Feb 19 2019 Agnes Tsao Kou Ying, Agatha Lin Zhao, & Lucy Yi Zhenmei

In addition to the regular daily prayers and psalms, throughout the year, there are commemorations of God’s people. Many are people I’ve heard of, like Martin Luther King. But some I’ve never heard of. As a tradition that believes that saints are all around us, and we too can be saints, I enjoy learning about those who the Church highlights. As the hymn says, “for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”.

These three ladies were canonized, or made saints by the Roman Catholic church in 2000. They all died in China in the 19th century, while bravely defending their faith. The first died in a small cage where she was locked up because she continued to profess her faith, and the last two were beheaded for refusing to deny their faith. To be clear, these women did not proselytize, didn’t organize great numbers for Christianity. What they did was held on to their own personal beliefs, in the face of death.

Wow. We in 21st Century America have probably never experienced quite this level of persecution. We haven’t been threatened with beheading for our Christ-following beliefs. The simple lack of threat has lulled us, I think, into a lackadaisical  faith. Almost apathetic.

Sure, we (mostly) believe what we say on Sunday mornings. Maybe we trip over some of the statements or tenants of our faith, but we recover quickly. Maybe we believe that we should seek and serve Christ in (almost) all people, or respect the dignity of (most) people. When we say these things, or realize the discrepancies between what we’ve said and what we actually believe, maybe we’re a little uncomfortable. Maybe we make a mental note to work on those things. But in most cases, these variances between what we say on Sundays and what we do – we see, we acknowledge, and we try to (mostly) address or at least understand. That’s the beauty of regularly going to church and professing our faith. We’re regularly faced with those growing edges of our faith.

But what strikes me this morning is that outside of Sunday morning, the other 90% of our waking hours, we regularly do not see the discrepancy between what we say we believe and what we do. These three ladies died because of their faith, the other 90% of the time.

In our days, how often do we see Christ’s love withheld, justice not spread, children of God suffering? When we see it, how often do we act versus walking by, deciding it’s not our job or not our business?  How often do we see this as an  affront to our faith?  Maybe we aren’t so far from the 19th Century persecuted Chinese women. We would be persecuted if we stood up and spoke out. Maybe that’s why we don’t.  Even though beheading isn’t a likely consequence, we don’t act on our faith. Sometimes we don’t even see the inconsistencies between what we say we believe, and what we see 90% of our life.

What if we watched for it?  What if we acted on it?  Without the threat of beheading, I’m not sure why I don’t more often. God, give me the grace to see  where my actions are not the same as my words 90% of the time, and give me the strength to stand up, and speak out. I want them to know I am Christian by my love, by my love. 100% of the time.