And then they came for me

Just over a week ago two terrorists entered the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris and murdered journalists and during their escape a police officer. Subsequently others were killed and, in an incident that was apparently related, another terroist murdered another police officer and people taken hostage in a Jewish supermarket.

The terrorists claimed to be Muslims and they claimed their attack on the newspaper was in response to the publication of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

And presumably the attack on the Jewish supermarket was because of the virulent anti semitic feelings of some Muslims towards Jews.

That certainly seems to be the understanding of many French Jews. News reports earlier this week for example this one on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30790407 suggest that many French Jews feel threatened and are considering moving to Israel.

On 14th January The Independent newspaper carried a report saying that the majority of British Jews also feel threatened and that they have no future in this country. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-new-antisemitism-majority-of-british-jews-feel-they-have-no-future-in-uk-says-new-study-9976310.html

Against this background, on Tuesday evening I caught up with a television programme I had recorded on Sunday – Foyle’s War. If you have not followed the series over the years Foyle is a former policeman now working for MI5 in a post war Britain of hrash austerity. (in the early series set during World War 2 he investigated murders but the show was very much in the context of the war on the homefront.) It is the start of the Cold War so Communists feature in many plots but last Sunday’s episode was different.

There was a threat to the post war Jewish community and other refugees by a right wing party who want refugees to go “home” and the Jews to go to their new state of Israel. The local MP tries to stop the right wing party holding a rally but the local worthies feel that freedom of speech is too important.

I thought the show cleverly showed the tension that exists between having freedom to speak out and the need to police extremism. And a Sunday evening TV detective show got me thinking theologically – as we’ll see in a moment.

Inevitably, in the wake of the Paris shootings, our own government and security services have started to question whether such things could happen here. Were the Paris terrorists able to do what they did because surveillance had broken down? (The men were known to the French authorities apparently but had not been watched closely.) Apparently David Cameron the prime minister has pledged to introduce "more comprehensive powers" to monitor terror suspects in the UK. http://www.channel4.com/news/charlie-hebdo-paris-david-cameron-terrorism-response-france

With these events in my mind, and prompted by Foyle’s War, I recalled a famous quotation from Pastor Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Niemöller was a supporter of the Nazi party in the early days but after the Nazis took power he came to realise what they really stood for and he became critical of them. These words (written after the war) suggest though that he always felt he should do more for those who were oppressed by the Nazis.

Were Martin Niemöller alive today how would he react I wonder to the situation in France or in this country? I’m not suggesting for a moment that President Hollande or Prime Minister David Cameron is akin to Adolf Hitler! But certainly in this country there has been a tendency in recent years for much of the press and the government to stir up “dislike” (hatred MAY be too strong a word) for certain groups whether those on benefits, immigrants, trade unionists, public sector workers or Muslims.

2,000 years ago Jesus said words that come back to me time and again

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”[f]
Luke 4: 18 – 19.

For me, this is the foundation upon which those of us who are followers of Christ must live. To care for others, to love our neighbours, to stand up for the oppressed and marginalised and put ourselves beside them.

It is easy to choose not to get involved, to turn the blind eye, to think someone else will sort it out. But that is not what is expected of us by Christ.

Christ has many services to be done:
some are easy, others are difficult;
some bring honour, others bring reproach;
some are suitable to our natural inclinations and material interests,
others are contrary to both;
in some we may please Christ and please ourselves;
in others we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.
Yet the power to do all these things is given to us in Christ, who strengthens us.

Methodist Covenant Service