“Andrew, you have to read this. No matter what else you read this summer, you’ve got to read this.” That is what I heard when I went to a friend’s house in Muskoka after giving a sermon this summer. I returned to Toronto, had lunch with a friend of mine, “Andrew, if there’s only one book that you read, you got to read this one. You’ll never put it down once you start.”
I was in New England speaking to a friend of my brother in law’s, who said, “By the way, have you read this book? I was thinking of you, you will never put it down when you start to read it.” By then I was getting a message, I’d better buy the book. So I did, and I couldn’t put it down. It was the best book I’ve read in ages and I want to tell you about it because the contents shook me.
The book is, and some of you will have read it, Red Notice by Bill Browder, a New York Times bestseller. It’s a true story, of Bill Browder, who was a financial investor and a fund manager who decided, at the break-up of the Soviet Union, to invest in Russia.
He did so, and the story is from its very earliest days to its height when the world’s largest fund was established, making $2 billion in Russia, and how it all came crashing down. It’s a story of reaching the highest heights and overcoming some monumental problems, to finally reaching the very depths and almost losing it all.
You see, as Browder and his fund became more and more successful, the Russian government decided they wanted to get in on the action. And so with a series of corrupt moves, with tyrannical acts, and even in one case violence, they managed to strangle away from Browder the money that his fund had collected, and then they distributed it to the oligarchs in Russia.
It is an incredible story, a tragedy really, of corruption and mismanagement, of the abuse of power, of avarice, of greed. You name it, it is part of this book and you can’t put it down. But it’s the lowest point that really got me.
His lawyer, accountant, and valuator in Russia, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested and imprisoned. He went to a trial, which was really a mock trial, there was no real justice. Bill appealed to powers in Britain and nothing was done, he appealed to powers in the United States and nothing was done. Sergei was on his own.
He was sent to a gulag, developed pancreatitis, gall stones, and had the most terrible pain and illnesses. Eventually, after receiving no medical treatment for four months, he died. Browder came back to the United States, and started talking to senators, telling people within the State Department what had happened.
When they finally heard the story of the death of Sergei Magnitsky, they created Act, 7750 in 2012, forbidding all of those who had been responsible for his death entry to the United States of America. It was unprecedented.
All of those oligarchs, all of those corrupt officials responsible for Sergei’s death were not allowed into the country, and Browder felt finally his friend had been vindicated. But the fund was still scattered here and there. I am now on my last 10 pages because I don’t want it to end, a bit like Downton Abbey. But here’s the amazing thing.
Browder says that Sergei Magnitsky’s courage in the middle of all of this was due mainly to his faith in God. The reason he suffered torture and illness and imprisonment is that he would not tell a lie, he would not abandon his principles, would not walk away from his truth. He had been brought up in the Orthodox Christian Church to do what is right no matter the cost. And the cost was his life.
As I read the pages of our reading from first Timothy, I couldn’t help but feel some outrage with the Apostle Paul. On the surface what the Apostle Paul is saying to young Timothy seemed innocuous enough. But when he says, “You must pray for everyone” you feel like saying to the Apostle Paul, “Are you mad?”
“Do we pray for oligarchs and tyrants and the corrupt and those responsible for the death of others? Is this what we’re to do? What do you mean by everyone?” Sudden the text and the reality of what goes on in the world face off in this incredible struggle because it is hard to pray for the tyrants, to pray for the abuser, to pray for the unjust. Is that what Paul meant?
Well yes, but as he explains it further in the next few verses, it all becomes clear. He talks about those who we pray, the one to whom we pray and the one for whom we pray. And the about is everyone. In the Greek it is panta Anthropos, everyone. The whole of anthropology, the whole world, for Paul there is no distinctions here, it’s everyone.
You pray for everyone in your supplications, in your intercessions, and even in your thanksgivings. It doesn’t matter what form of prayer it is, it is for everyone. He then goes on to define it a little bit more, and that includes or maybe especially, kings and those in positions of authority and power.
What Paul was writing in his time was radical because he was in a world that did not pray or lift up, or encourage devotion on behalf of everyone. The world was divided into little religions and little gods and little pagan beings that were given honour. The only overarching thing was the worship, I suppose, of the emperor, but not everyone would be included in your prayers in the First Century.
Paul is being radical here, but he’s being radical for a good reason. Look at his language. He prays for kings and leaders, for everyone, that they may lead a quiet, peaceable, godly and dignified life.
That Paul’s big belief was that if you prayed for those who were in power, whether they were corrupt or not, whether they were great or not, whether they were just or not, made no difference. If you prayed for those who were in power and you prayed that they would lead a quiet, peaceful, godly, dignified life, then in fact they would govern in quiet and peace and godliness and dignity.
He wasn’t praying that they may stay as they are, he was praying that they may be transformed. It seems so timely, does it not, in a world that’s bombarded with the fractiousness of the human soul and the antipathy of human tongue, that these things are sorely needed in the world?
Where in political discourse right now is dignity, just dignity, never mind peacefulness and quietness. The chattering classes keep rambling on with all their assessment of everything, but sometimes quietness is a virtue. And godliness, oh godliness, how much more should we pray for godliness. Paul wasn’t wrong in praying for everyone. He understood that in praying for all of these things, the world is changed.
In the Fourth Century there was a great Christian called Saint John Chrysostom, the Bishop of Constantinople, which today would be Istanbul. Think about it, Istanbul. As the Bishop of Istanbul, he became the mentor, the patron for preachers and theologians, and why I have a heart for him I suppose.
I’ve quoted John Chrysostom a lot, many other preachers have as well because he was great. One of the greatest things that he ever said was, “No one can hate those for whom you pray.”
In other words, if you pray for someone, by very definition you are not doing it in a hateful way. The moment you pray for them, you’re praying for their transformation and you hope that they will be turned around, and in being turned around to live a quiet, peaceful, godly and dignified life.
For Paul, this is one of the great gifts that the people of God give the world. This is what it means to be a citizen in a civil society, to pray for those very things. I ask you, if the faithful don’t, who will? There is more. He prays that everyone will be saved.
The Apostle Paul’s vision was that the church was not a club, the church was a missionary body. It existed not just for itself, but that the world may come to know God. He recognized that in a world that was so often fractious and divided, if you ascribe to the Lordship of Jesus, then you ascribe to belief that the whole is the object of God’s love and compassion.
If you do not ascribe to the conviction that it is God’s desire to save everyone, then you need to heed the words of James Dunn, the great Scottish biblical scholar, who suggested that if you don’t believe that God desires to save everyone, then you have a less generous god and a less omnipotent god. It is not that everyone will be saved, it means that God’s desire is that everyone will, for they are his creatures. So when you pray for everyone, you’d better mean it.
To whom does he pray? He prays to the only mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ the Son. He sees the Son as the means whereby we come to God and God comes to us. That it is not as if we have chosen that he is the mediator or that we have appointed him, or we have decided that that is what he is. No, for Paul that is what he is and we just simply need to know it. That is why we pray as Jesus taught us.
It’s not just about us or how we feel at any given moment, it’s about the mediator who exists between God and us, and for us. Notice the language that he uses. This mediator is human and suffered for us.
There’s a wonderful Hasidic story, it’s ancient, about a great event in heaven. When the Israelites crossed over the sea, having been chased by the Egyptians, evidentially all the angels in heaven threw a party and rejoiced, saying, “Hallelujah, the people have been saved and the Egyptians have been drowned, isn’t it great?”
Then one of the angels notices something and goes over to Michael, the Archangel, and says, “Excuse me, but as I look around where is God?” and Michael says, “You will find God over in the corner weeping, for while the people of Israel were saved, many were lost.” This great Hasidic story, I’m sure, is echoed by the Apostle Paul.
Yes there is joy in the victory of God’s people, but there is a God who weeps for those who have not been saved. Where do we see God weeping? We see him weeping in his Son and we see his Son weeping for the lost and the outcast. The desire to bring the whole world into God’s covenant is the ministry of God’s Son, Jesus, the mediator.
This is what the whole New Testament is about, this is what Paul is conveying to Timothy, “Pray for everyone because everyone has been worthy of and is loved by the Son.” And when you pray through the mediator, you do not then just pray for yourself, you pray for the other. But for whom does this prayer make a difference? I think it makes a difference to us.
Okay, a moment of confession on my part. I would say that on the whole 90 per cent of my prayer life revolves around me and my family, and the things that are immediately on my plate on any given day. Do you feel the same way or am I the only unrighteous one in this room? It’s natural, I hope that we all feel the same way. It’s just that your own agenda takes over. It’s bound to. You pray for your own concerns, you share your own sorrows and that is fine.
The problem is when that becomes the sole nature and purpose of prayer. When prayer becomes self-serving it loses its power, its sincerity, and becomes nothing more than narcissism.
The great Martin Luther, (I’ve been reading a lot of Luther over the last few months getting ready for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation next year). And by the way, we are hosting the big anniversary service for the Reformation here. Martin Luther quotes Saint Augustine, that the greatest sin, and this is in Latin, is homos incurvatus in se, humanity is curved in on itself. Sin for Augustine is when our sense of being is purely interested in self. When we’re actually only concerned with self. Both Luther and Augustine say that the only thing that breaks us out of the cycle of homos incurvatus in se is prayer. That when you start praying for everyone, prayer takes you out of yourself and into the world. It takes you beyond your preoccupation with self to God’s preoccupation with the world.
The great John Buchanan of the Presbyterian Church in Chicago tells an incredibly touching story of Rostropovich, the great cellist from Russia. Rostropovich, during Communist days, along with his wife, wrote an editorial in Pravda, the national newspaper, in which he decried the government’s treatment of artists and musicians, and called for freedom of expression and human rights. Rostropovich was then banned.
He and his wife had their citizenship taken away from them and had to flee. Now according to Buchanan, after they had arrived in the United States they came to Chicago, where he performed. There was huge anticipation to hear this greatest of all cellists, the great Rostropovich. Buchanan said he had to go to this concert.
So he went, and Rostropovich played his heart out. That instrument just sang, and people were in awe of his brilliance, so much so that when he’d finished playing Dvorak there was silence. Finally Rostropovich stood up and there wasn’t a sound. He grasped his cello, hugged and he kissed it, and everyone started to applaud.
Then Rostropovich went over to the conductor, grabbed him in his arms, kissed and hugged him and lifted him off the ground. The crowd roared again. Then he went over to the cello section and he grabbed every cellist, hugged and kissed them, and then he didn’t stop there, he hugged the entire orchestra by the time he was finished.
Buchanan said this, “If our prayers had such joy to share, how powerful they would be.” For a man who had experienced tyranny and injustice and had suffered, the sheer joy of simply playing his instrument with others was enough to take him into another realm. If our prayers were as joyful, full of thanksgiving, concern and compassion and love for the other, so filled with the grace of Jesus Christ, what kind of a world would it be? And so when we feel paralyzed and we wonder what we can offer, we can offer prayer for quietness, for peaceableness, for godliness, for dignity, for truth through the mediator to the Father for the world, and ultimately for the better of ourselves, praying beyond our boundaries. Amen.