1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 – 5/17/2026 – Seventh Sunday of Easter
Rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
1 Peter 4:13-14 (NRSVue)
As a seminarian in a mainline Protestant Church, the ELCA, I do not come in contact often with Christians who claim to be persecuted, Christians who feel themselves to be marginalized because they identify with faith in Jesus Christ. In America, Christians do not face persecution for their religious identity. There is no danger of losing one’s job, facing civil sanction, or the threat of violence simply because one identifies with faith in Jesus Christ. Even though the worst a Christian might face in the United States is suspicion and perhaps derision from others who have been harmed by people who claim to be Christians, there are segments of American Christians who feel themselves to suffer real and significant persecution simply for identifying with the name of Jesus.
I am grateful I do not come in frequent contact with American Christians who believe themselves to be persecuted for their faith. They come across as ridiculous. Usually, the persecution they perceive they are on the receiving end of is simple derision and mockery, not for their faith in Christ, but for certain particular doctrines, like young-earth creationism or that being gay is sinful. These Christians mistake mockery for actual persecution. They mistake people’s dismissal of their doctrines of stupidity and cruelty for mockery of their faith in Jesus.
People who feel themselves to be truly marginalized because they are Christians in this country are usually bigots with thin skins. The persecution they suffer for being insufferable is really the mockery of a society that is fed up with their meddling in other’s sex lives and for supporting policies and politicians that favor war over peace, inequality over the social good, and white supremacy, nationalism, and bigotry instead of celebrating a diverse society committed to peace and the common good.
What some American Christian’s persecution complex shows is that they are committed to these very anti-Christian values more than they are committed to following Jesus. Today’s lectionary reading from 1 Peter includes an exhortation to rejoice in sharing in Christ’s suffering. “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed.” The Christian who is persecuted for the sake of Christ and following Jesus’s teachings will not call attention to the persecution but instead rejoice in the opportunity to follow Christ.
Certainly, there are those in the world who are actually suffering danger and threats of real violence for being a Christian. I am not speaking of them, and for the most part, these Christians in real danger are not in America. The Americans who are in actual danger are in danger because of racial hatred, bigotry, and an economic system the distributes the goods of society unequally. American Christianity can be divided into those who see the real harms our society causes and those who think harm is directed to people like them while ignoring the harm directed at others. We do not like to talk about this division in American Christianity, but this division has existed since Europeans colonized this continent. Two hundred years ago, there were Christians against slavery and Christians who thought they were being persecuted because of their faith that whites were superior to blacks. Decades later it was women in leadership and interpreting the Bible in light of modern scholarship. Today it’s whether queer relationships are blessed by God and whether America should be a “Christian” nation.
In a fallen world of injustice where violence and hatred often have the upper hand over peace and love, those who follow Jesus in seeking love and rejecting violence will face persecution. The persecution of such followers of Jesus will be alongside the poor, the oppressed, the victims of racism, bigotry, and those who have been excluded by society for their poverty. Such people will call out injustice and call attention to suffering, but not their own. Their own suffering for the sake of the good news will be a source of joy for it I suffering for following Christ, not for taking on a superficial identity in Jesus’s name.
They will know we are Christians by our joy. Joy is not dour faced complaint because someone rejects your reactionary white nationalism. Joy is standing up for the oppressed no matter the cost because following Jesus this way is so much better than complicity in a system that harms and destroys. That is the privilege of following Jesus for those who claim Christian identity and for those who don’t, in a society that devalues life, we have the joy of loving life in solidarity with the oppressed, the very people Christ has chosen as blessed.
Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Dionysus on a Bike 
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