The following appeared in "Dear Abby" a while back:
DEAR ABBY:
I do my grocery shopping in a large supermarket. There is one checkout woman who has been there for years. Yesterday, when she checked out my groceries, she leaned toward me and said, "I lost my beloved Ricardo after 48 years of marriage; he had a massive heart attack with no warning." I didn’t know what to say except, "Gee, I’m really sorry."
Abby, I don’t even know this lady’s name! She certainly did lay a depressing bit of news on me. I left the store feeling down in the dumps. I didn’t need to hear that kind of news from a total stranger.
--IN THE DUMPS
DEAR IN:
Perhaps you didn’t need to hear that kind of news, but apparently she needed to talk about it. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a person is to listen. A little compassion, please.
It seems that Ms. In-the-Dumps was a bit short on both compassion and empathy, but perhaps we can understand her attitude. There is often news that makes us feel not only bad, but also frustrated because we can’t do anything about it. "If it has nothing to do with me," we say, "then why talk about it and just deepen my frustration?"
For many of us, that frustration applies when we come across biblical passages about the persecution of Christians. It’s hard for us to connect with those passages because, living here in a free society, most of us have never experienced persecution for our faith.
But if we are to consider the fullness of Scripture, we cannot just say, "Well, that doesn’t apply these days," and skip over it. The possibility of persecution for one’s faith is a theme woven into the New Testament.
Persecution in the New Testament
Consider today’s reading. Jesus was in the temple with some of his follower
