A few times in my life, I have taken on the task of doing door-to-door fundraising, most often for a health-related charity. As an introvert, door-knocking is definitely not number one on my list of “things I like to do” but so long as I was clear on the cause, especially if I had a personal connection to it and perhaps even a first-hand story to tell, it was doable. I will say that it became both more easily doable - and much more lucrative - when our kids were little and I could bring one along, as this both lessened the worries about a strange person standing on your doorstep in the middle of the day, and tended to defuse any longwinded debates (which generally didn’t end up with a donation, anyway).
Today’s gospel reading goes back to the earliest days of the mission and
ministry of Jesus, and an early story of Christian Evangelism, twelve disciples
sent out two by two to do town-to-town, door to door canvassing. They weren’t equipped with a zippered
donation bag or a receipt book or a cute child to move things along – in fact,
they were ordered to have nothing, no bread, no bags, no money, not even an
extra shirt - but like the door-to-door fundraiser, these two-by-two messengers
had personal stories to tell. They could
tell of transformation; they could share what had caused them to interrupt
their previous lives, to follow Jesus; they could bring hope through an unfolding
vision of a world made new, where those in need would have their needs met, with
those pushed to the fringes now in a central place of honour. And while Mark puts a note of finality on the
whole thing in telling the disciples to shake the dust off their sandals when
leaving a town that did not accept them or the message, even then there is a
degree of agency: the people of that town could accept or reject the message
and healings of Jesus, nobody forced anyone to accept things they didn’t
believe.
As a Canadian Mainline Protestant congregation in the early 21st
century, Evangelism isn’t a word or concept that comes easily to us, but in
Janet Gear’s Theological Banquet, the Evangelical table setting is one of the
five most commonly experienced in United Church congregations. Having
said that, we realize that in the northern hemisphere, being United Church
evangelists isn’t easy, for there are two or three generations now that are straddle
suspicious and dismissive of all things Christian. ALL of Christianity is assumed to be anti-science,
anti-queer, and disrespectful of people of other faiths or no faith, to the
point that one of the things that United Church folk really need to “evangelize”
is the notion that there IS such a thing as a progressive, inclusive Christian. And words are only part of it; if our actions
do not align with the words of love, we will not be successful in our
evangelism because, frankly, we shouldn’t be. United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase, writing
in his book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, encourages Churches to “practice
the gracious love of Christ, respect the dignity of others, and…become part of
God’s invitation to new life” as a form of evangelism that will preach what we
practice and practice what we preach.
Long-time United Church professor John Webster
Grant, writing in 1983, urged our denomination to recover “the primary meaning of the word ‘evangelism’, which
is not making Christians or even saving souls but publishing
glad tidings.” Evangelism, as Janet
Gear reminds us, emanates from the Angelic commission to the Shepherds to share
the glad tidings of a God who dwells with us and in us. Another long-time United Church professor, John
Young wrote in 2009 that in its essence, Evangelism “is not about gaining ‘numbers’,
but about sharing a story, a story that Christians find life-giving and
transformative, in the hopes that others may find it so”. Here again we hear of
invitation: naming the good news of God’s presence in your life, my life, our
lives, and by doing so, opening the door for others to go deep in their story to
discern where God is moving them.
Evangelism, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, is not just done by the leader;
it’s done by disciples who have been commissioned in Jesus name to share the
good news. When Jesus sent the twelve
disciples to leave the safety of the larger group and go out two-by-two, we
know that their local mission work up to that point had not been easy. There
was much opposition and some narrow escapes. But rather than being thwarted by
the anger of his neighbours and relatives, Jesus looked at the assets at hand
and said to the 12 disciples, “you go into these towns and villages, and do the
things I would do. Tell them of their
hopeful future. Bring God’s healing intention to them and make them whole. And let them look after you: trust them so
much that you don’t even bring along an extra shirt, or pocket money.” For safety’s sake, and to always provide a
witness to the truth of what was being said, they were sent in pairs into the
nearby towns and villages with the power to do everything that Jesus would have
done. In so doing, there were six pairs plus Jesus, doing the work that used to
be mostly done by Jesus alone.
That greatly increased the number of workers committed to the task –
Luke also speaks of a second commissioning of 70 or 72 disciples, but Matthew
and Mark make no mention of this, in Matthew and Mark it is just one sending of
twelve disciples - and it also meant that they needed to have a whole lotta
trust in one another, which started with loving one another, and listening to
and learning from each other. That is
still the case. The United Church Sunday School curriculum that Amy and I have
using this summer, entitled I am a changemaker, is written to help
participants develop a pattern of anti-racism in their lives, and it uses a
pattern that I believe is also directly applicable to our lives as evangelists:
·
it starts with, and keeps coming back to love;
·
it then listens to and learns from people’s
experiences;
·
it requires commitment to the cause and empowers the
participants;
·
it calls us to notice and celebrate everyone;
·
and it ends with the co-creation, with others and with
Christ, of a beautiful future.
It builds from one step to the next in a way that might seem linear, but
it grounds each step in love, because love – love for our lives, love for our
souls, love for our neighbours, love for our world - that we have our
connection with Christ and our impetus to draw others to him.
As a community of faith committed to that two-fold love of Jesus – love
of God and love of neighbour – there is much that is done here at Scarboro that
would be good to, well, evangelize about. I’m just here for a
short wee while, but I am so pleased and impressed at the range of community
groups that feel at home in this place, beginning with the broad and authentic
welcome expressed to twelve-step recovery groups, your long-standing and
visible commitments as an Affirming congregation, and events like the soup,
socializing and bingo nights. I sense
that there is around here a general sense of trust that this is a place of
welcome and safety and spiritual honesty, committed to justice and invitational
love, and that is both something to share and something to build from.
We need Evangelists – hey, Christ needs Evangelists - willing to do and
speak of all this work: the things we do in-house, the initiatives that
reach out from here to our neighbourhood, the projects that reach to national
or even international needs. John Young,
in the article referenced earlier, outlines the change within the United Church
of Canada, a significant focus on Evangelism in the 1950s morphing into a
greater focus on Mission in the 1980s. Over
those decades, there came to be a greater desire in United Churches to tangible
acts of service - doing Christ’s work - and less enthusiasm to put
words to it. While still putting our
hands to the plough in acts of service, we also need to re-learn the art of
naming where God is present in the things we do: to remind ourselves, and to
set a sacred context for those who are yearning for something deeper in their
lives but cannot put words to that yearning. (And, as mentioned earlier, to
help folks to see that to be a Christian does not necessarily confine one to
being “narrow.”)
Although the gospel of Mark implies that the pairs of disciples did not
go very far into the world, there was a rhythm to their evangelistic work. They started close to home where there was
both familiarity and resistance, then they went into towns they’d never visited
before, relying on the guidance of local people and the grace of God. In going out into the world, and coming back
to a place of nurturance with Jesus, they kept learning and growing, risking
and inviting, encouraging change and being changed, in his name. At our best, we continue live within that
rhythm, of doing, and believing, and paying attention and listening and doing again,
as people committed to Christ’s agenda of powerful, inclusive, reconciling
love.
In all of this we give thanks: for words of life that give us hope; for all
we do together, for the work we do on our own, for the times we feel strong in
what we are doing, and for the times when the support of loving Christian
community is so essential. We give
thanks for the opportunity to gather here in the Sanctuary, for the connections
we continue to have with those joining us online, and for the words and deeds
by which we share the evangel, the “glad tidings” of God in Christ. All of this, is pure gift from God, experienced
in supportive community, in simple acts of advocacy and kindness, and in
broader engagement in the name of Jesus, who lived and died and lives again. Thanks
be to God, Amen.
References cited:
https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/q28_twelve_apostles_background/
Gear, Janet. Undivided
Love. Altona, MB: Friesen, 2022.
Grant, John Webster “The
United Church and its Heritage in Evangelism”, Touchstone 1, No. 3
(1983) p. 8. <cited by Young, below>
Ralph
Connor Memorial United Church. Sunday
sermon recording, July 3, 2022 – Luke 10: 1-12. https://youtu.be/KMXGvSh3_0Y?t=1039
Schnase,
Robert. Five
Practices of Fruitful Congregations.
Nashville: Abingdon, 2007.
United
Church of Canada. I am a Changemaker: teaching anti-racism with children. Toronto, 2024.
Young,
John H. https://touchstonecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Jan-2009-Article3.pdf
© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Scarboro United Church, Calgary AB.
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