What Baptism Can Do For Us - Part III

You are an Evangelist of the Gospel

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
– Matthew 28:19-20

As baptized members of the Church, we also become Evangelists who spread the good news of God in Christ to others. The Greek word from which we get the word “evangelist” is euangelion – which literally means one who tells good news. Unfortunately, the word “evangelist” has become loaded with expectations and images that often bear little resemblance to good news.

Our present day culture has been greatly influenced by broadcast media and Christians of various denominations have used the media as a means to spread the Gospel message. Dating back to the early 20th century, preachers such as The Reverend Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple-McPherson, Billy Graham and others began to use radio, film and eventually television to spread the Christian message. These preachers were eventually called “televangelists” and they have influenced the spiritual landscape of the American culture. The approach of these evangelists can be quite confrontational in nature challenging us to make a decision for Christ and presenting the dire consequences of eternal damnation for those who do not. This image born of televangelism is largely how we have come to internalize what the word “evangelist” means. For some, this image of evangelism is distasteful and even offensive. If, however, we return to the root of the word evangelist, we can begin to reclaim what being an evangelist really means – one who tells the good news of Christ.

What is “the Gospel?”

To be an Evangelist of the Gospel requires us to first explore what the word “gospel” even means. The word “gospel” comes from the old English words “god” (meaning “good”) and “spel” (meaning “news” or “tidings”). The good news or good tidings is that God came among us into our human existence in the person of Jesus Christ in order to reconcile the world back to a right relationship with God. In essence, Jesus Christ opened for us a way back to God. No matter how far we stray, as Christians, we have a way back to God through Christ’s reconciling death on the cross to save us. This is good news!

Too often, we narrowly define the “gospel” as the accounts written in the New Testament: specifically, the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. While the written accounts of the life, ministry, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are important, it is also crucial to realize the gospel is more than just these written accounts. The gospel also includes the ongoing good news of what God in Christ is doing in our lives today. The only gospel we can authentically share is the good news of how we have experienced Christ’s redeeming love in our own lives. As baptized Christians, we are living, breathing, walking, and talking gospels. For those whom we meet, we may be the only gospel they have ever seen.

What Is the Work of an Evangelist?

If the Gospel is the good news of God in Christ, what is the work of an evangelist? The work of an evangelist is to tell the good news. St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words.” Evangelists preach the good news of God in Christ by living authentically as Christians through all that they do and say. It’s “walking your talk” or as Father Richard Rohr calls it “lifestyle Christianity.”

There are many who can give “lip service” to Christianity by making intellectual assents to belief statements. But to really be an evangelist, you need to live the message of Jesus Christ – through works of love, mercy, justice and reconciliation. Living the message of Christ is much more challenging than just making statements about what you believe.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the mandate Christ gave us when he told us to “love one another as I have loved you.” Evangelists preach this in both deeds and words, reaching out in love to all people.

Evangelists need to have spiritual discernment in order to be effective in sharing the message of Christ. Just because you can tell the good news of Jesus Christ does not mean that every moment is an appropriate opportunity to do so. We need to be discerning and ask for God’s guidance before we share the message. Before you talk to a friend about Christ, it is critically important that you talk to Christ about your friend.

What Is Not the Responsibility of an Evangelist?

Evangelists are responsible for telling the good news of God in Christ. What evangelists are not responsible for is the outcome of telling the good news. That’s right – as Christian evangelists we are NOT responsible for the end result of our sharing the good news and that in itself is good news for us.

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said:

“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:3-9)

As Evangelists, we are responsible for sowing the seeds of the good news through our words and deeds. Notice how the sower did not worry about where the seeds fell in this parable – the sower was only responsible for sowing the seeds. We are likewise not responsible for whether or not the seeds sprout, grow, are snatched up or choked out. We are responsible for the sowing seeds of the Gospel message through our words and actions.

God only asks us to share the gospel message of our lives. We are responsible for that alone and we need to leave the outcomes to God. Often we will not know how our witness will impact another person. What we need to do is trust that God will use our witness to work a greater purpose. As God said through the prophet Isaiah:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

We do not always know the purpose of our sharing the good news and our vision of “success” is often different from God’s definition of it. God is responsible for the outcomes – we just need to sow the seeds.

Making Disciples

Through your baptism, you become a disciple of Jesus Christ and in turn also become an evangelist who tells the good news of what Christ is doing in your life by both your words and your deeds. Jesus commanded us to “make disciples of all nations.” By virtue of your baptism, you are called to share the good news of your faith journey with others who are seeking to grow closer to God so that they may become disciples of Jesus Christ.

What can baptism actually do TO us?**

I've been thinking about what happens when we get baptized. Those outside the Church might be really doubtful that dunking somebody in water would do anything but get them wet. In the Episcopal Church (as well as others), we see baptism as a rite of initiation into the Christian community. OK, but what happens after you've been "initiated" into the Christian community? So what?

I think our emphasis on intiation into the Christian community is important, but I think we've neglected to talk openly about the personal change that begins in baptism. It's that "C" word ... Conversion - and that's a scary thing for us. But what does conversion mean? I've been thinking about this and I believe that there are three personal changes that happen to us at our baptism:

1. We become Ministers of the Church
2. We become Stewards of God's good gifts
3. We become Evangelists who tell others about the good news of God in Christ

These three things happen, whether we are aware of them or not. They are part of an ontological change in us. Ontology is one of those "hundred dollar theological terms" we use in seminary that describes the "being-ness" of each person. In other words, your core being is changed in baptism and you become a Minister, Steward and Evangelist. These three things are who you are, not what you do (althought they all will involve doing at various times).

We can think of these three ontological changes as the acquisition of a Christian DNA. Our baptism gives us the Christian DNA to become, through the power of the Spirit, an effective Minister, wise Steward, and enthusiastic Evangelist.

When we think of ourselves as Ministers, Stewards and Evangelists, we begin to see our lives in different terms and ask different questions. We no longer ask whether or not we will volunteer at church, but rather we ask "How can I minister to others?" "Where are my gifts best used for ministry?" and "What will be the quality of my ministry?" We no longer think about how we can buy that thing we want, instead we evaluate whether or not we need it and whether our resources are better spent helping others. We don't see creation as something which serves our wants, we think about how we can use our resources rightly and for the good of all. We let go of our fear about what others think of our faith and become comfortable speaking the gospel of our lives without the need to "win over" the other person (after all, God doesn't really need me as the "holy defense team" - God can handle that without me).

As I think about these three changes, I'll be posting more ... but this is enough to chew on for now.

P.S. I'm really stoked that an article I wrote and submitted to Alban Institute's Congregations Magazine is being published in the Fall. I don't normally tell people this kind of stuff 'cause it sounds like bragging and we Scandinavians consider that a mortal sin ... but I'll take my chances this time!

** I changed the title of this post based on comments through FaceBook from a fellow priest in our Mutual Ministry Program, Karen Crosby+. Thanks Karen+!

Going home again

American novelist Tom Wolfe once said, "You can't go home again." Insofar as going home is the fantasized return to the way things were at some time in the past, he's absolutely right. You can return to a place or people, but it's not the same. You're not the same and neither are they.

I'm thinking about this as I've accepted a call to return to my home congregation, St. Mark's Episcopal in Lappans MD, as a temporary (9 month) part-time Assistant Rector with the charge of working on evangelism and communications. Some may wonder about the first part of that charge as many think Episcopalians don't "do evangelism." Somehow that "e-word" has become a loaded one and strikes fear into the hearts of many mainline Christians who immediately conjure up images of street preachers haranguing passers by. If that's the image your thinking of when you think of "evangelism," that's not what I'm talking about either.

I was listening to Marcus Borg being interviewed yesterday on NPR (don't ask me the program name, I didn't catch it!). I read his book The Heart of Christianity and I highly recommend it - especially to those for whom a literal Biblical interpretation leaves them cold. He made the comment that the decline we have witnessed in the church (attendance and people who identify themselves as Christian) has much to to with Biblical literalism. He feels that many have fallen away because the paradigm of only taking the Bible as literally, factually acurate has not worked for those of us living in the age of scientific discovery and technological progress.

I saw this with my father-in-law. In many ways, he was post-modern ... before there was a word coined for it! He was raised by a mother who was a Southern Baptist and took the Bible as the absolutely factual and literal word of God. When he went to Japan in WWII, he was part of General MacArthur's occupation force. What he saw there marked him. He never talked about it, but we got a glimpse of it when we went through his personal effects after he died. He was in Hiroshima three months after the atomic bomb - we have pictures of the devastation. He encountered people who did not know about Christianity, but who were genuine and good people. He saw the worst of war. He then returned to his family of origin whose Biblical literalism and black and white thinking just didn't square with what he'd been through. After his mother died, he stopped going to church completely.

I can't say for sure, but I think he came to a place where he thought that if being a Christian meant having to take the Bible literally as inerrant fact, he didn't want any part of it. The idea that there was another way to interpret the Bible (as metaphor and image) just didn't occur to him. We had some good conversations about other interpretations when he was alive. It usually began with him saying, "Well, you know I don't believe that crap, but do you think ..." and what followed would be a very interesting question on faith. Whether it was the literalism of the creation stories in Genesis (yes, stories ... Genesis 1 and 2 are different accounts!), or whether or not Jonah really did get swallowed by a great fish, or why did God choose the Jews, he had lots of interesting questions about the faith.

I think one of the things I value about the Episcopal Church is that it is a place where questions are honored and even celebrated. To me, that's part of evangelism. Evangelism comes from the Greek (yes, the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding would be at home here). Euangelion means to tell good news. That's what being an evangelist is - someone who tells good news. I think it's good news that you can come to an Episcopal church with all your doubts, questions and even unbelief and not be judged or condemned - we think God loves you right where you are and will love you and be patient with you as you wrestle with your faith!

So I am going home again, in a way, but in a different role to help tell (and teach others to tell) the good news of what God is up to in our area.