A Great Courage
Galatians 2:11-14
Introduction
One of the virtues that is universally respected is that of courage. Of course there are different kinds of courage. For example, it takes some courage to eat a pepper that you know will be extremely hot. You know there is pain on the other side but you choose to do it anyway. It also takes courage to parachute from an airplane, especially if you have a fear of heights. There is a fear that you would have to push through in order to make that leap.
While courage in general is good, I would like to focus specifically on moral courage. The principle is the same but the motivation is different. There are times that we know what is morally right and we know that there is pressure to not speak the truth and that there will be a cost to speaking what is the truth. I would like to share two examples of real life moral courage.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a gifted scholar and an influential member of the Confessing Church, a Protestant movement that resisted the Nazi attempt to control churches in Germany. Despite knowing the personal risks, he openly criticized Hitler’s policies, especially the persecution of Jews.
When he had the chance to remain safely in the United States in 1939, he chose instead to return to Germany, believing that he needed to stand with his people during a time of crisis. Bonhoeffer later became involved in a resistance plot to overthrow Hitler. Arrested in 1943, he was executed by the Gestapo in April 1945, just weeks before the war’s end.
Bonhoeffer’s life is often cited as an example of moral courage because he acted according to his convictions despite overwhelming pressure, personal danger, and the possibility of death—choosing conscience over self-preservation.
A more recent example of moral courage is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani advocate for girls’ education.
As a young teenager living under Taliban control in the Swat Valley, Malala spoke publicly—through local interviews and a BBC blog—about the right of girls to go to school, despite threats against her life. In 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while riding a school bus. She survived and, instead of retreating into silence, continued her advocacy on a global stage.
Malala co-founded the Malala Fund, addressed the United Nations, and became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Her willingness to speak truth in the face of violence and intimidation makes her a modern emblem of moral courage.
These two examples are both inspiring and intimidating. We might doubt that we could ever be put in the same category as these two people. And yet moral courage is not limited to just those who face extreme physical danger. Let us return to the example of Paul to try and understand what this looks like for us.
Paul Standing For the Truth
While there were times when Paul had to stand up for the truth where his life was at risk, that is not what we are looking at here. Examples of martyrdom, even potential martyrdom, can feel outside our frame of reference. The passage that we are looking at here is much more relatable. It also gives us a rare glimpse of the workings within the early church and the relationship between Peter and Paul. In this passage, Peter is called Cephas, which is his Aramaic name. The setting is Antioch, which was an important centre for Christianity, even being the first city where followers of Jesus were called Christians. Both Peter and Paul were there at the same time. Remember from the previous passage, it was acknowledged that Peter was the apostle to the Jews and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. However, Peter was comfortable eating with Gentiles as God had broken down his prejudice in the book of Acts. That Peter ate with Gentiles was no secret. I should mention that in this culture, a meal was much more than consuming calories. Who you ate with reflected who you valued. This is why Jesus often was criticized for eating with the wrong kind of people.
So there was Peter having a wonderful meal, enjoying community with his Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ. Everything was great.
But then some Jewish Christians came up from Jerusalem. Peter suddenly stopped eating with the Gentiles. Not only this, some of the other Jewish Christians in Antioch followed his example. Gentiles were fine to eat with until suddenly Peter got worried about what some Jerusalem Christians would think. Paul saw this and was livid. Paul publicly rebuked Peter.
There was a cost to this. Paul was already on thin ice with some of the Jewish Christians. Going after Peter, not just the premier apostle of the Twelve, but also the Apostle to the Jews, was not going to make friends. Especially when the issue was over eating with Gentiles.
This took moral courage. Paul knew what was right and he spoke up even when there was risk to his standing in the church.
The Church Standing For the Truth
The bottom line for us reading this story is that we should be prepared to demonstrate moral courage. But this is a tricky thing. It is much more than just being loud about what you believe. It is about being vocal on the things that are most important.
For example, the loudest I have heard the church in Canada get in recent years is about the “persecution” we faced having to wear masks and having public gatherings limited during a pandemic. Even if you hated having to do those things, are they really the most pressing issues facing our world?
I listen to some political podcasts and in a recent episode, they spoke of their anticipation of how evangelical Christian pastors in the United States would speak up in their pulpits about the famine in Gaza, igniting evangelical pressure on the White House to do something. I wish I had their faith.
Frankly we all have our personal opinions on issues and convictions that we hold dear. Not every church can focus on every issue, especially when we might have some differences of opinion.
But there is a current found throughout the Bible about the importance of justice and caring for the marginalized. It is repeated over and over. At the same time, we live in a world that puts pressure on not speaking out because the majority benefits from the status quo. Churches cave into this pressure. There were churches that opposed the dismantling of Apartheid and there were churches that opposed legislation to make public buildings accessible to people with disability.
Churches need to find their moral courage. We need to know what are the most important issues, issues of justice, and we need to courage to speak out, to speak truth to power. This is not just about confronting politicians. It may mean saying something to a family member or friend or work colleague. I do not mean correcting them on everything you disagree with. I do mean speaking up at the right time in the right away about the right issue.
Conclusion
My goal is not to tell you what issues are the most important or what injustice you need to speak out against. What I want to do is try and put you in the place of the Apostle Paul while he was in Antioch. I want you to imagine yourself as Paul, watching what is happening. You see Peter move from table fellowship with Gentiles to only Jewish Christians. You see the effect this is having on the Jewish Christians in Antioch as they follow Peter’s example. You see the harm to the Gentile Christians as this pillar of the church seems embarrassed of his relationship with them. What do you do? This is not a matter of calling someone out on personal sin that is between them and God. This is harm being done to innocent people. Confronting Peter will be difficult because of his standing in the church. What do you do?
What do we do now? There are narratives that are just accepted even though they bring harm to people. Do we have the moral courage to respond? Can we speak uncomfortable truths that might make us uncomfortable? Moral courage is not about speaking out against what makes us angry, it is about speaking out against that which harms. How can we use our words and actions to protect the must vulnerable among us?
