Today's Daily Lesson is from 1 Corinthians chapter 4:
"10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things."
This morning as I read Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, I think of church leaders struggling against the gaping maw of empire in Eastern Europe. I think of the pictures we saw in recent months of Orthodox priests standing in the breach between the soldiers and police of Viktor Yanukovych and demonstrators protesting his abusive government in Ukraine. I think also of Malkhaz Songulashvili, archbishop of the Evangelical Baptist Church in the country of Georgia, who has been a courageous voice speaking out against Russian imperialism throughout the region, while his Orthodox counterparts have been reticent to speak out against and at times even blessed the Kremlin's muscle flexing.
Paul's words today are a reminder that the church grew in turbulent times, under the heels of an empire bent on world domination. It grew, Paul says, because it witnessed to a different world from that of empire - a world where the weak are strong, where those who are cursed bless, and where those deemed the scum of the earth turn out to be its salvation.
The church in Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe is under terrible pressure to yield. Pray for its courage to remain steadfast in its witness to another world.
Link to a powerful interview with Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili during the Russian invasion of Georgia:
http://www.thestory.org/stories/2013-10/corner?keys=&date%5Bmin%5D=2006-01-01&date%5Bmax%5D=2013-11-01&more-topic=All&more-series=All&more-location=All&page=256Link to Songulashvili's reflection on the church in Russia and Ukraine:
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