Preached at Diocesan House on 2 September 2010
1 Chronicles 22:11-13, Psalm 126, Saint Luke 12:4-12
For over twenty years as a priest, when I have celebrated the eucharists of martyrs or commemorated them, I have asked myself this question: “Would you, Howard, have done what they did to be martyred? Is your faith as great as theirs?”
If you know of a better way to be hard on yourself, please let me know. I always strive to improve.
But that isn’t the question—whether we would do what the martyrs did. The question is whether we will do those things that strengthen our identity as Christians while we live in a culture that tolerates all faiths and specially supports no faith in particular. That is the question. We do not have emperors who want us to worship them. Nor do we have non-Christians who will kill us when we are turned in to them, as was true of the Martyrs of New Guinea. But we do have a culture that grows indifferent to Christians and to people of faith generally.
Someone gave me a brief synopsis of a sermon recently. In it were the preacher’s three main points, which, if we do them, support our identity as Christians and keep before our eyes our mission as Christians. They are:
1. pray every day;
2. go to church every Sunday, and pray for the welfare of everyone there; and
3. once a month ask someone to come to church.
If we do these things, then, as the Psalmist asserts, “those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy” (Psalm 126:6).
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