Who is the Greatest?

 

Not the "Pee" of this story, but a couple of
Karen Grandmas carrying firewood home.

It is All Saints Day as I write this. It’s not a day that I have paid a lot of attention to over the years and not a day the churches I was associated with gave much consideration. But as I have become more acquainted with Christian and Baptist history, particularly of the Karen people we worked with in Thailand and the refugee camps, I came to better appreciate the “cloud of witnesses” that surround us. Those witnesses include over 200 years’ worth of Karen Christians that were instrumental if not the prime movers in spreading the Gospel among the Karen and all people in Burma as well as Thailand.

That cloud of witnesses of course, is composed of a host of individuals and on this All Saints Day, I’m reminded of an individual I met in a small village in Thailand a number of years ago. To reach this village, we left the town of Mae Sariang, then drove south and west into steep mountains and valleys along the Mae Ra Moe creek. This particular village was perched on an elevated ridge and at the time, there was only one Christian home in the village.  That Christian home was our destination.

I was traveling with the evangelist for the area and as we visited with the first, and only Christian in the village he told me her story. I don’t think I got her name, but in Karen culture people are usually called by a title or a nickname. Giving respect to this elderly woman, I imagine she was called “Grandma” or “Pee”.

Pee had been married and had given birth to 10 children. But living in a remote area with no medical care, the years had not been kind to her. Her husband and nine of her 10 children had all died. In a culture where one’s children are their retirement plan, she was fortunate that one son had survived that could help her survive as she aged and was less able to work.

She was a new Christian and so had lived almost all her life as an animist. As an animist, she would have been required by the village shaman to make various sacrifices to the spirits with each new disease, misfortune, and especially with a death in the family. With each sacrifice of a water buffalo, pig, chicken, goat, or turning over their rice harvest, she was increasingly impoverished. Finally, with nothing left and pressure from the Shaman and the rest of the village to conform and sacrifice more, she was at the end of her rope.

A Karen house in the Mae Ra Moe area.

In desperation, and with the help of the evangelist, she accepted Jesus Christ. In her case, Jesus was an
immediate Lord, as well as very literally a Savior. As a Christian, the Shaman and rest of the village now forced her to live on the outer edge of the village. Technically, she was not in the village as most spirit ceremonies require participation of everyone for fear the spirits would take offense if any one was absent. And, an offended spirit could and would cause any number of calamities. Since a Christian would not participate in the ceremonies and sacrifices, she had to be outside the village limits.

I was struck by the courage it would have taken Pee to abandon the life-long beliefs in the spirits that had controlled her life and taken everything she’d ever had. She and her family would likely have been seen to be jinxed and bad luck. So I suspect she would have been largely shunned and unaccepted. Her acceptance of Jesus and becoming a Christian would not have been welcomed among her animist neighbors so it took even more courage.

But here she was, living outside her village and abandoning the only culture and society she had ever known. However, after a life of pain and misfortune she’d received a new lease on life with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It was a privilege to be in the presence of someone so very special in God’s sight.

In Luke 9, after some of the disciples were discussing who would be the greatest in God’s kingdom, Jesus settled the matter saying in vs 48, “For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.” I can’t say who will be at the right hand of Jesus, but ever since I met Pee, I have always felt if it isn’t her, it will be someone like her. Regardless where she sits though, she is certainly one worthy to remember and to give us inspiration on All Saints Day and every day.