One Thursday, in the
heart of September 1955, the 63-year-old cardinal gazed from his
third-story window down at the garden. This wasn't his house. But
he was stuck there. Jozsef Mindszenty was a political prisoner in
his native land. Flanked by the trees on almost all sides, this
manor house in this forest village in southern Hungary was his latest
place of confinement – admittedly a lot better than any before it.
It was now the tenth anniversary of his appointment to the highest
church post in the whole country. Not so long thereafter, in spite
of losing elections, the Communists managed to worm their way into
power and take over. Mindszenty vowed to be a thorn in their side no
less than he'd been to the Nazi collaborators of the Arrow Cross
Party a few years before. Mindszenty outspokenly challenged the
government's behavior. And so, two days before Christmas in 1948,
he'd found his home surrounded by squads of policemen. The day after
Christmas, he was formally arrested on phony charges of treason,
conspiracy, and espionage. Turning to the clergy before being hauled
away, he reminded them, “The world can take a great deal from us,
but never our faith in Jesus Christ.”
Mindszenty recalled being
taken to a secret prison, where he was kept for 39 days. Every day
he was beaten. He was kept awake for days at a time, in one case for 84 hours straight. He resisted
eating, because he knew they were drugging the food they served
there; but slowly he was drugged all the same. All with the goal of
getting him to sign confessions of his so-called crimes. He tried to
keep his bearings through prayer, through meditation on the Psalms,
through remembering the lives of believers who'd been through similar
times before. But the drugs and the torture and the psychological
manipulation slowly left him feeling abandoned and defenseless; he
was hallucinating circles of bright color spinning on the walls; his
powers of resistance gradually weakened. He wondered if he might be
guilty after all. In February 1949, he was put on trial. The whole
thing was rigged, and even his defense attorney was against him. Jozsef Mindszenty was sentenced to life in prison. In
September, they transferred him to the penitentiary on Conti Street
in Budapest. Now clearer in mind, a confrontation with a
high-ranked Communist official led Mindszenty to return to his cell,
kneel, and give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for counting him
worthy of being shamed for Jesus' sake. Mindszenty kept up his life of
prayer and felt strengthened by the conviction that people around the
world were praying for him.
Meanwhile, the Communists
had banned religious education in the schools, had dissolved the
monasteries, and in July 1951 pressured the bishops of the country
into taking a pledge of allegiance to the Communist regime. The
Communists were determined to take over the churches, and they used
pawns whom Mindszenty called “peace priests” – clergy who'd
been intimidated into collaborating with the government, or corrupt
Communist functionaries who'd managed to infiltrate the priesthood.
The government manipulated them into churches around the country,
raising them up to pursue the state's agendas and minimize the
resistance of the faithful.
By 1954, many faithful
church leaders had been similarly arrested, and “peace priests”
moved into position. That was when Mindszenty's health broke down.
He lost nearly half his body weight (down to 97 pounds), and the government couldn't
afford the international spectacle of his death. So they'd
transferred him to a prison hospital, where they kept him for
fourteen months. And, for the sake of his health, they thereafter sent him here
– this village, this castle. It may have sometimes been rainy and
swarming with mice, but here – with one priest for company, aside
from sixteen members of the secret police – there was at least
fresh air and sunlight, a far cry from the penitentiary. But he was
still a political prisoner, his only offense being the challenging of
injustice for the sake of God and church and country. He prayed and waited in hope for the day of freedom. And as he fed anew on the bread of life,
he prayed for the faithful to outlast their oppressors.
On days like that, Jozsef
Mindszenty couldn't help but think back to the life of the Apostle
Paul. Arrested in Jerusalem on phony charges (Acts 21:33), he'd been
taken to a hearing before a corrupt governor who kept him jailed for
two years in hopes of a bribe (Acts 24). When the new governor asked
Paul if he wanted a fresh trial in Jerusalem, Paul had insisted on
taking his case straight to the highest court, that of the emperor in
Rome (Acts 25:11-12). The trip took quite a while (Acts 27-28), but
once in Rome, Paul was allowed to rent an apartment and stay there
under house arrest, with a soldier or two to guard him (Acts 28:16).
And there he stayed for two years, waiting for a congested court
system to reach his case, waiting to see if his accusers would ever
even show up to prosecute him at all. Christians near and far contributed
toward his upkeep, since he wasn't allowed to work. He remained in
light military custody for two years... as Paul the political prisoner.
Late in those years, the
Philippian Christians had sent him their pastor Epaphroditus with a
sizeable donation to help him pay for his food and board; but the
challenging trip to Rome had left Epaphroditus seriously sick. So
Paul is in the process of writing a letter to the Philippian church,
explaining that – contrary to the worries they feel about Paul –
he actually sees God's hand in everything that's happening. Rather
than complaining, Paul is rejoicing. His work hasn't been stifled,
and the gospel remains unchained!
It might seem like house
arrest would prevent Paul from carrying out his mission, but in fact
it had become a vessel for his mission. For the responsibility to
oversee prisoners brought from the provinces fell not just to any
soldiers, but to the Praetorian Guard. Think of them like an ancient Roman Secret
Service. They were elite soldiers whose responsibilities included
the personal protection of the emperor and his family and property. They were paid several times
what an average soldier could expect, they enlisted for shorter terms
of sixteen to twenty years in the service, and your family had to be
well-connected even to try out to join this elite team. In addition to
acting as the emperor's bodyguards, they went around Rome and other
places in Italy as secret police, spies, and assassins (not to mention security at sports games); they were
feared and dreaded even by senators, since they as a body were
accountable only to the emperor himself. Around the time Paul was
writing, their commander Sextus Afranius Burrus was dying under
suspicious circumstances (some suggested the Emperor Nero poisoned him) and being replaced by two new co-commanders.
One, Lucius Faenius Rufus, was popular with the Praetorian Guard,
known for doing his duties faithfully, selflessly, without seeking
personal profit. The other, Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus, had the opposite reputation, being notoriously regarded as cruel, corrupt, scheming, and depraved. Two sharp opposites, responsible for joint command of one and the same Praetorian Guard.
During the entirety of
his house arrest, members of the Praetorian Guard took four-hour
shifts stationed at Paul's apartment. The apostle was physically
tethered to the soldiers by chains. It would ordinarily have been an
embarrassing thing, to be chained up to soldiers like that. But Paul
saw himself as really chained to the gospel, really chained to Jesus – his sufferings were linked
to Christ's. And Paul couldn't pass up the opportunity of having, in
effect, a captive audience for the gospel. During his years of house
arrest in Rome, Paul was free to receive visitors, including local
Jewish leaders and others who came to talk with him. Thus, Luke closes his
account in Acts by saying that Paul “welcomed all who came to
him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus
Christ with all boldness and without hindrance”
(Acts 28:30-31). And one or two members of the Praetorian Guard had
to be present during every conversation, every impassioned case. As
a captive audience for the gospel, Paul had the ears of some of the
very men in whose hands the emperor's own safety would rest. And so,
shift after shift after shift, day in and day out, Paul's story – which can't be told without celebrating Jesus
– was passed throughout the Praetorian Guard and to other Roman
administrative bureaucrats who had to deal with Paul's legal case (Philippians
1:13).
And
by evangelizing so forthrightly and boldly while under house arrest,
Paul inspired others. He lit a holy fire under the rest of the Roman
church networks. Where once they'd felt pressured to keep their
heads down and fly under the radar, Paul's example galvanized them.
His very chains, instead of a sign of shame, became an encouragement,
making Roman Christians “much more bold to speak the word
without fear” (Philippians
1:14). Evangelism was on the rise. And most of those evangelists (not unlike Faenius Rufus, the incoming praetorian prefect) were concerned
with doing good. They knew what was at stake in Paul's case: the
liberty of the gospel itself and its status in the Roman world. They
had a teamwork mentality. They preached Christ “from good
will..., out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of
the gospel” (Philippians
1:15b-16).
But
Paul had to admit that there were others in the Roman church whose
evangelistic ministry came from less noble motives. You know, Paul's
letter to the Romans a few years earlier probably hadn't satisfied
everybody. In fact, with such a wide array of local churches, some
people probably resented Paul sticking his nose in what they felt was
their business. And now he was chained up as a prisoner, which they
saw as unworthy of associating themselves with and which they took as an opportunity to put themselves forward – not so unlike
the “peace priests” of Communist Hungary centuries later. So
Paul admits that some Roman evangelists are driven by bad motives.
Their real aim is to add pressure and weight to Paul's chains, and
they guess that their success will make Paul feel irrelevant and
distressed. They aren't sincere, but are seeking to be cruel like
Tigellinus, “thinking to afflict [Paul] in [his]
imprisonment” (Philippians
1:17b).
Paul
describes their motives with three Greek words. The first is a
common one, and it means 'envy.' They've been envious of Paul's
prominence and want to overturn it, take it away, steal his status
for themselves. The second word can be rendered 'rivalry' or
'strife,' and it could be used to describe political partisanship,
used to describe factionalism. It's a competitive motive. Envy has
driven them to see Paul as an opponent, an enemy. And instead of
working toward harmony, they're implicitly stoking division by not
lining up as one team with him (Philippians 1:15a). The third word
is more interesting still. My Bible says that they “proclaim
Christ out of selfish ambition”
(Philippians 1:17a). If thou speakest the King's English, thine
might call it “contention.”
But it's actually a word from Greek political discussions. When
Aristotle uses it, it often gets translated as “election intrigue.” It
carries the idea of a politician going door-to-door to promote
himself, making whatever promises he has to in order to win your
support, not because he wants to make the world better, but because
he wants to take a step up in social privileges. It's the word for
“the self-seeking pursuit of political office,” and treating it
like a transaction: they'll buy support with whatever will sell. In
church circles, evangelism sells, so these envious opponents of Paul
are trying to buy support and promote themselves that way. If
something else would get the job done better, they'd be doing that
instead.
Now,
Paul has nothing good to say about their motives. Envy, rivalry,
'election intrigue' – these things are toxic. Paul uses some of
these words elsewhere to name some pretty rough sins (e.g., Romans
1:29). And as one of Paul's early readers (St. John Chrysostom) remarked on this
passage, “not only won't they receive a reward, but also they will
be subject to vengeance and punishment” for those sinful motives.
But Paul is astonished and delighted to see that God is so sovereign,
God is so clever, God is so wise and faithful and amazing, that God
is using even the evil intentions of his would-be adversaries – and
using it to spread the gospel! Their goal is to weigh Paul down and
demoralize him – but
Paul can survey that field and say, “Well, so what? In every
way, whether in pretense or in truth,
whether from bad motives or good motives, Christ is
proclaimed – and in that I rejoice!”
(Philippians 1:18). Paul may be annoyed at one level, but at a
deeper level he sees the bigger picture, and that picture lifts him up more than some of the details weigh him down! Like Joseph in Egypt, he
can say to them, “You meant evil against me, but God
meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept
alive” (Genesis 50:20). Even
Paul's self-appointed opponents are being used to bring life in Christ to people who
otherwise might not have heard! And so Paul can celebrate even in
his imprisonment: “What has happened to me has really
served to advance the gospel,”
to move it forward like a conquering army pressing on and taking more
territory, step by step (Philippians 1:12). Paul sees victory ahead
where it really counts!
Today,
we know we live in a country of mixed motives. Two years ago, one
political scientist (Gwyneth McClendon) wrote that 'envy' and 'strife' are two major
“antisocial status motivations” that are especially “likely to
spill over into politics.” (You will see them functioning as active temptations among all political camps and parties.) And certainly the same kind of
mercenary canvassing that Aristotle and Paul both mentioned is a
pervasive feature of political campaigning today – people saying
whatever will sell, so they can take the next step up the ladder.
Sadly, I've seen churches that look like what Paul saw: some
proclaiming Christ out of love and good will, but others doing what
they do out of envy and rivalry and self-seeking ambitions, trying to
displace God's appointed leaders, trying to jockey for prominence and dominance.
Whether in secular politics or
church politics, the problem of bad intentions – of impure motives
– is something Paul warns against. (In our personal lives, too, we're likely to deal with people who don't always act with the purest motives towards us, or some whose motives are difficult to untangle and map out clearly. You will meet people who act as they do toward you because of love and good will. You will also meet people whose actions toward you are driven by envy, or geared toward producing discord and rivalry and strife, or seeking to sell you whatever they think you'll buy so that they can achieve their ambitions and aims. This problem is perpetually relevant.)
Certainly, God (speaking through Paul) calls us to
scrutinize our own hearts first of all, to be certain that we are keeping ourselves pure in our motives until the day of Christ should come (Philippians 1:10), as we heard last week. But when it comes to others, Paul reminds us that the same God who could use people's envy of Paul and somehow
spin that into a real evangelistic ministry in spite of the
evangelists' intentions is the very same God who today can intend for
blessing what people around us mean as a curse. God can use a
politician's selfish heart and make it promote the real welfare of
the commonwealth! God can take the most inglorious passions of the
populace and use them to 'accidentally' make a positive difference!
This God put Paul through years of imprisonment just to position him
with a captive audience he could never have otherwise reached: the
Praetorian Guard and others with access to the higher authorities of the worldly empire. This God transformed Jozsef Mindszenty's imprisonment into an international platform that outlasted a lifetime. And this God is the same today as yesterday, and
so shall be forever – Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ coming
again! Not only does this God work all things together for your ultimate good (Romans 8:28), but – even better than that – this God works all things together for the gospel's good advance. So in this God we trust.
It
certainly didn't look like house arrest could be helpful to Paul's
mission. But it was. It really did help the gospel advance
– spreading into the mouths of more evangelizing Christians as well
as the ears of more Roman soldiers and officials. These past months,
plenty has happened to us, and during the period of shutdown, lockdown, quarantine, whatever you wish to call it, you may have felt – not unlike the Apostle Paul, not unlike Cardinal Mindszenty – like a prisoner, like you were cooped up under house arrest. It pales next to the real thing, and yet even this small taste may well have been quite aggravating. But for all that aggravation, from what Paul says, we can pray
and hope that somehow – in ways we just don't see clearly yet –
all we've gone through will prove to have “really served
to advance the gospel,” when the story is fully told. We don't know how. But in a God wise to do such things, we trust. So go
on and be “bold to speak the word”
– let the gospel march!
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