Majoring in Christianity: The School of Communication
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
September 29, 2007
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Ephesians 1:20-23; John 8:25-32

Jeremiah 1:4-10. Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a boy'; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD." Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, "Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."

Ephesians 1:20-23. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

John 8:25-32. They said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him." They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him." As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

A call to Christian vocation is not limited to the clergy alone.   Every Christian is called to Christian service.   It is our calling to find ways to make whatever work we do work that serves the Kingdom of God.   In this sermon series, we explore ways in which the careers for which you are preparing can be Christian vocations.   Tonight we continue with the School of Communication.

There is an old line about preaching.   It is said that good preaching is meant to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."   That is, the Gospel message is meant to bring comfort to those who are suffering--to the disenfranchised, to the marginalized, the poor.   At the same time, it is meant to challenge those who are comfortable--those in power, the rich, the privileged.   It is a message that says at once

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God;
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh." (Luke 6:20-21)

And at the same time:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.   Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.   Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep." (Luke 6:24-26)

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable is what the heart of the Gospel message is all about.

Interestingly, the phrase was not first uttered about the clergy, or the gospel, or even the church.   The phrase was first uttered about newspapers. [1]

Now, it should be pointed out that the phrase as first employed was meant to be a criticism, that newspapers had too much power and were reaching beyond the scope of their duties.   One modern critic writes that newspapers and journalists had better get after the facts and leave the iconoclasm and the charity to others. [2]  The criticism says, in effect, that journalists should stop the moralizing, and just stick to reporting.

The idea of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable seems, on the other hand, to apply perfectly to the church.   Seems right up our alley.

The question before us is this: is there some way that journalism still fits this definition and in so doing, can be a Christian vocation?

"...you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." These words of Jesus speak to the power of the truth, and its liberating power for humanity.   Curiously, these words are also emblazoned on the wall as you enter the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia.   That's a whole 'nother sermon.  

Jesus makes 'truth' an aim of Christian living. But, as Jesus' own life and ministry will reveal, a commitment to the truth can be a risky thing.   Jesus' commitment to the truth would run him afoul of the civil and religious authorities of the day, with the result being the cross.   But it was not the first time in the life of Israel that speaking the truth resulted in conflict and danger.

In the early 6 th Century BC, the tiny Kingdom of Judah was in a precarious political state.   It was about to get caught between the great powers of the world: Babylon and Egypt.   A number of prophets in Jerusalem preached the message that everything was going to be fine.   After all, Judah was God's favored nation, the Jews God's chosen people, the line of kings were descended of God's beloved David, and Jerusalem was God's holy city.   God would never allow the Babylonians to destroy the city.

Jeremiah gives the people a message from the Lord: whichever nations will serve the king of Babylon, will be left on their own lands, to till them and live there.   To drive home the point he wears a yoke to the temple to symbolize what Israel must do.   One of the other prophets breaks the yoke and declares that God will break the yoke of the Babylonians and that within 2 years, all of the goods plundered by the Babylonians and all of the people taken will be returned.

Jeremiah leaves.   And returns later wearing a yoke of iron. Jeremiah would castigate those who preached "peace, peace, when there is no peace".   Those who mindlessly insisted that God was on their side.   Those who believed that Jerusalem could never be destroyed because it was God's sacred capital.   Those who could not accept that the people of Israel had not been faithful to their obligations to be righteous: they had not followed the covenant--they had not promoted justice, they had turned themselves over to violence, they no longer looked after the widow, the orphan, the stranger.   Jeremiah pointed out all those things.

As Judah continued to resist the power of the Babylonians, Jeremiah proclaimed that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar would take Jerusalem.   Many argued that Jeremiah should be killed because he was demoralizing the soldiers of the city.   And so they tossed him into the cisterns of the city.   After the fall of Jerusalem, which happened as he had said it would, he was spared by the Babylonians but eventually carried off to Egypt by Jewish rebels.

The life of a prophet is always in peril because of a commitment to truth.   Those who are committed to the truth will often find themselves challenged by those whom the truth would harm.

Kenji Nagai was a Japanese journalist.   For the past ten years, he traveled to some of the more dangerous places in the world to photograph the aftermath of war.   He traveled to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and so on. [3] He would document children around the world suffering from war, from diseases like AIDS.   This past Tuesday, he went to Burma to cover the protests there against Burma's brutal decades old military regime.   On Thursday, he was among the crowds, covering them protesting, when the troops of Burma's military junta began firing into the crowd.   One might think that Nagai was an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire.   But the video evidence (which can be found online) makes it clear that Mr. Nagai was killed by a junta soldier at point-blank range. [4]   He became the first foreign casualty in the crackdown.   As he lay there, wounded to the chest, he continued to take pictures, to document what was happening.   He would later die of his wounds.

Mr. Nagai was not killed by accident.   He was not killed in the crossfire.   He was killed because as a reporter he was attempting to get at the truth of what was happening, and the truth is always a threat to those in power.   He was committed to the truth--and the powers of the world took his life.

The idea of power is at the center of the passages we read earlier this evening.   In the passages from Jeremiah and Ephesians we heard read tonight, we see very clear images of power, as defined as the sovereignty of God.  

God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. (Ephesians 1:20-21)

In the passage from Jeremiah, we read of God's appointing Jeremiah "over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."   In so doing, Jeremiah is not acting of his own authority, but of God's.

As Christians, we are meant to be suspicious of power.   First, we follow a crucified Christ, who was put to death by the power of the state, with the encouragement of organized institutional religion, and with the blessing of the crowds.   Second, we remember that all human power is illusory--God is the true powe r.   To the extent that we place some individuals above others, we diminish the truth of the matter that we are all equal before God.   In some sense, the existence of people in power over one another is a disregard of God's authority.  

That is why the prophets always challenged human authority.   It's why the prophets were suspicious of the monarchy.   Because affirmations of human power detract from the recognition that only God has true power.

In this lies the Christian vocation of the journalist.   The commitment to truth is at the heart of both the life of the Christian and the vocation of the journalist.   Christ promises us that we shall know the truth and the truth will make us free.   But that truth is not an abstract truth. It is not an intellectual or theological truth that we contemplate with our minds.   It is a hard, material truth that challenges the status quo, that holds up a spotlight upon power and violence and injustice and convicts them with God's purposes.

And there is something else.

Kenji Nagai and the thousands of journalists like him who have lost their lives in the pursuit of their work, in war, in repression, represent something powerful. For in their commitment to the truth, they certainly afflict the comfortable.   For the truth shows us how human are the ones who would claim special privilege.   The truth shows us the injustice of this kind of power.   And that afflicts those who seek to wield it.   It is no coincidence that regimes that seek to hold on to power the most unjustly restrict press freedoms first.   Burma shut down the internet.   China has attached blocking agents and firewalls to its internet.   Non-state owned media in Russia have a very hard time.

But there is something more, too.   When you encounter an oppressed people, people who are suffering, there is something they want more than anything: their story told.   I had occasion to be a part of the protests on Friday in front of the Burmese Embassy and then later in front of the Chinese Embassy.   There were a number of Burmese who were there --Burmese who had been imprisoned by or had fled persecution from the military junta.   Many of them have been protesting the Burmese embassy week in and week out for years.   But this was different.   There was a huge crowd on Friday.   Hundreds of people.   And the Burmese in the crowd had an energy and enthusiasm to their protesting that was undimmed by the years of struggle.   No doubt this was aided by the fact that their story was finally becoming known.   Two weeks ago, how many of us knew who Aung San Suu Kyi was?   Despite the fact that we should have known that she was the democratically elected leader of Burma, under house arrest for 18 years--not many of us did.   How many of us would have known about the military junta that governs Burma?   And now, because of thousands of Buddhist monks, the tens of thousands of Burmese who are with them, and the journalists--both professional and amateur --who are capturing in word and photograph their remarkable story of resistance, the world knows the truth of the matter.  

As we stood in front of the Chinese Embassy on Connecticut Avenue, demanding China intervene with the junta, cars were driving by on Connecticut beeping their horns in support.   Ordinary Washingtonians, who mere days ago would not have known anything about this poor South East Asian country, were now beeping their horns in solidarity with the people of Burma in their struggle for freedom against a cruel regime.   Photos and video of the demonstration were being sent back to Burma to let them know that there were people around the world who were with them.

Knowing, just knowing, that one's story is being told, that people can find out what is happening, brings tremendous comfort to the afflicted .

To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable is not simply a cliché.   It is not a statement about an overreaching media, or of journalists who have lost their focus on the facts.   It describes the very best of journalists, who have a commitment to the truth and to speaking to the truth no matter the powers that it offends.   Comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable, is the centerpiece of those who would make the calling of the Gospel the heart of their work.

Notes
[1] http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=1&aid=2852
[2] Id.
[3] http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070929TDY02006.htm
[4] http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2800