Beatitude: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
This is the beatitude that I am most nervous to speak about. I’m not nervous because it is a
topic that involves actual physical harm. I’m nervous because of all the beatitudes, this is the
one that is at most risk to be used in very self-righteous ways.
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”
That’s an extreme statement, but the idea is that when one person takes a bold action or
stands on principle, it inevitably goes against the values and principles of another. Think of
both liberal and conservative groups that protest various causes. Naturally, they encounter
opposition. Is this opposition always persecution as Jesus understands it?
Furthermore, not all consequences are persecution. The Apostle Peter recognized when he said
in 1 Peter 4:14-15:
“If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of
glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. But let none of you suffer as a
murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even a mischief maker.”
In other words, don’t go around excusing your bad behavior under the illusion of being
persecuted for your faith. If a person stands up to a bully, the bully can’t claim
persecution. If a person commits a crime or offends someone deeply, they can’t claim
persecution when they are called to account. And within the Christian community, if
someone is found to be in error, and is called to account and repentance, that person
cannot side-step the issue by claiming they are being persecuted.
Yet even that is not so clear. Take Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for example. He
deliberately broke laws to expose the injustice of racial discrimination. Some Christians
called him a rabble-rouser. Other Christians held him up as an example of being
persecuted in the spirit of the beatitudes. We can evaluate Rev. King with the benefit
of hindsight, but let’s not downplay the difficulty of making Christ-like ethical decisions
that have real-world consequences.
Nevertheless, Jesus speaks of persecution as a reality for Christian communities. He
says in John 15 that his disciples do not belong to the world. In other words, his
disciples won’t look and act like the people around them. And just as the cross was the
world’s verdict of rejection against Jesus, so too persecution is the world’s verdict of
rejection against the community that bears his name and follows in his ways.
Jesus says in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness
sake.” And therein lies the clue in determining between one man’s freedom fighter and
one man’s terrorist.
The phrase “for righteousness sake” adds some parameters around what Jesus has in
mind. Certainly, Jesus didn’t have in mind things like criminality, sin, and plain bad
behavior that is met with natural consequences.
The question we must ask is, what is the righteousness that Jesus has in mind?
Rejection for acting in the way of righteousness is the persecution that Jesus has in
mind.
We must understand this eighth beatitude in light of the first seven beatitudes. The first
seven beatitudes are an introduction to the righteousness of the kingdom of God that
Jesus came to announce. The rest of the Sermon on the Mount is where Jesus
elaborates on the righteousness of the kingdom. So if we want to know what “for
righteousness sake” means, all we have to do is read the rest of what Jesus is saying in
this section of scripture.
I have a poem by Mother Teresa hanging on my bulletin board. It’s called Anyway and
reads:
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
It may sound odd to say that attitudes like mercy, humility, meekness, hungering for
righteousness, and making peace would be persecuted, but it is true.
In the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about showing love to all, not taking
oaths, faithfulness in marriage, not worshiping money, and not putting on a religious
show. It sounds odd to say that these postures in life would be persecuted, but they can
be.
The Mennonite missionary and theologian John Driver comments on this by saying,
“Citizens of the kingdom which has come in Jesus suffer persecution at the hands of the
world because their radically different scale of values renders them intolerable.”
Intolerable is an interesting word.
When a community of people demonstrates the Kingdom of God in their life together, it
is a contrast to the world. This contrast is like a mirror that is held up for others. In that
mirrors others see their own rejection of God and their own lack of love for one
another. Seeing this reflection of the truth about themselves becomes so painful that
the response is to smash and reject the mirror because it is intolerable to look at
themselves as they really are.
Sometimes the mirror is held up to the world. Other times the mirror is held up to the
church, the very people of God themselves.
I’ve already mentioned the Rev. King. He and others with him held the mirror up to a
supposedly Christian nation for not living out the true meaning of its creed. He, and
others with him, were smashed by those who bore Christ’s name.
I also have a book on my shelf called The 21: A journey into the Land of the Coptic
Martyrs. It details the account of the 21 Coptic Christians who were rounded up by Isis
in Libya and brutally beheaded. The event was posted on YouTube for the world to see,
their persecutors thinking it would somehow benefit their cause. These faithful men
lived a simple Christian life as a minority in the midst of a militant and bastardized
version of Islam. Their witness held up a mirror to their oppressors, and they were
smashed.
There are many more examples; global events, national events, and even workplaces,
playgrounds, and neighborhoods. The world found Christ intolerable, and still finds him
intolerable today when they see his message proclaimed among his people.
Yet Jesus tells us to take heart in the midst of persecution. If we encounter persecution
for Jesus’ sake, then God sees our faith. And even if we encounter opposition as we
follow the way of Jesus, we are already a part of the Kingdom because Christ’s way is
the way of the kingdom.
A question we should all ask is, why did we sign up to follow Jesus in the first place?
Was it for health, wealth, and popularity? Or was it to get a glimpse of the Kingdom,
and experience renewal of life as God would have us?
Perhaps too many people think it’s the former, and perhaps the church hasn’t always
done a good job of preparing people that it could be the latter.
But for this, I am grateful for our Anabaptist heritage, which stands in a long line of
Christians throughout the ages were persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Their
stories bear witness to the true cost of discipleship and paint a vivid picture of what
carrying the cross meant for Jesus, for them, and for us as well.
Through it all, God does not leave us orphaned or abandoned. Christ because human
like us, and knows abandonment, persecution, betrayal, and struggle. He bears the
cross with us and for us so that we might be strengthened in our daily walk with him.
It is in this way that we can know true joy, peace, and fullness of life, even as we
encounter the struggles of life and faith. In this, we come to know the words of Paul who in
Romans 5 said:
“We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
May it be so in our lives, and in the church, for the glory of Christ and his Kingdom.
AMEN.
Joel Shenk is the pastor of Toledo Mennonite Church and lives in Toledo with his wife and two daughters. Originally from Scottdale, PA, Joel studied at Hesston College, Eastern Mennonite University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. He has been pastoring since 2010 and is also an amateur blacksmith apart of the RAW Tools disarming network turning guns into garden tools. He likes baseball and is an avid fly angler.
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