Missionaries, Faithfulness and Safety
Mission security training sessions tend (in my
experience) to focus on practical ways of keeping the missionary and their
families safe; how to avoid unnecessary suffering, robbery, kidnapping, death
etc. This so that they can survive and be effective missionaries. Likewise, once
on the field, the security advisors monitor the wider situation, and determine
how missionaries should live, and when in a last resort, they need to be
evacuated. The security team at Murree Christian School often cancelled off
campus activities and we sometimes had full lockdowns.
The whole idea of taking reasonable precautions to
avoid unnecessary suffering can however too easily morph into a dangerous,
ministry destroying form of idolatry. As
well as teaching on avoiding unnecessary suffering, missions should also train
missionaries on how to determine when it is indeed necessary to suffer. The
practical cannot come at the expense of the spiritual. Our safety is not the
primary goal, otherwise we would not have gone (or become Christians) in the
first place. One somewhat jaded missionary in Pakistan once joked to me that
their motto should be “fear is my shepherd, I shall do nothing.” Another
mission repented of elevating safety into an idol.
The real question
must always be, how do we obey and glorify God in this situation? How do we use
it to advance the kingdom, how do we take this area of personal security also
captive to Christ? We are all commanded to take up our crosses and follow. To
go beyond the city gates and bear the shame and suffering with our Lord.
Paul’s
example gives practical help here. In Phillipi, he chooses to undergo severe
flogging and imprisonment rather than immediately claiming his privilege as a
Roman citizen. Having witnessed to Jews and delivered
a slave girl, what message does it convey if, at the first sign of trouble, he
flashes his Roman citizenship and avoids suffering? Lydia suddenly wonders if
this gospel is only for Romans, the slave girl realizes that it clearly isn't
for the likes of her. Paul's first instinct when in trouble is not to use his Roman
citizenship, it is to identify with those he is witnessing to.
Do our actions proclaim the surpassing worth of heavenly citizenship, or
when times are hard, do they proclaim the glory of Australian citizenship? What
do our actions tell the local believers, the very people we are there to serve?
Do they show that Christianity in Pakistan etc., is only an option for people
with foreign passports, who can thereby avoid persecution, or do they show that
it is ok to suffer for the name? A good friend told us how local Pakistani
believers told them; "when things get hard, you missionaries leave but we
Pakistani believers have to stay." At their most visceral, our actions
declare what it is we truly trust in. Paul was prepared to take a severe
beating, stocks and jail so we would know it was alright to suffer for the
Name. His first concern was not for his own safety, it was for what was best
for the Gospel and for us. It was his pastoral heart which dictated his
actions. What about today? What do our actions teach?
Paul knows that suffering is part of the Christian walk. And this the
Philippians need to know also from day one. They need to know and accept the
cost of following the crucified. Paul, it seems to me, is very cautious about
claiming privileges on account of his Roman citizenship. Like James, he is
innately distrustful of any human distinctions within the body of Christ. The
Gospel is for all, not just for people with a special citizenship. As he will
later write to them,
Philippians 1:29-30; "For to you it is given on behalf of Christ
not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same
conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me."
Paul bases this part of his letter to them in the
fact that they indeed saw him bashed and jailed for the Gospel, and now again
have heard of his imprisonment. He can therefore write to them in their time of
suffering, encouraging them from his own testimony amongst them. I like the
quote; "your comfort and security are not our first priority." Our
risen Lord tells Peter to feed his sheep, and them tells him by what death he
will glorify God. There are times when we also must model the way of suffering
for those around us. We are called to set an example to others around us, that
they might learn how to live by imitating us (1 Corinthians 4:16, 11:1 Philippians 3:17, Titus 2:7).
Think of the example Adoniram Judson set the church in Burma, a
church still undergoing extreme persecution. From day one they knew the calling
involved suffering, and that it was worth suffering for. How different if he
had simply used his passport, his earthly privilege, and left.
Philippians 1:12-14 is incredibly important! The
passage shines with Paul's priorities. How would our actions be perceived by
others. Would they be helped or hindered by what they might reasonably assume
our underlying motives to be? This is precisely Paul's concern about the weak
and the strong. “How are your actions perceived by the weaker members of your
community, do your actions help or hinder their walk with God?" (This is a
question the Insider Movement has completely failed to adequately address.) Clearly,
however, Paul has conducted himself so that his actions do cause others to
glorify God. Had he simply used his earthly citizenship to escape persecution
or death, how would that have emboldened others to preach the Gospel? If
anything, it would have glorified his Roman citizenship rather than his
faith! Rather, all, both inside and outside the church know that he has
used his citizenship in order to advance the Gospel, even at the cost of going
to jail, and indeed, to his eventual death. His suffering is voluntary, and
shows he regards Jesus as more precious than life itself. Do we also concern
over how our actions will be perceived by others? May we use our citizenship to
likewise advance the Gospel and glorify God, not our western passports! Equally, does our use of our privilege model for the local church as to
how personal privilege is to be used in the Kingdom?
There are clearly
times when the Christian is called to flee.
Jesus says, “When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.” The
early church is scattered, Paul escapes from Damascus in a basket etc.
There are other
times when we are called upon to endure suffering. Jesus is also very clear
about this. “The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for
the sheep.” Many years on the mission field have provided numerous examples of
missionaries who obeyed the security advice to leave, and then found that in
doing so they had destroyed their ministry. The effect upon the local church
(one of the main reasons they were there) was profoundly negative, yet rarely
factored into the calculations made to withdraw them. In one case, our expat pastor was well loved and integrated into the
society when, on the eve of war, his embassy told him he and his family were on
a terrorist hit list and advised him to go. He was due holiday leave, so they
went away for six weeks. After they returned, they never regained the closeness
like before, and they left permanently within the year. Other expats who stayed
remembered how random locals would come up to them in the streets and say “we
will never forget this.”
On the bright side, a family in Peshawar once told
me that when they first went there, they had several red lines, the crossing of
any of them meaning they would leave. The husband then commented, "you
know, every red line we had has now been crossed, and we are still here." When
an Afghani friend who was a convert from Islam received death threats to him
and his family, another friend, a missionary, went and spent the night with them.
He thought maybe his western passport might offer them some protection, and
otherwise, was ready to die with them.
I recently spoke with this Afghani friend and he said
when missionaries leave when times get tough, the local Christians feel like
they don’t matter, that the missionaries regard their lives as being more
important. Jesus calls us to be servants to lay down our lives for one another,
and in so doing, proclaim our love and his worth to the world.
How about us? When danger threatens, is our first concern for the Gospel
and for the local church? Are our actions dictated by our pastoral concern for
those we had come to minister to? Do our actions encourage them to "speak
the word of God more courageously and fearlessly"? Where did they show our
ultimate trust lay? Do they proclaim Jesus as Lord? We desire to be an example
and inspiration to the local church in this area as well.
So, when is it right to leave, when is it right to
stay?
Paul shows there are also times when it is right to be rescued by
foreign forces from a life-threatening situation, so we can proclaim the gospel
elsewhere (Acts 23:11). Paul escapes from Jerusalem in order to preach in chains in Rome, where
he will also die.
We
can all be tempted/deceived into trusting our citizenship and
prioritizing our safety. We need to pray for lives that confront and puzzle the world around us. Ways which can
only be explained by, and thereby proclaim God's love for the lost and the
worth of His Son. Moses refused to claim his privileges as son of Pharaoh’s
daughter, choosing rather to suffer with God’s people. “He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of
greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his
reward.”
Let us continue to see how we can use the privileges God has given us to
bless others, rather than ourselves, to seek God's kingdom rather than our
safety and to proclaim that our faith is in our God rather than in our
nationality.
