[amc] a note from the pastor
- From: "garland robertson" <pastor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:15:28 -0500
Members and Friends of Austin Mennonite Church
I pray you are inspired by the experiences you share along your journey of
faith.
Laura will be accompanying me this weekend for two conference meetings near
North Newton.
This next Sunday we will celebrate Mennonite Heritage. The witness of
Anabaptists Christians stands in striking contrast to other historical faith
expressions. Its revival in the early 16th century terrified both existing
churches and civil authorities. A larger proportion of Anabaptists were
martyred for their faith than any other Christian group in history-including
even the early Christians on whom they modeled themselves. In the 17th
century their stories were gathered together into an anthology known as The
Martyrs' Mirror. To their contemporaries they appeared a threat to the very
fabric of society. To us they seem to have made a more simple demand: a
person's right to honor their personal beliefs. In their quiet pursuit of
that right a voice was heard which had been for a long time silent: the
voice of ordinary men and women, prepared to assert themselves against all
authority for conscience's sake. This devotion is published in a moving
testimony in a letter which a young Anabaptist woman wrote in 1573 to her
daughter of a few days old. The father had already been executed as an
Anabaptist; the mother had been reprieved only long enough to give birth to
her child. Her voice might be that of any good townswoman in a Flemish
painting of the period, as she wrote to tell her daughter Janneken not to
grow up ashamed that both her parents had been burnt. Anabaptists would
wander through much of Europe before they finally found tolerance here in
the United States and Canada. May we have wisdom and courage not only to
embrace such commitment to the content of our conscience but also to assert
it appropriately and boldly so that this voice might be heard in the time
ordained for us.
May it go well with you. Sincerely,
Garland Robertson
...always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to
bring some portion of misery to an end
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