When we look together at the 2021 budget today, you might notice a new line item. It includes a word that sends chills into the hearts of many an Episcopalian: “Evangelism!” Even over Zoom, I could see the eyes of vestry members growing wide and wary the first time that I used that word at our meeting last week.
Yes, I’ll admit that some of our brothers and sisters in
Christ have abused the word “evangelism.” They have used it to intrude into the
lives of others with judgment. Evangelism conjures up images of knocking on
doors and warning people that they will go to hell. It reminds us of unpleasant
encounters with overzealous friends who won’t leave us alone about attending
their bible studies. Evangelists can “fish for people” with a barbed hook. I
imagine that we all have a personal horror story about being on the receiving
end of evangelism-gone-wrong.
Episcopalians, in reaction, often take a hands-off approach
to evangelism. Actually, one of my favorite jokes goes: “Do you know how
Episcopalians do evangelism?” Referencing today’s Gospel, the response is:
“They take an aquarium and put it down in the sand on the beach. Then they wait
for the fish to jump in.”[1] We
Episcopalians are shy about “imposing” our faith on anyone else. We don’t like
to knock on strange doors or to take our testimony outside of our comfort
zones. Even I—a priest of the Church—have to work up my nerve for a few minutes
before making a “cold call” to share a word of welcome with someone I don’t
know.
If Jesus had been an Episcopalian, I doubt that he would
have been described as acting “immediately” to his circumstances in today’s
Gospel lesson. Instead, he would probably have formed a vestry subcommittee to
do a long self-study. He would have allowed prospective disciples to sign the
guest book before approaching them. He would have waited for them to come back
a few times before asking them to do anything. An Episcopal evangelist might
even have looked more like Jonah, mumbling his proclamation with the minimum
number of words, more anxious to be safely back in familiar territory than to
proclaim the Kingdom of God. Right?
Indeed, it can be easier to identify with Jonah than with Simon,
James, and John. Jonah’s refusal to “evangelize” in Nineveh is actually just an
excuse. Jonah’s real problem is that he hates the Ninevites. They are the oppressors
of his people. They want to slaughter his friends and family. He doesn’t think
that they are worthy of God’s—or his—attention. Jonah doesn’t want to talk with
them, to listen to them, to let them change his heart or even to let God change
theirs. Jonah is furious that God uses Jonah’s begrudging prophetic words to
turn people around and completely forgive the entire nation. Jonah wants God to
think like he thinks. Jonah wants God to punish his enemies. He wants to see
them suffer for what they have done. Jonah can’t stand to live in a world of
love and grace. How often, in our polarized times, do we react like an angry Jonah?
How often do we judge, instead of opening up to grace and love?
Jesus’ disciples, on the other hand, seem to run toward the
change that Jesus is offering. What is going on with them?! Simon, Andrew,
James and John sure seem to realize from the beginning that this is no time to
dilly-dally. They drop what they are doing and walk off together into the new
life of the Kingdom. Thinking about Jonah and the disciples this week, I began
to wonder: “Did I ever make a decisive life-change without running away first,
or at least hesitating?” And then it hit me. Yes, I did! And it wasn’t my call
to ordination!
Once upon a time, I was just like those disciples, throwing
down their nets and hitting the road with Jesus. You see, when I was 21 years
old, I went to France to live for a year at a French Protestant seminary. I was
just supposed to stay and do some research in church history—just for the
school year--before coming back home and going to grad school. But one day,
after I had been there about 5 months, I was walking back to the seminary from
town, and I suddenly decided to stay for good.
The
story that I usually tell people is that I fell in love. I got engaged. That
version makes for a dramatically romantic and even shocking story, but that’s
not really all that happened. After all, my fiancé could have come back with me
to the US. What happened was that I had entered into a new world in France, a
world that I wanted to make my own. I had lived for 21 years in a very narrow
world. It was a safe world, but it was also a sad and confining one. It was all
about pleasing other people, following the rules, working, doing what was
expected. Suddenly, across the ocean in France, I found freedom: the freedom of
expressing myself in a new way, in a new language; the freedom to be remade
from the inside out in a new culture. I also found community—the close-knit
community of the French Reformed Church. In the seminary dorm, I found
friendship with men and women from countries all over the world, and I learned
for the first time how God was working in those countries for justice, how the
church was working in those countries to fight poverty and disease. I wanted to
be a part of that world of limitless horizons and goodness: that world of
freedom, love, and transformation. It’s hard to describe how I changed. Almost
overnight, my life in the United States didn’t matter anymore. My family and
friends, my old career aspirations …. None of it mattered. I had glimpsed something
better. Something that I knew I had to join, or wither and die.
That
world of new horizons, I believe, is what Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John
saw in Jesus of Nazareth. They caught a glimpse of God in Jesus’ eyes. They saw
the immediacy of God’s reign of love and freedom and transformation in Jesus’
words and deeds. And nothing was going to keep them from holding on to what
they saw. They saw fishing to feed their Roman oppressors, as the emptiness
that it was. They entered into Jesus’ world because they found life and joy
there, and, stepping over the threshold into God’s Kingdom, their lives and
their work were transformed.
Eugene Peterson’s translation begins our passage:
“After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God:
‘Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” The
urgency of God’s call is as if … as if, a big net has come in to sweep us along
into a new place. It is as if the whole world is being carried into a new
creation on the crest of a wave. The arrival of God’s rule in Jesus Christ is
not a piece of bait bobbing around, luring us to grab hold of the hook inside.
The arrival of God’s reign in Jesus Christ is a huge net scooping up everyone
and everything in its path, drawing them to God and holding them together as a
new entity.
I can
certainly identify with feeling swept up in a big net these days. Time does seem
to be up on so many of the old, comfortable ways. We live in a time of rapid change—in
society and in the Church itself. There is a new urgency for long-withheld
Justice finally to be unleashed. There is a new hunger for love and mercy. There
is increasing need for food and medical care and housing and hope in our land. And
at the same time, no more fish are jumping into our nice little aquarium on the
shore.
We have a new line-item in our budget called, “Evangelism--Sharing
the Good News” because … “Time’s up! God’s Kingdom is calling.” --Calling us all
into God’s amazing new life. It’s time for St. Ambrose to become a place of
life, love, mercy, and joy so wonderful that freedom-hungry 21-year-olds,
hope-starved workers, jaded elders, and thirsty, starving travelers of all
kinds will gladly put their burdens down, jump in, and join us. But for
them to know us, to see us … we have to get out of our little aquarium and into
God’s enormous net. We have to let it pull us and our treasure away from the
shore and into the waves with everyone else. The Kingdom of God is coming near.
Turn, jump in, and be free. Turn, change, and believe in the Good News of God’s
love and mercy.
[1] A joke told to me by a colleague years ago; I don’t know where it originated.
Good imagery, important sharing, dear Anne. I connect with your story in so many ways.
ReplyDelete