+ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Evangelism.
This is not a word which us Episcopalians tend to love. But I wonder if us Episcopalians understand what evangelism is.
Part of me feels that the word has been culturally hijacked by a certain subset of professing Christians. Evangelism may conjure up horrifying images of annoying street preachers shouting at people that they will burn in hell if they do not return to Jesus.
I call this the “Turn-or-Burn” approach.
It may also bring up people knocking on doors, asking if you “know the Lord?” or if you “have been saved?” or if you “walk with Jesus?” And while these may be sincere enough, in my experience there is a threat lurking in there. If I say no… they’re going to want to talk to me, and I don’t feel like talking. Or, If I say no… they’re going to push Jesus on me with the threat of hell behind it.
For me, the most difficult part of how evangelism is done today, is that it is often not done out of people seeking relationship with me, and from that trust, seeking relationship with the Lord. Cultural expressions in 21st century America of Evangelism feel hollow, threatening, shallow.
Evangelism is, however, and necessarily must be substantially more than these limited, painful experiences. So what is Evangelism?
It is closely associated with the Gospel – the Greek for Gospel is Evangelionwhich means good news. Part of evangelism is to share the good news of Christ with others. The good news that we are profoundly loved by God, that Christ invites us into the life of the triune God by his cross and passion, that every single person profoundly matters for no other reason than the fact that they are made in the image of God and redeemed by a God who so loved the world that God incarnated as a human being.
This is some of the good news which is bound up in the Gospels.
But it’s so much more than telling it. There is a deeper aspect of living the Gospel in our lives. Living in a way which reflect the redemption of humanity by Christ, living in a way which reflects the reality that we encounter the Divine One in one another, living in a way which reflect the love of God into a world in need of this love.
To live this way, to love this way, is to offer our very selves into the transforming crucible Christ’s life. It is to live evangelism in our very being, not merely to speak of it in passing.
Evangelism means living the love of God through our whole selves and in it reflecting God’s love in Christ to this world, ultimately that our lives become not only an invitation into life with Christ, but a self-offering.
St Paul writes as much in 1 Thessalonians: “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” (1 Thess. 2:8)
Evangelism here is deep care, sharing the gospel of God, and “our own selves.” It is deeply relational, intimate, and centered on care for the person rooted in the wonderful news of the gospel – that Christ has reconciled all things to God.
The Gospel of Matthew lays the foundation of St Paul’s reflection. Pharisees come and ask Jesus, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus replies, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 36-39)
Notice here that the summary focuses fundamentally on Love, and our orientation by which love is made manifest in our lives. The order here matters as Christ summarizes the law.
First, we shall love God with all our whole selves. The trifecta of the heart, soul, and mind means the entire, whole self, directed at loving God. Because, when we are directing our love, our attention, our obedience, our joy at the One Who Is Love (1 John 4:8), we are changed.
When we turn our love to Love itself, our capacity to love others swells. We become imbued with the divine grace to more fully love, and more fully love like God.
We become conduits of God’s love, of God’s grace, when the orientation of our whole self is first and foremost directed at loving God.
And when we are oriented towards loving God with our whole self, when we are oriented towards the One Who Is Love, we are then empowered to more fully love both our neighbors and ourselves.
First we love God. Second, we love neighbor as ourselves. This ordering may come across as a bit odd.
Within our hyper-individualistic culture, love of self is the most prized. But if our start of love is the self, then it is a small, shambling, and limited kind of love that limits our capacity to look beyond ourselves.
The love of the Gospel – the love we are asked to bear in Evangelism – decenters the self – not because the self is not important; but because God and our neighbor expand our capacity to love beyond the confines of our selves. We come to greater love of self through love of God and love of neighbor, yes; but they come first.
If evangelism is meant to be lived, and lived by loving God, neighbor, and self. As former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry might say, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.
If evangelism is something to be shared, deeply relational, and rooted in care for others.
Then we are left with a very different meaning of what sharing the Gospel of Christ looks like. And it is antithetical to the hollow screeches of a street preacher or the tense inquiries of the door-knocker.
Evangelism is living the good news of Christ in our lives, every day, every hour, every minute.
It means, when we encounter people on our walks, at the store, here at church – centering the care for the other person because of the love of God. And this is hard to do, but care we must, and try we must, and with the help of God we become a people who – hallowed and offered – are bearers of God’s grace.
As we enter into stewardship season, when we begin to talk about money, and pledging, and supporting the church through a myriad of ways – particularly money, and we make asks to give generously, we must be guided by this deep, evangelical demand of God.
Because it is in the love of God that we can do anything at all.
It is by the love of God that we exist, that the cosmos is held together, that we are here at St Andrew’s, Tucson on the corner of 5th and 16th.
And when we as a community love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves, we as a community bend our hearts into a cruciform shape, where we offer our selves for the sake of the world.
This is the crux of evangelism.
This is what it means to share the good news of the Gospel.
That we are transformed by Love in love in order that we may more fully love our neighbors as ourselves. And in that love, we come to care for others, we come to offer ourselves to God and to neighbor, because they are very dear to us.
Amen.