In our gospel reading Jesus sends his disciples out on their first missionary journey. I believe the only directive that Jesus gives that unsettles us more than the idea of going out and spreading the gospel is the one of selling all that you own and giving the money to the poor!
Now, that one may unsettle us
more. We’ll cover that when we get to
it. For today we focus on going out and
testifying. We should ask ourselves why
that so unsettling for us. I think
answering that will go a long way to making us more comfortable with it, and
also make us more effective at it.
Because ultimately the same command comes to us. Some things haven’t changed. The harvest is indeed plentiful, and the
laborers are few!
I think part of our discomfort with
testifying is that we’ve all been annoyed by a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon who
greets us at our door and annoys us by wanting to talk about faith. We’ve probably also at some point experienced
someone on an airplane or similar place we can’t escape decide to evangelize to
us. Christianity can easily come across
as annoying.
Many of us may have been taught that
faith is something you keep private. You
don’t really talk about faith outside of church events. You may not even talk about it much at
home. Americans are known for:
championing rugged individuality, being a ‘self-made man’, or being capable and
independent. There is something weak
about truly having Christian faith.
Christian faith suggests brokenness, neediness, and incapability.
In the last hundred odd years the
divide between faith and science has grown significantly. If you speak of Christian faith people think
you must be an ignorant simpleton who believes myths and fairy tales. Oh, it’s okay to be a church member, because
at its best the church is a do-gooder organization, but to take it seriously
and to proclaim it in public is another thing entirely.
And then add to it the way the
clergy abuse scandals rule news stories, and stories of judgmentalism and
hypocrisy, and you realize just how hard it is to be public with your
faith. Our society is functionally
agnostic and presses hard to keep it that way.
My one colleague has a daughter who
is in second grade. In Sunday school she
received a bunch of colorful cards with pictures and Bible stories on
them. They’re from Augsburg Fortress,
our denomination’s publishing house. You
can be sure they are good quality, show critical scholarship, and are
non-judgmental. In other words, they are
solidly good stuff! This girl enjoys
looking at them and imagining the stories.
A couple weeks ago she took the cards with her to school. She was looking at them on the bus and some
of her friends were curious. So, she gave cards to everyone who wanted
one. Being a pastor’s kid, she knew she
could get plenty more.
How much more sweet, authentic, and
wonderful can it get than a little girl sharing colorful Bible story cards with
her friends who are interested?
By that afternoon my colleague got a
text from her teacher. Apparently a
parent of one of the kids who received a card contacted the school, who
contacted the teacher, who contacted my colleague who gently asked her to not
allow her daughter to pass out religious materials on the school bus.
Perhaps we could get angry. A child has the constitutional right to pass
out religious materials on the school bus, after all! It was not an official school lesson or
anything like that. It was not endorsed
by the school or passed out through the school’s formal channels. But still, the social pressure is very strong
to not express faith in a public place.
My colleague could fight it. And she would certainly win the legal battle
hands down. But it would be embarrassing
and ultimately counter-productive.
Yes, keep your faith to
yourself. No one wants to hear it. It makes people uncomfortable. They don’t like that.
Imagine you were at a meeting at
work. The company wants to move forward
with something that is counter to your faith.
Are you going to raise your hand and object? Are you going to say you’re uncomfortable
with it because it goes against your Christian principles? That’ll take guts if you do it! And people will look at you like you’re
weird. If you raise ethical objections
you’d better find something other than faith to base them on!
Jesus
warned his disciples that the work of spreading the good news of God’s love
wouldn’t be easy. And in their case
you’d think it would be very easy! They
had just heard Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount outlining an ethical foundation
of authenticity, humility, and grace for a way of life. They’ve just witnessed numerous
miracles. You’ll remember we read two chapters
full of them last week. There’s no
counter-Christian movement out there to cause them trouble. But trouble they will have.
It’s
not easy. It’s never been easy. I doubt it ever will be easy.
So
let’s learn five things from what Jesus tells the disciples as he sends them
out with their newly minted faith.
First,
their tactics are to be invitational, not judgmental. They are not to use fear or guilt. Every Thursday morning when I drive to Lyons
to work with the church there I pass the LED sign of another church. It usually has some message of fear or anger
on it. Last Thursday it proclaimed that
Jesus is coming soon, and then red letters overlaid the frame with VERY
SOON. That’s a threat. That’s intended to cause fear. And Jesus never set a time frame.
Second,
they are to be respectful. If people
aren’t interested, then just move on.
When he tells them to shake the dust off their feet from the towns that
will not respect them he is not suggesting they become angry or spiteful. Shaking the dust off your feet when you left
a town and returned home was standard practice.
Jesus is basically saying don’t worry about it. When it comes to consequences for their
rejection of God’s messengers, the Sodom and Gomorrah reference we heard is
just saying that that is God’s concern, not theirs.
Third,
they are to be creative; cunning and clever even. He says to be wise as serpents and innocent
as doves. Use your brains. Use your creativity. God gave them to you for a reason, so use
them!
Fourth,
they are to carry out their actions without fear. If and when they receive pushback know that
there is nothing that humanity can do that is ultimate. God is the only one who can do something
ultimate.
There
is a fifth thing that is not exactly relevant to us, but that it will tear
apart families and friends. There will
be serious conflict. So be ready for
it. We can consider ourselves fortunate
that expressing our faith will at most get us social disapproval and not
imprisonment or execution.
I
want to wrap up with one thing to keep in mind, especially as we have our
annual congregational meeting later today.
We have a lot of work to do as Christians to overcome the highly
negative attitude our society has towards Christian faith. Much of it is deserved. The church has indeed not acted the way Jesus
taught his disciples to act. And yet
much of it is undeserved.
Moving
forward, I think we need to change a lot of long-held tactics. In the past churches tried to create
programs, ministries, and fun activities to attract people. Worship tried to be a fulfilling splash of,
if not entertainment, at least a well-crafted public performance: comfortable,
inviting, good preaching, good music, etc.
I
don’t think high quality worship should be the end goal of churches who want to
evangelize. I’m not saying worship should
be careless. I’m just saying that if
churches think a great worship service to invite someone to is the key to
evangelism they’re barking up the wrong tree.
The same goes for all programs and ministry options.
We
have to remember something very significant.
Jesus never taught his disciples to invite people to church. That’s obviously because the church didn’t
exist. But then again Jesus never taught
his disciples to form churches!!! He
just taught them to spread the good news of God’s love into the world and
invite people to live it in. The church
is the outcome, not the goal… and not the driving force.
In
other words, don’t invite people to church.
Invite people to know that God loves them with abundance. And that embracing that love is central to
living a truly fulfilled life. True
Christian faith is authentic, honest, unafraid, deeply rooted, and
empathetic. There’s nothing offensive or
ignorant in that.
Whether
people know it or not, that is what they are seeking. Fortunately for you, you have found it. Finding it doesn’t mean life’s sorrows and
problems go away. Finding it means that
you can manage life’s sorrows and problems with confidence.
Live
like that and you will find opportunities to genuinely share the love of Christ
with people who are truly interested.
You will probably even find them in abundance. For indeed, the harvest is plentiful, but the
laborers are few.
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