1 Peter
May 29, 2011
I missed being here last week, though I did have a nice vacation. One thing I did on vacation that I don’t do in my “normal” life these days is I went to an honest to goodness movie in the honest to goodness movie theater. Now, I don’t get to do this often – I’m not completely blaming Lydia, but it’s all her fault – I don’t get to do this often, so given the chance, I decided I had to pick the perfect film. I spent days reading up on all the movies showing in all the movie theaters in Dubuque. In the end, I had it down to two movies. One was Bridesmaids, a popular, funny, movie that had pretty good reviews in general. It was probably the safe choice.
The other movie was a French film – subtitled. Definitely not as safe. But, it too had good reviews, and I was drawn in by the story line. The movie is called “Of Gods and Men,” and it is about French monks who live in a monastery in Algeria, right smack dab in the middle of a Muslim community in a Muslim country. The movie is based on a true story of this group of nine brothers.
It was in this movie I found my Easter person for today: Brother Christian. He was the prior of the monastery, the elected leader of the community. Actually, my Easter “person” this week is really all of the monks in the tiny Cistercian monastery called “Our Lady of Atlas.”
These Trappist monks lived in the Atlas mountains near Tibhirine in Algeria. They supported themselves by gardening and harvesting honey and selling it in the market. They lived in close relationship with the Muslim villagers to whom they offered medical care and assisted in a number of other ways. These villagers and the monks lived together in love and had deep respect for one another. They shared their lives, celebrations, hurts, and fears.
In 1992, a civil war broke out in Algeria between the Algerian government and extremist rebels, who called themselves Muslims, though their lives bore little resemblance to that of most Muslims faithful to the Koran. The villagers and the monks became caught between the government militia and the rebels.
On December 14, 1993, twelve Croatian Catholics known to the monks had their throats cut at a few kilometers from the monastery. A week later, on Christmas Eve, the monastery of Atlas was visited by six armed men from the mountain around 7:15 p.m. There was no bloodshed, but the visit was a turning point in the consciousness of the monks.
The leader of the armed group, Emir Sayah Attiya, was known as a terrorist and was responsible for the death of the twelve Croatian Catholics and, according to the security forces, had cut the throats of 145 people. His exchange with Brother Christian was extraordinary. Brother Christian, appealing to the Koran, told him that the monastery was a place of prayer where no arms had ever entered; he requested that their conversation take place outside the monastery. Attiya agreed to this. He presented to the monks three demands of cooperation. To each one Christian replied that it was not possible. Each time Attiya said, "You have no choice," but each time Christian replied, "Yes, we have a choice." Attiya left and as he was leaving Christian said: "You have come here armed, just as we are preparing to celebrate Christmas, the feast of the Prince of Peace." Attiya replied, "I am sorry, I did not know."
Though the men left that evening without violence, the monks knew they would return. They also knew that their friends who lived in the village were equally in danger. This sets up the basis of the movie: The monks have to decide whether to leave the area – a privilege they have because they are foreigners – or to stay and continue to be a part of the community they knew and loved – even if it put their lives at risk.
Brother Christian had arrived at Tibhirine in 1971, and most of the other brothers had been there for a while. Their lives as monks were pretty much as you would imagine: They worshipped many times a day, they chanted, sang, read scripture, ate meals together, worked, read, studied, prayed. They are a religious order, and they follow what is called the “Rule of St. Benedict.” This is a book of precepts for monks living communally. This Rule is known for cultivating tightly bonded communities and contemplative lives. It stresses moderation of speech, humility, worship, prayer, study, just distribution of things, care of sick, manual labor, hospitality, and obedience.
Much of the movie is dedicated to showing us the discernment process of the monks as they struggle with this life and death decision. Two days after the armed men stormed the monastery on Christmas Eve, a majority of the brothers favored immediate departure. Two days later, they agreed to a more gradual departure, so as not to abandon the villagers without warning.
The movie shows, in a most beautiful way, the next couple of months as the monks did what they had always done: they chanted the Psalms, they prayed, they ate meals together, gathered for sacred community discussion, worked, studied. But now, we can see how each of these things, so ordinary seeming in ordinary times, helps them decide to stay with the villagers who need them. In the end, they unanimously decided they should stay at the monastery.
These were ordinary men. They were afraid. They did not want to die. They certainly did not set out to be martyrs. They disagreed with one another. Many were frustrated at first with Brother Christian, who never thought they should leave. One of the monks struggled to find God – feeling abandoned and without guidance. But through all of this, they never ceased their practices. These practices formed them, shaped their faith and their thinking, encouraged them, and sustained them. Without them, I truly believe they would not have made the same decision.
The author of First Peter was writing to churches suffering religious persecution. Our passage begins with what seems like a rhetorical question: “Who will harm you if you are eager to do good?” Bad theology over the years has assumed the implied answer to this question is “no one.” But given the context of the people he was writing to, we know the answer is found in what the author writes next: “Even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.” Of course doing right is no guarantee against suffering. In fact, sometimes doing right can ensure your suffering. Most of us want to believe the bad theology – that if we do the right thing, we will be just fine. But one glance at Jesus’ life reminds us that path of a Christian can be difficult and certainly does not guarantee us an easy life free of suffering.
What the author is doing in this passage is telling people how to live when their faith brings on suffering. And it is no easy trick. “Do not fear…do not be intimidated” ?? Seriously? Terrorists are staring at you down the barrel of a gun – do not fear? Of course, fear is natural – but as the monks show us, what matters is that you don’t let the fear win.
In March of 1996, three years after the brothers first contemplated leaving, armed rebels forced their way into the monastery and, at gunpoint, kidnapped and killed seven monks, including Brother Christian – only two monks survived. Most of us probably have difficulty understanding the decision of the monks to stay, knowing this was not just a possible outcome, but a probable one. They didn’t have a death wish, nor did they see themselves as somehow Messiahs who were doing something extraordinary. They were a part of the community in Tibhirine. They loved their neighbors, they knew leaving would affect those who depended on them for care. They saw something more important than their own safety or even lives. It’s hard to understand, but it’s important for us to try and understand.
After the author of 1 Peter explains that suffering might be a part of faith, he asks them to “always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it in gentleness and reverence.” When we see someone like Brother Christian and the other monks of Lady of our Atlas, it’s hard to understand why they did what they did. The author of First Peter knows this will often be true when we look at the lives of Christians, because the life to which we are called is counter-cultural, and will look odd, even crazy, to those who don’t understand what gives us hope.
Because of this we need to be able to articulate our faith – not to justify ourselves, or prove we are “right”, but to offer to others a compelling vision of a world that is hard for most people to imagine. One where we love those who persecute us, love our enemies, chose nonviolence in the face of violence, live for something greater than ourselves, embrace and respect differences, and serve others before we serve ourselves. Articulating why you choose what you do, especially when it is counter-cultural, can be a witness to other people. It can draw other people into deeper faith and deeper commitment to live what they believe.
Brother Christian wrote a letter not long before his death, knowing that is was entirely possible he would be killed by one of these terrorists. It is a defense of the hope in him, and it is certainly full of gentleness and reverence.
“If it should happen one day - and it could be today -
that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf
all the foreigners living in Algeria,
I would like my community, my Church and my family
to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.
I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life
was not a stranger to this brutal departure.
I would ask them to pray for me:
for how could I be found worthy of such an offering?
I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones
which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity.
My life has no more value than any other.
Nor any less value.
In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood.
I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil
which seems to prevail so terribly in the world,
even in the evil which might blindly strike me down.
I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity
which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God
and of my fellow human beings,
and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.
I could not desire such a death.
It seems to me important to state this.
I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice
if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder.
It would be too high a price to pay
for what will perhaps be called, the "grace of martyrdom"
to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be,
especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.
I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately.
I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.
It is too easy to soothe one's conscience
by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists.
For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: it is a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, I think, in the light of what I have received from it.
I so often find there that true strand of the Gospel
which I learned at my mother's knee, my very first Church,
precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.
Obviously, my death will appear to confirm
those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic:
"Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!"
But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free.
This is what I shall be able to do, God willing:
immerse my gaze in that of the Father
to contemplate with him His children of Islam
just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ,
the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit
whose secret joy will always be to establish communion
and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.
For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs,
I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely
for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything.
In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on,
I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today,
and you, my friends of this place,
along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families,
You are the hundredfold granted as was promised!
And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a "GOD-BLESS" for you, too,
because in God's face I see yours.
May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.
AMEN ! INCHALLAH !”
I think sometimes we protestants disparage things like rote recitation, singing Psalms, reading the bible daily, saying ancient creeds, believing it is just going through the motions and using words that are stuck in the past and mean nothing to us now. But when I look at Catholic people like the sisters and brothers in religious orders, who live day in and day out doing rote recitation, I wonder if we aren’t missing something. It was hard to watch the movie and not get that the decision to remain at the monastery came in no small part because these words, the bible, the life of Jesus, and the articulation of the Christian faith were imbedded so deeply in each of them because of these Christian practices.
Like any religious tradition, it’s easy to find faults with the Catholic Church. But, I would argue, among the Christian traditions, it’s hard to beat the Catholics in terms of commitment to social justice, nonviolence, and caring for the poor, sick and vulnerable. The monks who lost their lives in the hills of Algeria were ordinary men of deep faith, formed by their simple, yet profound, daily practices. May we hear their defense of the hope that was in them, and make it our own. Amen.
