Who Cares? Series

[NOTE: The beginning of this sermon is referring to flooding that occurred where I live in western North Carolina.}

Wow! What a week, amen? Life can come at you from out of nowhere and turn on a dime, can’t it? Last Sunday we gathered here to worship and had no idea how our little corner of the world would be turned upside down, parts of it literally just washed away. What happened as the result of the floods was sudden … it was disastrous … devastating … and beautiful.

Beautiful? What could be beautiful about a flood? Nothing … if you’re talking about the flood itself but what is absolutely beautiful and has brought many a tear to my eye is the way that we have all pulled together to help the victims of the flood. The pastors and churches of this area were among the first to rise to the challenge. We began setting up food kitchens, places where people could take a shower. We’ve been working with local authorities to help clean up and find safe shelter for those who’ve lost their homes or all their belongings. The United Methodist Committee on Relief was here within days to help the relief effort. We all have stories to share of neighbors showing up with bulldozers or backhoes to help fix driveways. Efforts are underway to rebuild all the bridges that have been destroyed.

A lot has been done and a lot more needs to be done and I will do my best to keep you informed of all the projects that are going on and how we can help. No effort or contribution is too small. Your snack contribution for the rescue workers, for example, ended up filling the back of pick-up truck and then some. Do what you can and trust me … every little bit adds up.

One of the things that I noticed was the spirit of community that superseded politics. Neighbor helping neighbor … no matter what their political or religious affiliation is. Everyone just pitching in and helping. As Methodist, for example, we’ve been helping anyone who needs help … not just Methodists. In fact, that never crossed our minds, amen? To only help some and not others.

Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Right now we have another crisis … one that is international in scope … Afghanistan. The world has been watching the tragedy in Afghanistan in horror as people try to escape the expanding control of the Taliban. Here, politics has impeded and interfered with rescue efforts and the sad truth is that we can’t rescue everyone. We’re talking thousands and thousands of people here. Right now, our priority should be to get all the Americans out first … that seems obvious but for some reason that doesn’t seem to be happening … or maybe it is happening behind the scenes and we just don’t know about it … that’s possible. Given the Taliban’s deep resentment towards the “West,” I fear for our fellow Americans and don’t expect the Taliban to treat them with kid gloves, do you?

There’s another group that I fear will be persecuted by the Taliban … Christians … and my heart goes out to the martyrs and soon-to-be martyrs. According to Open Doors U.S.A., “Afghanistan is the second most dangerous place to be a Christian in the world today, just behind North Korea. Most of the Christians there converted from Islam” (www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2021/august/). “Right now we fear elimination,” one anonymous Afghani Christian told a Christian Broadcasting Network reporter, expressing his concern that the Taliban are going to eliminate the Christian population of Afghanistan. “Some of the believers are known in their communities; people know that they converted from Islam to Christianity, and they are considered apostates and the penalty for that is death. The Taliban are famous for carrying out that punishment,” the man told the CBN reporter. In another interview with a foreign national who has lived and worked in Afghanistan for the past 30 years, the man saw and experienced the brutality of the Taliban up close … and he fears that there will be a return to the days of regular executions, floggings, stoning, and hand chopping (www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2021/august/).

These brothers and sisters, I believe, are in even graver danger than our fellow Americans and the danger is high for both. We’re not sure how we are going to get our own out, let alone these overlooked Christians.

The fate of Afghani Christians is a potent reminder of how good we have it here in America. “More people have risked their lives to become Americans than to become citizens of any other country in the world” (Jeremiah, D. “Is This the End?” Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Pub. 2016; p. 95). I truly believe that there is a yearning in every human heart to be free and that yearning was put there by God. Our Founding Fathers recognized this yearning and its divine source when they wrote the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”