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“The ‘E’ Word”
Sermon by Catherine W. FitzGerald June 19, 2005, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill 2 Samuel 7:1-29 Ephesians 3:14-21 If I did one of those association response exercises with the word “evangelism”, my results would probably resemble the following: proselytizing, Jim and Tammy Faye, saved, unsaved, conversion, “finding” Jesus, Jerry Falwell, flyers on my car…just to name a few. Needless to say, my responses would not be very flattering to the concept of evangelism. But, honestly, I have not had great encounters with self-proclaimed evangelicals. My mind immediately falls to many an uncomfortable conversation with friends and acquaintances, who believe in a very black and white nature of God and God’s salvation. Some of my experiences with my evangelical friends have been quite painful, because I have a difficult time accepting exclusivity. All this is to say, when it comes to the concept of evangelism, I have not been very interested. And then one day shortly after I delivered my first sermon here, a congregant and friend came up to me and told me I have a bit of an evangelical flare. (The person was not making an evaluative statement in my estimation, but it sure made me think!) Given the nature of my aforementioned reaction to evangelism…it is safe to say I had to rethink some things…about what I hate about evangelism…and what I can’t hate about it. It seems that those others who claim to be evangelists had clouded my ability to see the merit of our call to spread the good news. After all, there is biblical warrant and precedent for evangelism—but what does it mean? Could I possibly be an evangelist? Even more, are we all called to be evangelists? Clearly, Jesus wanted something of us—we need only recall the Great Commission according to Matthew: “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 I have commanded you.” The noun “gospel” means “message” and is linked in the Bible to the verb “tell-the-news”. Evangelism is this message announced—“a verbal, out-loud assertion of something decisive not known until this moment of utterance,” writes Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann. “There is no way that anyone, including an embarrassed liberal, can avoid this lean, decisive assertion which is at the core of evangelism.” As a group, the liberal church has had a response—has come up with another meaning for evangelism. It is not verbal, but a social action. It is the “they-will-know-us-by-our-deeds” interpretation of evangelism. It is the evangelistic form I’ve always been more comfortable with. But while this is a significant aspect of evangelism, it too lacks fullness. We have missed the mark in our exclusion of proclamation. The Gospel itself is “the good news”—and we are to tell it. But somehow I doubt many of us are comfortable with this command. How many of you, if asked to describe yourself to a stranger would remember to say that you are Christian? Given the way that Christians have acted over the years, it would certainly be understandable to be a little embarrassed about your Christianity. For we all know that many people, upon hearing we are “Christian,” will immediately associate us with the more popular and powerful Christian fundamentalist right of our country. It feels that when I say I’m Christian, I’m not just saying that I believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah, I have associated myself with all those other Christians in the world. Though the diversity of Christians is vast and ultimately important, we are more often than not lumped together…which in many cases and on many sides proves discouraging and frustrating. But this cannot be an excuse to back down from our faith, or from our proclamation. For you see, evangelism must entail the telling. Walter Brueggemann developed an incredibly rich theory of evangelism: he talks about “doing the text” or “letting the voice of the text have its full say in our common life.” He means that we are “to entertain, attend to, participate in, and reenact the drama of the text.” He understands evangelism as entry into three stories, and invites us to “re-experience and relive our lives according to the promise to the ancestors, the liberation of slaves, and the gifts of land to displaced peasants.” According to him, “evangelism is indeed to do again and again what Jews and Christians have always done, to tell ‘the old, old story,’ but to do so in ways that impact every aspect of our contemporary life, public and personal.” It bears repeating: to tell stories that impact every aspect of our lives—public and personal. Within the text, Brueggemann sees a patterned structure among the acts of evangelism. He considers evangelism a drama with three scenes. The first scene involves “combat, struggle, and conflict between powerful forces who battle for control of the turf, control of the payoffs, control of the future.” In the second scene, there is an added character not present before…it is the “announcer, the proclaimer, the witness who gives testimony and tells the outcome he has watched.” In the third scene the announcer has already spoken, the listener heard. Conflict has ended. Now the listener makes an appropriate response to the new situation—“letting the newly announced reality reshape life in new ways.” Three stories or scenes: conflict, announcement, and response. What is perhaps the most significant part of Brueggeman’s understanding is that the drama is not over with these three scenes…each scene must be endlessly reenacted. Using Brueggemann’s analysis we can approach our scripture lessons for today. Within the Second Samuel account, we find the three-storied evangelistic drama. There is conflict—should David build God a temple or not. This might not seem like such a big deal, but it probably cut to the heart of what must have been an honest dispute in Israel concerning tension between God’s freedom and God’s presence. At the time of our story’s beginning, the portable ark was the symbol of God’s presence with God’s people…God was not tied down to one place. The worry was that a temple would guarantee God’s presence but at the same time militate against God’s freedom. Therein lay scene one: the conflict. The second scene finds God in discourse with Nathan—in a conversation that is relayed to David. God makes a number of announcements, but the most significant is no doubt his promise to be with David and his progeny: “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” This promise from God is an incredibly significant change in subject of theological conversation in Israel. “The old discussion spoke with considerable anxiety about YHWH’s presence and how to secure it…. Now, however, the issue is not God’s presence in the community but solidarity with this man and this man’s family.” Though I do not claim this is a foreshadowing of God’s work in Jesus Christ, it is highly reminiscent of it. Remember, the last line of the Great Commission: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” There are no “if” statements here. The third scene is David’s response to the news…needless to say, he is happy and eager to praise God and remind him of what he’s promised. This response could not have been made, however, without trust and hope in God’s promise: that God will protect David and his progeny. As Brueggemann writes: “This ideological utterance is the root of evangelical faith in the Bible: that is, faith that relies on the free promise of the gospel. Heretofore God’s commitments to Israel are regularly and characteristically conditional. They are governed by the ominous ‘if’ of ethical requirement. Indeed, the whole of Mosaic faith, sounded by Joshua and Samuel as well, is that Gods good inclination depends on Israel’s obedience. It is this ‘if’ of requirement that finally destroyed Saul, because he did not measure up. With David, however, the ‘if’ has disappeared. Now it is ‘but’, a conjunction that might here be rendered ‘nevertheless.’” In this way, God is truly the Father we proclaim him to be. And though Father’s Day is technically a secular holiday, I believe it’s important here to acknowledge the concept of fatherhood as quintessential to our Christian understanding of God. Like God’s promise to David, we expect our fathers to be disciplinarians, supporters, and providers of love regardless of our situation. In evaluating his new status of “father”, comedian Jon Stewart writes: “My wife has already said that sometimes she'll be walking on the street and think, ‘Each of these people is someone's child. All of these people once were looked at in the way that we look at our child; somebody once felt he or she would do anything to help this person.’ It's so interesting now to see people who are down on their luck or having a rough time of it, and to realize that person's situation is tearing the heart out of some people somewhere. It's the way you begin to connect with the rest of the world.” Fatherhood is also the way many of us begin to connect with God. This ideal fatherhood is perhaps first established here in this promise to David. And David trusts his God as father, as we witness in his response. On another level, the three-story evangelism drama might be interpreted as follows: original conflict happens in Biblical times; writers announce and proclaim, providing what we encounter in the scriptures; we, as readers and hearers, in this particular time and space respond within our lives…our entire lives. On another level, the three-story evangelism occurs as follows: there is conflict between life meanings we experience in and outside our understanding of God; we make a decision, an announcement, if you will, proclaiming trust in God’s will and hope for his promises; our announcement evokes the response of another. Every story of the drama is essential. As Brueggemann concludes: “It is the essence of announcing, of being a messenger, of doing the work of an evangelist, that events that happened in one place matter decisively in another place, that victories won in one time continue to count decisively in another time.” For Paul, the events in his life, alongside his reading and understanding of the scripture enabled him to proclaim the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Part of his response we find in our New Testament reading for today, in his prayer for the readers of his letter to the Ephesians. We can respond in turn. In the end, we must be assured that the “good news” is worth the retelling. If I understand evangelism as a drama, I would say that in preaching I enter both the announcement and response stages. Here I proclaim to you the good news: God has promised to be with us always. I can only stand before you as a response to the “good news” I have heard. If getting excited about the gospel means that I am evangelist—than I wear my evangelist badge proudly. Perhaps being an evangelist means that at every moment we must participate within the drama: acknowledging conflict, understanding the announcement, and finally, responding with our lives. Our responses must be whole—not just on Sunday mornings in church, but when we are at work, when we are with family, wherever we are…we must do all things, in word and deed, in the name of Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel. I will not be putting flyers under windshield wipers anytime soon, but I will also not be afraid to proclaim boldly that I am Christian…and to know why. The good news is worth the retelling. Not because I want to save you…but because I’m downright excited about God’s promises for us. May we work to be true evangelists—entertaining, attending to, participating in, and reenacting the drama of the texts we encounter—hearing God’s Word for us at every moment. And may all that we do be done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. |