Evangelism and Presence
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This is evangelism Sunday. Many of us do not like to think of ourselves as evangelists. Our image of sincere Jehovah's Witness or Mormon fundamentalists boring our skulls off (making God into a Fuller brush) or TV hucksters promoting themselves as much as God makes us not want to see ourselves in that light. (Our friends at First Presbyterian Ossining put on their sign out front: witness through service.) Some of us sometimes just try to assume that just doing good is enough: people will see it and see God in it. Sometimes maybe, but people hunger for truth and identity and meaning as well. Goodness and meaning go together.
And it is actually not easy to be good. Some of you have told me yesterday of people who clearly were walking off with stuff, bargaining hard over nickels and dimes. For one family the good news that they proclaimed was that they had really gotten quite a bargain from the church. That dining room set was worth more than $1,000 and we got it for $500 from those dumb church people: and two of our members, who had kindly delivered the furniture, were standing right there. Its easy to be greedy, sneaky, rude. It takes effort, prayer, patience to be good. But we know that people hunger for a transformation beyond the joys of even great entertainment. They want a treasure even greater than the greatest rummage sale bargain or stock option windfall. Yet the fact is, we run a better rummage sale than an evangelism program- even though I think we know the power of the Gospel in this room. We don't know as well how to show it and speak it elsewhere, even when we try to live it.
Another thing that stops us from being evangelists is a conception that we have to repent and totally change our lives. Sometimes, yes: people get over themselves or they get sick of themselves and its great. God offers new life, and all of us need to let go of the fantasy that we-our egos-- are God. Yet "metanoia," the Greek word in the Bible, is about being opened to new perspective, to have our minds and outlooks and even hearts changed. This is different from the "turn or burn" theology of some evangelists who try to scare you out of hell and into heaven. The idea is that God's light opens us to a new world of grace (not preached: as Augustine said, "late have I loved Thee, Beauty so ancient yet so new"). It changes the way we look at things, ourselves, and God.
The three points I want to make about evangelism are presence, power and contrast, and I will use our story in Acts to do this.
Evangelism and presence: the disciples have got this formerly handicapped man-crippled is the word they use-who is over 40-so he's an old guy, set in his ways and his body is stuck-and he is present with them. So they have been preaching up a storm. It has not just been a lecture: the point is new life, healing. Look. This guy had a miraculous healing. It is part of the resurrection experience that was set loose by the resurrection of Jesus. You have got to present the good effects the Gospel has, and you've got to be fully present yourself. So when the authorities ask, under what name-by whose authority-on what mission-for what purpose-have you guys done this healing and whipped up all these people-Peter and John say its because in Jesus the resurrection is opened up for everybody. This guy grabbed it, he happened to have been crippled, he's an old guy of more than 40 (years of wilderness) but now he's well. It reminds us a little of last week, when the authorities ask Jesus what authority he had and he asks them back about John the Baptist's authority and power.
To do true good for us is to be connected to God, both for the goodness of it and for the transformation inside that it can achieve. This is part of the incarnation, the inner and outer being united-though it is only with the resurrection-the experience of Jesus-that the inner and outer are fully united. This is part of what they mean when they say only in Jesus is true or full salvation to be found: Jesus means resurrection, the fountain of eternal life behind all the healing. These disciples now have their full presence-bold, not illiterate, but uneducated in the Law, they preach to the point. But the whole selves are present. The perfect love of Christ drives out all fear. Only God's presence in Jesus could break through that clerocracy. But they have to talk about this Jesus for him to be there-and when he is there, Peter and John are simply beyond intimidation. Jesus' presence in the Spirit does not erase their personalities, it brings them up to full strength.
Our mission statement is about what our presence is supposed to do. In the case of the nursery school, for a range of reasons, we could not be fully present in the school and we are sorting that out with the help of a fine interim director.
Our presence is an important witness-- one more rummage sale story. Each year a former priest of another denomination comes to the sale-- and this year he praised us for the good spirit of our congregation . He knows church-- but when I invite him to be part of a community-- to be part of our presence-- not yet. His reasons may be more complicated than most for not participating in a community of faith, but its not that he hasn't heard the Gospel.
This brings us to power. They have the power to speak by speaking. If we imagine Peter a few months or say a year before, denying Jesus 3 times in the high priest's courtyard, now he's in front of a whole crew of high priests and fearless. But he is filled with the Holy Spirit now. Even if he had been in despair, he is filled with the Spirit now and he can stand in God's sight (vv. 19-20). Part of the point here is that Peter and John are lay people-the text says uneducated, but its uneducated in the minutiae of the Law. They are not illiterate. Think of last week with John Burkley getting up and saying to his wife, right here in the service, thank you for all you have done for me, all the love yøu have given me, for 20 years! That is lay preaching, that was a man being present because of love and he had the power of the Spirit.
Early in our text, v. 4, we are told that the number of believing men had already reached 5,000. In other words, the Gospel was powering up and we are standing at the far edges of this crowd looking at these two, bold commoners standing up to the whole high priestly family. What is happening (turning the world upside down, Acts says elsewhere) is a radical change in perspective. These men are standing up to the authorities, even judging them. This power has something to do with God's sight, and also with the Spirit in speaking.
The metanoia, the repenting or redeeming way of seeing: we do know something about this. When the fairy tales tell us of a Cinderella who is truly seen by the fairy godmother or prince, or the child who sees through the ogre's externals to the kind protector within, or the kid who one day notice how that mean old lady down the street cares for her plants and feeds birds and puts it together that she is not a mean old lady at all-these are redemption vision. (Not preached: the ability to see in a crucified prophet a risen savior is redemption vision).
Now certain roles always bring with them ways of seeing the world. If you have authorities, you normally have subjects-though these disciples refuse to be submissive. But if you are a merchant, you see people as customers. If you are a politician, the people are voters. If you're a teacher, students; M.D., patients... (If you are a high priest, the people are unclean) The message of these unsubmissive, un-cover-up-able early evangelists is that in God's sight you are people of unlimited, eternal worth. Your role is to have a calling, to be freed of your sins, to experience the power of love in your own life... to experience repentance and new life... whoever you are.
Now the contrast the disciples are making become very stark. They are standing there between the guys like me in nice robes, educated in the high level religious stuff, and a healed man, over 40 years old, unstuck in his ways and now stuck in God's ways. And they ask the people to choose-you want to be one of these elite, inner circle-or do you want to be healed, like this guy?
About this contrast, it carries some lessons for us in the church, if we are actually get serious about evangelism. The big contrast in most churches is between ministers or priests and the laity, you all. Unfortunately, unless we change our way of seeing being a Christian, this church and most of the others will be gone reasonably soon. The book (lent me by the reader, Chuck Ramsey), Re-claiming the Great Commission, gives various aspects of the contrast that we need to see and change. For example, in our marketing, we are not competing with anybody. We are part of this worldwide institution that is still a movement, and we do not exist for ourselves. We have to be fully present as we are in God's sight, and helping others be who God calls them to be. (I attach an excerpt to this sermon which I was not able to cover). The traditional minister tends to you as individuals, focus on the internal life of the congregation, be the main voice expressing faith-but even if you are a hard worker, a creative member, a leader, you may still be subtly dis-empowered.
Evangelism is probably the key place for the contrast between an institutional/traditional church and a more vibrant church, the contrast between growing the church by taking in new members or growing new members by taking out the Gospel. How to do it? Remember the healed man standing beside the disciples-that old, stuck man who was now free-and if you reach in and remember the healed person inside, you will have the power of the Spirit and the boldness of standing in God's sight. Amen.
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