A Comfort to the Afflicted

We often think of Jesus’ beatitudes with a warm and glowing feeling, but when you really sit with them, they are troubling. They make us uncomfortable. They can even be hard to wrap our imaginations around. After all, we like the idea of being comforted and fed, especially when we are hungry and weeping, but the thought that the comfort we have in life might be taken away, that the privileges we enjoy might be a roadblock to us finding God’s blessedness discomforts.

But perhaps nothing is more concerning than the promise of being despised in the name of Christ.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”

It is a scary proposition, one that has long been difficult for us to imagine in the modern world. Because the reality is that here in Vancouver, if we talk about our faith, if we talk about what it means to be disciples of Christ, very little will come of it. Sure, it might cause a conversation to end, it might make people look at you askance, it might even lead to some questions from friends and acquaintances. But social awkwardness is about the worst we can imagine.

Feeling awkward or ashamed about our faith is not what Jesus is talking about here. That is not what it means to be despised in the name of Christ.

It was, however, an experience that was intimately familiar to the first Christians. They lived in small communities, linked together only by letters shuttled between them and visitations from the itinerant apostles. And these first Christians faced persecution for their faith. They were driven from jobs, excluded for their wider community. They faced rumour campaigns that accused them of great evils. And some of them were even put to death, killed by angry mobs or executed for sport by the Romans.

Jesus’ promise of blessing in the face of persecution was the most important of the beatitudes for the first Christians because their faith was too often a matter of life and death.

The thing is, this persecution did not end. Those who proclaim the Good News of Christ still find themselves despised to this day. It may not be the lived experience of most of us who call ourselves Christians, but it is still a present reality. We only need to look as far as the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor in the Lutheran Church in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party. Bonhoeffer, and a few others with him, stood in vocal opposition to the Nazi movement, and he was put to death for his convictions.

We can look to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States, who fought for the rights of people of colour and grounded his work in his deep faith. Though his work changed the lives of millions and redirected the trajectory of a country, Dr. King was assassinated by those who despised him and his gospel message. Similarly, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, a Christian whose belief in the gospel and whose conviction that apartheid must end led to him suffering in a jail cell for 27 years before tasting freedom again.

Lest we think that those sorts of things don’t happen anymore, we only need to look back to last month, when Bishop Mariann Budde preached to President Trump in Washington National Cathedral. In the wake of her sermon, a chorus of voices arose denouncing her words with the president himself calling her a “nasty woman.” She has received death threats, hate mail, and calls for her deportation. Even fellow clergy, some of my own colleagues, have hemmed and hawed and questioned whether her words were appropriate.

And for what? Because she called upon the president, in the name of God, to show mercy upon the people he served. To show mercy on trans adult and children, to show mercy on migrant workers and immigrants, to show mercy on the children who fear their families being torn apart, to show mercy on those fleeing war and persecution in their own lands.[1]

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“Woe to you when others speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

So often in the church, and if I’m being really honest, so often in the Anglican Church, we cling to the perception of respectability. As an institution, and too often among our ordained leadership, we are very reluctant to do anything, to say anything, that might be controversial, whether that is taking a stand on social issues or proclaiming the heart of the Gospel message. Above all else, we do not wish to rock the boat.

We do it because proclaiming the gospel is uncomfortable work. We cling to respectability because speaking truth is often lonely work. We do it because we believe that if we are respectable, then others will listen to us, and we will remain a valued part of society. So, we seek to be relevant to society by saying nothing important or prophetic.

But the trap of this way of thinking is that in the end, nothing we say or do will matter. We will no longer speak the words given by the Most High, the living God. Instead, we will have chosen to become another false prophet of a milquetoast deity that has no breath in it. We will be ignored and we will be forgotten because we will be irrelevant.

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As Jesus spoke these words, they were not addressed to a small group. They were not meant for only his closest followers. He addressed them to a great crowd of disciples as well as many others who had heard of his actions and his words. Jesus was not surrounded by great crowds because his words were comfortable, easy, or even respectable. People gathered around him because he spoke truth.

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Cheryl Mirabella had left the church when she was a young adult, and though she considered herself very spiritual, she had never felt that she was getting what she needed from the church. On January 21, Cheryl found herself watching a stream of Bishop Budde’s sermon quite by accident.

“I was so impressed by her kindness and her words, so I immediately went and downloaded her book (“How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith”) on Audible and … listened to the whole book while taking a solo trip down to Arches National Park in Moab,” Cheryl said. “I was so inspired by her and her words and her journey through life.”

The next Sunday, Cheryl went to her local Anglican church for the first time to see if it matched what she had seen and heard from Bishop Budde.

“The priest, a woman, got up and her first words were to welcome us … That felt really good,” Cheryl said. “What Jesus teaches us is not representative of what a lot of denominations are now.”[2]

So went the rest of the article, aptly titled, “Washington bishop’s plea to Trump inspires first-time visits to Episcopal Churches,” which was published a week after Bishop Budde’s sermon. It is filled with stories of people from all over the country seeking out an encounter with the church for the first time in the wake of the bishop’s words. Because in Bishop Budde’s sermon they glimpsed God’s truth, in her words they recognized a prophetic voice. And so they showed up in churches big and small, in towns and cities near and far, curious and hungry, because the people long for what is true.

And so too are we called to be prophetic in word and deed. In Christ’s words this morning we must hear the instruction to feed the hungry, to comfort the grieving, and to bring the good news of God’s Kingdom to the poor. We must hear Christ’s imperative to speak out for the immigrant and refugee, to advocate for the homeless and the addict, and to demand dignity for all God’s children.

And we must not shy away from Christ’s command to warn the comfortable and the powerful while people suffer in their midst, to hold our leaders—political and religious—accountable to the work Christ has given us. If we are faithful to Christ’s word, then we will be an affliction to the comfortable in order to comfort the afflicted.

And if we do not, then we will have failed in our discipleship. Or to take ownership of it as an ordained leader in the church: if my words do not, at least occasionally, trouble or scandalize, then I have failed in my calling as a priest.

Because this is what it means to be prophets of the true and living God and to be disciples of Christ, who was crucified and is risen. And when we are true to that work, when we are true to this call, then something amazing will happen. We will find that this work attracts those who seek truth into a deeper relationship with God and into discipleship with Christ. We will find that we are not alone, but surrounded by great crowds, because our words will matter and our actions will mean something. We will have followed in the footsteps of our Lord and will understand at last what it means to be blessed.

Preached by the Rev. Adam Yates

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[1] Budde, The Rt. Rev. Mariann, “A Service of Prayer for the Nation,” preached at Washington National Cathedral, 21 January 2025. https://cathedral.org/sermons/homily-a-service-of-prayer-for-the-nation/

[2] Korzman, Shireen and Melodie Woerman, “Washington bishop’s plea to Trump inspires first-time visits to Episocpal Churches,” Episcopal New Service, 29 January 2025. https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2025/01/29/washington-bishops-plea-to-trump-inspires-first-time-visits-to-episcopal-churches/