SUNDAY SERMON: What it means to be a true believer
IDPs leave a meeting at Kuresoi, Nakuru County, on September 16, 2013. Sixteen hundred years ago, Christians in Africa were suffering from something similar to the post-election violence we experienced in Kenya ten years ago. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | FILE
What you need to know:
- Sooner or later, all of us face a situation where we feel everything is going wrong. All our hopes for a comfortable life in this world are being shred to tatters.
- Whenever that happens, remember the words of sacred Scripture: “Though armies pitch camp outside my gate, my heart will not fear. Should they rise up in battle against me, in you, O Lord, will I trust.”
Sixteen hundred years ago, Christians in Africa were suffering from something similar to the post-election violence we experienced in Kenya ten years ago. Except in those days, as the Roman empire was disintegrating, no there was no Kofi Annan to bring peace to the warring factions.
The barbarians were invading and the empire had become too corrupt to deal with the invasion. In the midst of the social chaos, when murder and rape were becoming commonplace, one of the greatest preachers that ever lived in Africa gave a famous sermon on the “true believer”. Today we call him Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo.
“In this universal catastrophe, the suffering of Christians have tended to their moral improvement, because they viewed them with eyes of faith.” The saint here echoes the famous words from the Book Psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... Though I walk through the valley of darkness, no evil will I fear.”
St Augustine went on to explain the idea in more depth: “Both good and bad suffer. But do not assume there is little difference between the good and bad just because you see no difference in what both suffer. Despite the likeness of their suffering, the ones who suffer remain opposites. Though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing.
The same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke. Similarly, the same violence of affliction tests, purges and clarifies the good, but damns, ruins and destroys the wicked. The same affliction makes the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. Pay no attention to the ills that are suffered. Take note instead of what kind of man or woman suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench and ointment emits a fragrant odour.”
One could say God allows suffering because it is the most effective way of separating the wheat from the chaff. As St Paul urged the first pagans who converted to faith in Jesus: “We all have to experience many hardships before entering the kingdom of God.”
Sooner or later, all of us face a situation where we feel everything is going wrong. All our hopes for a comfortable life in this world are being shred to tatters. Whenever that happens, remember the words of sacred Scripture: “Though armies pitch camp outside my gate, my heart will not fear. Should they rise up in battle against me, in you, O Lord, will I trust.”
