Malachi 4.1-2a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19

JUST before Judas meets the high priests and scribes (Luke 22.3), Jesus addresses disciples under pressure. Into a situation of terror (arrest, persecution, betrayal, death, hate), he speaks words of guidance: “By your endurance, gain your souls!”

The link between endurance and success is not simple cause and effect. Most worthwhile successes require a degree of endurance; and yet the default setting for most of us is to endure — perhaps to succeed in some “lesser” goal — but not to win. Ask all the thousands of Olympic athletes who compete and succeed in gaining the label “Olympian”, but who never win a medal of any colour.

Being of a particular generation, I think of 1991 and the brilliant British sprinter Roger Black. His misfortune was to be brilliant at a time when two quite different factors prevented his reaching the ultimate win. In that year, he was robbed of a World Championship gold medal by a later-confessed drug cheat; and, in individual competition, he never succeeded in out-sprinting the American Michael Johnson.

Sometimes, what denies us success is unfairness or wrongdoing. Often, though, it is simply the fact that not even our greatest efforts can overcome obstacles by sheer force of will. Paul nails it in 1 Corinthians 9.24: “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.” His words are encouragement to all, not for one person only. He does not say, “Run in such a way that you will win.”

Roger Black was truly great because he succeeded. He had the courage to run in such a way that he might win. For Christians, the true mark of faith is to run like that, with courage, even though we understand that we may not achieve anything that the world would label a “prize”.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus works his way through warnings about future civil unrest and outright war towards a specific challenge that he knows that his followers are going to have to face. If we were reading this passage as part of the whole Gospel, we would by now be aware that the Passion is imminent. But, when we hear only this passage, our thoughts take a more specific direction. Has there ever been a time when, hearing this Gospel in worship, Christians have not had the eyes of their souls turned towards civil and military conflict?

As I write, we stand on the brink of a settlement of two years of misery and destruction in the Middle East. But, before that, there was war in Ukraine. There still is. There will always be wars. Even in our prosperous and peaceful land, we are not free from unrest and disorder.

So the Gospel challenges us to remember the woes of the world, perhaps by prayer, or works of charity, or political activism. Those are external reactions; but, at its climax (verses 12-19), the Gospel turns from the world around us to the internal nature of Christians as a group (the form of the Greek tells us that Jesus is talking to the community, not to individuals). The threat that they face is first active and external (“they will persecute you”): a warning about what others will do to the faithful. Then Jesus switches to the passive, entering into the experience of the persecuted faithful: “You will be betrayed; you will be hated.”

These verses weave threat and defence into a single fabric. Being persecuted will give Jesus’s followers a chance to testify (in Greek, martyrion), whether by word or example. The Lord himself will give them the words and wisdom to confront their accusers. Being betrayed and hated, even killed, will become their opportunity to show endurance, which — rather than the suffering and persecution, even the betrayal and death — is what will gain them the Lord’s blessing: “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

So, winning one’s soul (or “life-force”, or “security of life”) is both the goal for a Christian and the mark of a Christian. Mark and Matthew (8.36; 16.26) warn us about the alternative: “What will it profit someone to win the whole world and forfeit their life?” We can all lose our lives by striving to gain what is worthless. But we can also all run in such a way as to win. And we can all endure.