Hyeon Soo Lim was born in Seoul into a Christian family and moved to Canada in 1986 after some time in California. He is a graduate of Knox College at the University of Toronto and has been Sr. Pastor of the hugely successful Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga since then. He has travelled to NK over a hundred times in recent years and has been engaged in humanitarian work, supporting a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage as well as commercial efforts to support these ministries. A friend of mine Dr. Y. B. Kim of Washington D.C. calls him “one of the most respected Korean pastors in North America who has a great love for and dedication to the people of NK.”
Apparently, under the previous NK regime, Pastor Lim was given a free pass to travel and work wherever he wanted but after the former leader’s death and the subsequent execution of Jang Sung Taek, uncle of the current leader Kim Jung-un, Pastor Lim’s welcome in NK declined. Last February he was detained and according to NK’s official news organization (KCNA) he was charged with defaming the highest dignity of Korea and its system and possessing the wicked intention of trying to topple the Republic by staging an anti-state conspiracy.” China’s news agency indicated that he had been imprisoned for disseminating religious views. The sixty-three year old Lim has been sentenced to a life of hard labour. If ever there was an opportunity for Canada to restore its support for its citizens overseas, this is surely one. And if ever there was an opportunity for Christians to support another in prayer, this is also one.
Pastor Lim is not the first Christian leader to be imprisoned and he will not be the last. One of the earliest, of course, was the apostle Paul. Paul had gone to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. There was concern among the Jewish population. They thought that he had been straying from the Torah. It was broadly perceived that he was encouraging Jews to reject God’s covenant and the mark of the covenant, circumcision. Paul’s presence in Jerusalem caused an uproar. A crowd set upon him. A Roman garrison was forced to intervene to break up the melee. The Romans took him away and were about to flog him when Paul asked, “Is it lawful to flog a Roman citizen without trial?” Paul was from the Roman city of Tarsus and had rights under Roman law. Apologies were made and the leader in Jerusalem shipped him off to Felix, the Roman governor in Caesarea. Paul remained in prison there for two years. Felix’s successor, Porcius Festus, wished to send him back to Jerusalem for trial but sensing that a fair trial would be impossible, Paul exercised his right and appealed to the emperor. He was shipped off to Rome where he also waited and waited in prison for trial.
Philippians is what we call a prison epistle. It is one of the letters Paul wrote while passing his time in gaol, and one of the first things Paul writes to the Philippian Christians is intriguing, “I want you to know … that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel.”
One would not think that an orange jumpsuit would be good press for Paul or the gospel. But I am reminded me of the statement, “Any publicity is good publicity.” It doesn’t seem to matter what Donald Trump says or does, his numbers just keep going up. It doesn’t seem to matter what Justin Bieber says or does, he just seems to keep getting more famous. Did you know that on the day Justin Bieber went to gaol last year, the number of Twitter followers he has jumped by 30,000. 30,000, really? I’m on Twitter. It’s taken me two years to get over one hundred. But 30,000 in one day! Maybe there’s more to being a bad boy than meets the eye. There are bad girls too, of course. Miley Cyrus seems to be following the Madonna path to fame. The more outlandish and scandalous Miley Cyrus gets, the more press she gets and the more recordings she sells. Any publicity really does seem to be good publicity, it means more visibility, it generates awareness, improves name recognition, provides a public platform for comment which subsequently generates even more publicity.
If you can allow your mind to drift back in time to first century Jerusalem and the political and religious context of that time, perhaps we can begin to see how Paul and the gospel moved forward. In the first century Jewish milieu, the gospel was radical, beyond Jewish Torah. It was a more radical way to look at God and his people. Paul was one of the leading proclaimers of this “other way” that included Gentiles and his presence caused a stir. The uprising led to imprisonment and his imprisonment would have created more talk and gossip; gossip about Paul, gossip about Jesus, and gossip about Christianity which in those days was simply called “the way.” People would have been asking questions, shaking their heads. “Scandalous!” some would say, but ideas may have been taking root.
If you allow your mind to drift back to Rome in the first century, Paul was held there by the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard were the elite troops in Rome, a division instituted by Augustus to ensure the safety of Rome and look after any other issue the emperor would care to deploy them to. From Acts and Ephesians we know that Paul was chained to one of these guards at all times. He was, however, allowed visitors and when visitors came the guards would hear him talk about Jesus and all that had happened. When no one else was around, of course, it is likely that Paul and the guards would talk. There would always be small talk. “What are you in for then?” I worked as a chaplain in a prison in Lexington, Kentucky for a year while in seminary. It was an eye-opening experience. Sooner or later conversations with inmates would always get around to the question, “What are you in for then?”
When Paul was asked that question, a door opened and he did not hesitate to share the good news. And it’s such extraordinary news, incredible news, X-Files stuff, so “out there” that we can well imagine that one of the guards would bring it up at the lunch table with his friends. “There’s a guy in here thinks that somebody rose from the dead.” They’d all laugh. But the guard would go on, “You should hear his story though. This guy he talks about used to heal people. He taught amazing things. He knew things that no mortal should know. You should hear him. Decent guy too. Believable!” And we can well imagine a few days later, Paul would be chained to one of the other guards. The small talk would begin. Something would be recognisable and the guard would exclaim, “O you’re the guy Maximus was talking about. What’s that story all about?” And the door opens again.
Paul writes to the Philippians, I may be in prison at the moment, but I want you to know “that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole Praetorium and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ.” Paul may have been in prison, awaiting trial, but the incredible news that he learned from Jesus was spreading.
Not only was the news spreading directly from Paul, Paul also writes that most of the brothers and sisters , the Christians had become more confident because of his imprisonment.
It is a curious thing that negative events sometimes strengthen individuals and a cause rather than scare them into submission. There have always been thoughts that the persecution of the early church was a strong factor in its growth. Perhaps you have heard of Polycarp, for instance, a great leader in the second century church. Polycarp had a great effect on people in life, perhaps a greater effect in death. He was born around A.D. 69 and in his youth he came under the ministry of the apostle John. John, who lived to an old age, is said to have made Polycarp bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was a faithful man, well-liked and trusted. Irenaeus met him during his youth and he wrote c. A.D. 180 of seeing him, “I could tell you the place where the blessed Polycarp sat to preach the Word of God. I still recall the presence he had, the sanctity of his life, and his tremendous countenance. I still recall his holy exhortations to the people. And I can yet hear how he related his conversations with John and many others who had seen Jesus Christ, the words he had heard from their mouths.”
Polycarp was martyred c. A.D. 156. He had refused to burn incense to the emperor in an act of emperor worship. Before his execution he said that he had served Christ for eighty-six years and Christ had never let him down. “How can I blaspheme him now?” he said. Polycarp was burned at the stake and because the flames seemed not to affect his body, a soldier thrust a spear into him. It was a day of great sadness for Christians, yes, but somehow it inspired them. Somehow it strengthened the church. Events like this led Tertullian, another father of the church, to write, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” It strengthened people. Maybe it was the injustice of it or the horror of it. Yet somehow it strengthened people and caused a great deal of publicity. People talked and as they talked, doors opened doors for conversations, conversations about Jesus.
Paul was already noticing similar dynamics in the first century. His imprisonment for Christ was strengthening other believers and it was actually spurring them on to talk about Jesus and spread the word. I don’t know about you but somehow the more widely publicized persecutions of Christians in the past few years have affected me. I do not understand gunmen entering a church in Egypt or South Carolina and opening fire. I struggle to make sense of military offensives aimed at wiping out Christian villages in Syria or Iraq. I deplore the thought of beheadings undertaken by the Islamic State. Scary though these events are, I find it makes my own faith not weaker but bolder. I find I’m more likely to cast social niceties aside to speak for God.
Yet, talking about religion and Jesus and the gospel is not an easy thing in our environment. Some of us were brought up to avoid talking about religion and politics in social circles. In latter years, conventional wisdom and political correctness have almost made the concept of Christian mission something backward. Yet the gospel still calls out for those with ears to hear. It still calls out to us with a message of an extraordinary sequence of events around Jesus of Nazareth. It still calls out to us to believe, to change, to engage others with good news. The kingdom of God and the future of the church need us not to forget the last part. We need to spread good news.
Not all of us are like Paul, however. Not all of us are called or gifted as evangelists. All of us, however, to use Emily Dickinson’s language, can do something to “tell it slant.” Dickinson said, “tell the truth but tell it slant,” and what she meant was that we can say things in ways that our culture will hear; we can couch truth and even Christ into our stories and into our lives. It can be subliminal, hidden, even a little subversive.
I was late in watching the musical version of Victor Hugo’s story Les Miserables, I saw it only in the past year. You probably remember the story of Jean Valjean who, after seeing the forgiveness of a bishop, becomes kind to all he encounters, a devoted substitute father to the orphaned Cosette, and a benefactor to people in need. Not all went well for Valjean, however. Even though he had tried, he faced injustices. Without getting into the whole story, there is a moving scene at the end. Valjean is dying and the music of Schönberg and lyrics of Boublil and Natel point beyond this life. The spirit of Fantine comes to him and sings, “Come with me, where chains will never bind you, all your grief, at last, at last behind you.” The death scene moves to a finale that points to something beyond death as the cast, many of whom died in the revolution, sing, “They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord. They will walk behind the plough-share, they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward …” In the midst of whatever political motives Hugo’s story contains, God and Christ and eternity live.
Some of us are writers. Some of us are artists. We don’t have to blatant, but we can weave kernels of faith into our stories, into our song, into our art. We can “tell the truth but tell it slant,” and those kernels will open doors in the thought and conversations of others.
Back in the eighteenth century, parents of unwanted children simply abandoned them on the street. And so, each morning, horse and carts would collect bodies of street children who had frozen or died of disease or malnutrition. Touched by their plight, a sea captain gave the seed money for a combination orphanage, school, hospital, and when George Friedrich Handel learned of the facility in his neighbourhood he offered to organize a benefit concert. It proved so successful that he staged a performance of the Messiah annually until his death, providing a vital source of income for the charity. In addition, Handel donated a pipe organ, composed the Foundling Hospital Anthem, “Blessed Are They That Considereth the Poor,” and joined the Board of Governors. At his death he willed the orphanage an original copy of the Messiah score and other valuable papers. What Handel did got people talking. How we live and how we make music if we are able can open doors to higher things. People will talk. People will ask questions.
You may remember the Columbine shootings in 1999 and the shootings at W. R. Myers High School eight days later in Taber, Alberta. On that fateful day, 17 year old Jason Lang’s life was cut short, ended by another young man’s senseless act of violence. You can well imagine how parents of Jason Lang felt. Tragedy! Yet somehow the parents of Jason Lang were able to come out on the side of forgiveness. In the midst of grief, Dale Lang, said in a CBC interview that he and his wife may never forget their son but they would extend forgiveness to the young perpetrator. It was an incredible act, a radical act, an act that led people to ask, “Why?” And doors were opened for Dale Lang to talk about his faith.
Not all of us have to go around our neighbourhoods accosting people for Christ. All we have to do is just live life in such a way that our lives “tell it slant.” God’s word can be in the story, in the music, in the lyrics, and in how we live our lives. “Tell the truth,” said Emily Dickinson, “but tell it slant,” and who knows what conversations will occur as the Word goes forth and spreads around us. The future of the church in our community needs you!