia

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, a civil rights leader who was assassinated

St. Oscar Romero, Archbishop in El Salvador who was assassinated

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Germany, killed by the Nazis in 1945

Esther John from Pakistan

Lucian Tapiedi from Papua New Guinea

Wang Zhiming, a pastor killed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Although the statues are of individual martyrs they are intended to represent all those others who have died (and continue to die) in similar circumstances of oppression and persecution. Those represented were chosen by a Committee headed by the Sub Dean of the Abbey.

Quote from Sermon Series on the Martyrs:

“Martyrdom is not myth, it’s not for other people, it is the slow consequence of some accommodations and some acts of commitment mounting up until an identity is forged, named and known. It’s the consequence for those who live in a time and place and in a relationship and yet hear something else.”

The Example of Abraham

The Example of Rahab

Close:

Wang Zhiming-

In 1981 a memorial was erected in Wuding County, in the Yunnan region of China. It is the only monument known to commemorate a Christian killed in the Cultural Revolution.

At its foot may be found the words:

As the Scripture says of the Saints,

"They will rest from their labors for their deeds follow them."

Christian missionaries first settled in Yunnan towards the end of the nineteenth century and came to Wuding County in 1906. After the Communist revolution, the missionaries were expelled: Christianity was identified with imperialism. But the religion endured, despite the pressures of political campaigns and public discouragements. Christians who sought to reconcile the demands of their faith with the political requirements of their new state could find the experience harsh and taxing.

Between 1966 and 1976 the Cultural Revolution brought an onslaught against all that was ancient or venerated in Chinese life. The young Red Guards who led the campaign sought to break free of the past and to create a revolutionary society that was utterly new. Religion must be destroyed. Churches were closed and Christians were forced to meet secretly.

In the mid-1960s there were 2,795 Christians in Wuding county. Wang Zhiming lived among them as a pastor. Little is known of him. As a child, he was educated in mission schools, and then he taught as a member of staff in one of them for ten years. In 1944 he was elected chairman of the Sapushan Church Council in Wuding. In 1951 he was ordained. Wang showed his loyalty to the state. But he also refused to participate in denunciation meetings held to humiliate landlords or foment hatred against foreign powers.

Between 1969 and 1973 at least twenty-one Christian leaders in Wuding were interned. Some were intellectuals, other workers. Some were senior party officials. Many were sent to camps, were denounced or beaten. Muslims in the county were also persecuted. Wang Zhiming was known to be a critic of the atheistic campaigns of local Red Guards. In May 1969 he and other members of his family were arrested. Four years later he was condemned to death. He was by then an old man of sixty-six.

Wang Zhiming was executed on 29th December 1973 at a mass rally of more than 10,000 people. Immediately afterwards the crowd broke into confusion and the prosecuting official was assaulted by furious Christians there. The tumult is still widely remembered.

So what does that have to do with us today? Well, I would argue that each person on this list didn’t seek out to be martyrs. No one wakes up one day and says I want to die for my faith. But what each person on this list did do was live out their faith in a manner that had deep convictions and when they got put into situations where there faith was tested, they acted in a way that honored their faith, even to the point of death.

For us maybe the question isn’t have you faced persecution, because most likely all of us haven’t, but the better question is do you life out your faith in a manner to where if you did face persecution you would chose to live out your faith regardless of the consequences. Let’s be radical about our faith in a manner that prioritizes it over anything else.