Traveling in Europe last fall, we came to one small town where there were three small square brass labels in the stone sidewalk, just outside the thresh-hold of one front door. It marked where a Jewish man, his daughter, and grand-daughter had lived, They gave the dates the three were taken away, and the dates they died in the Holocaust.
It was a reminder that evil triumphs when good people are too silent!
While a student, I had a chance to meet and to hear Pastor Martin Niemoller, an opponent of Hitler and his plan to finance the German church, thus intending to silence any word about justice for all people. Speaking about the beginning of the terrible times, Niemoller said:
“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I didn't speak up, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me ... and by that time, there was no one left to stand up for me.”
He survived, because they came for him very late in the conflict. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a colleague of his, was hanged just days before the liberation of Berlin. Feeling such guilt over his silence in the face of Hitler, Niemoller became a ferocious combatant against Communism in East Germany. He was never silent again in the face of oppression for any of God's people
The parable in this? If you live like Jesus, you tend to say some of the same things the grown-up Jesus said! That means you often find yourself an advocate for the poor, the outcast, the whole "lower rung" of society. (Every society defines a lower rung, and it's pretty easy to find Jesus there!) Some folks were (and are) greatly angered by Jesus' care for the poor; but then you know the rest of the story. It was (and is) a hard, hard world to which God sent the angels to sing!
Is this ancient stuff? Not at all. It is current events with Jesus, every day.
Blessings.
No comments:
Post a Comment