In her classic missions textbook, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, Ruth A. Tucker writes that in the nineteenth-century Congo, ‘only one out of four missionaries survived the first term of service’ (p. 155).
The ratio was probably similar in some other places. Adlai Stevenson II, former Democratic presidential candidate, responded when asked what had most impressed him during a visit to Africa in the 1950s: ‘The graves. The graves. At every mission station, there were graves.’ His description of the rows of crosses is suggestive of military cemeteries, such as Arlington and Normandy.
And yet how many American Christians would be able to name at least three missionary martyrs?
More importantly, what difference does it make if we do know something about them?
Missionary pioneers are generally not an easy crowd to be around. In some ways they are spiritual giant, but many have or had significant personality flaws. Tucker comments that David Livingstone (not martyred, but he nonetheless gave his life in missionary service, as did his wife when she went out to join him) ‘was not an organizer, and soon [his] mission [agency] was in chaos’ (p. 152).
The same and more could be said of many others. They tend to be hard-headed (otherwise they wouldn’t be pioneers) and too often discount the wise counsel of colleagues. Perhaps more tragically, their families often pay a high price—think of C. T. Studd, who left his wife behind in England for more than two decades while he pioneered in the Congo. Tucker’s comment on Livingstone, that their children buried a father ‘they had never really known,’ could be a common epitaph.
But at the same time, I have to wonder if my tendency to see the flaws in these men and women really doesn’t reflect my values as an aging American baby-boomer more than it does God’s perspective on these more recent apostles. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:37-38) describes them this way: ‘. . . they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy.’ For me, one of the most gut-wrenching scenes imaginable is the one in the movie End of the Spear which a young Steve Saint watches his missionary pilot father fly off for the last time.
There were no Congressional Medals of Honor given for martyrs like Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, or any of the others who gave their lives in reaching the Waorani in the rain-forests of Ecuador in 1956. But I would imagine that Jesus words, ‘well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matt. 25:21) are worth a great deal more to all five of them than any earthly honor would ever have been.
Not to discount the debt we owe in the ‘free world’ to those who gave their lives in combating tyranny—the Apostle Paul says that some do give their lives for a good cause (Romans 5:7). But it may be a good deal harder to give one’s life (and sometimes even more so to live it out, consistently) for sinners, trusting, but not necessarily seeing, that in the end it will bear fruit.We honor military heroes who risked their lives for the sake of others. I wish we would honor God’s heroes (yes, I think He actually thinks that way about them) at least as much.
We owe it to Him and to them.
-ReachAcross U.S. Director
No comments:
Post a Comment