“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Many years ago, Trappist monks from France established a monastery in the mountainous countryside of Algeria, an exclusively Muslim country in northern Africa.
The Muslim people around the monastery came to love and trust the Trappist monks who settled there, for these monks made a point of working toward understanding between themselves and their neighbors. They showed respect for the Muslim culture of the people while being faithful to their own Christian monastic tradition.
Brother Luc, the oldest of the monks, who had spent over fifty years in Algeria, was a medical doctor, and he established a clinic for the people of the surrounding area.
In the 1990’s, Muslim extremists led a bloody uprising against Algeria’s rulers, and war consumed the nation.
But in the area around the monastery, the monks maintained an oasis of calm and peace. Because they were pacifists, the monks believed that the war was immoral, and so they refused military protection from the government, and they also refused to help the insurgents.
As the insurgents became bolder, and acts of violence increased, many encouraged the monks to leave the country and to go back to France for their own safety, but the villagers around the monastery begged the monks to stay.
The monks agonized over their situation. Should they seek safety and leave behind the people that they had cared for all these years, and had come to love as brothers and sisters?
Or should they stay in the vulnerable position in which they found themselves? After all, simply the fact that they were even in Algeria to begin with was witness to God’s love loose in this part of the world, now a war-torn area.
The monks made their final decision based on who they were –followers of Jesus. They voted to stay put at their monastery.
As followers of Jesus, their first priority was to continue to live their lives of love and service in this area of Algeria, even at the expense of their personal safety.
On the night of March 27, 1996, Islamic fundamentalists broke into the monastery and abducted seven of the monks and held them hostage. They executed the monks on May 21st.
The heads of the monks were found scattered near the monastery. Their bodies were never found. Their remains are buried at the monastery.
What did the monks accomplish by denying themselves, taking up their crosses, and continuing to follow Jesus even at the cost of their lives?
The monks have left a profound mark on Algeria. Visitors from all over the country drop by the monastery. Many have seen the film, Of Gods and Men, which tells the story of the monks. Some have read about the monks in the newspapers or heard about them from friends.
Faiza Ahfir, who drove from another part of Algeria to visit the monastery, says that her family was deeply moved by what the monks did. She says the monks could have left the violence and returned to France. Instead, they chose to stay.
Should Algerians forget their past? Bury what people in Algeria call "the black decade?"
“No,” Ahfir says, “absolutely not.” Algerians have experienced it all – civil war, terrorism. She says now they must draw lessons from it. The monks and their selfless lives are part of Algerian history, and people will draw lessons from that history.
I was in Alexandria at the seminary on Tuesday, September 11tth, the 11th anniversary of Islamist fundamentalist attacks on our own country.
The weather this past Tuesday was eerily reminiscent of that day eleven years ago, the same bright clear cloudless blue sky, just a hint of fall in the air. When I was a student at VTS, I heard the stories of the people who had been on campus on September 11th, 2001, the plane hitting the Pentagon, the shaking of the ground and the explosive noises that carried all the way to the seminary, the memories of the ensuing confusion in the area, and so last Tuesday, on an absolutely gorgeous, blissfully peaceful fall day on campus, I found myself imagining what that day must have been like at the seminary eleven years ago. I was grateful for the beauty and peace of this day eleven years later.
And then the next day came the front page pictures of the destruction of the American embassy in Libya by Islamic fundamentalists, and these pictures brought back to me the searing images of destruction that we witnessed on September 11th eleven years ago.
Four good men of the American Foreign Service lost their lives, including our ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, a career diplomat who had spent most of his life working to improve the lives of people in hot spot areas around the world. In an Opinion piece in yesterday’s Washington Post, I read that Stevens had been about to open what was to be called “An American Space” in Benghazi when he was killed.
This space would have contained a library, computers, language classes and films and it was to be owned, operated, and staffed by Libyans, while the United States would provide materials, equipment, and speakers. Chris Stevens had planned to say at the opening of the center that “An American Space is a living example of the kind of partnership between our two countries which we hope to inspire.”
Robin Wright, who wrote the article in the Post, said that Chris Steven’s final message to us would be, “Waver not.”
The people of Libya will draw lessons from their history. After the attack in Benghazi, a Libyan man stood in the street holding a sign that read, “Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans.” The Libyans will draw lessons from the mark that Chris Stevens has made on their history.
Our sons and daughters are still at war in Afghanistan. They too, like those who serve in the Foreign Service, know the danger of serving this country abroad. They too are courageous, hopeful, and idealistic—believing that Americans can leave this world a little better than before, and they too have given up their own safety because of their ideals.
So–as Christians, each of us with our differing perspectives– how should each one of us, followers of Jesus, proceed in our uncertain future in this world full of hatred and conflict?
This question has no easy answers.
So each one of us, we followers of Jesus, would do well to give prayerful priority to the words that Jesus gave his disciples that day in Caesarea Philippi, a stronghold of the Roman oppressors, a place with its own violent history.
Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and spoke these words to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it.”
“Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me.”
Stern, daunting, challenging, death dealing and life giving, life changing words.
Amen