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Tabernacle Presbyterian Church Rev. L. John Gable “THE
THE EVANGELICAL TRADITION" The way she tells the story she hardly said a word all week, nor could she, really, for she only speaks English and he only speaks Spanish. JeanEllen is a white, suburban wife and mother from Milwaukee and Juan is a Mexican grandfather from the barrios of Cancun who has spent his life as a brick mason. What did they possibly have in common, except that they were both assigned to work together on a week-long work project several years ago? Nearly immediately, JeanEllen got the impression that Juan was not at all pleased about having her assigned to be his assistant. Was it the language barrier or the cultural barrier, or simply the fact that she was a woman, so might not be able to do the heavy lifting he was hoping his assistant could do? She confesses that she wasn’t too thrilled about the assignment either. Being stuck on a scaffolding all week with someone who wasn’t particularly pleased to have her there, doing hard physical labor in the hot Mexican sun was not exactly what she had in mind when she signed up for the trip, but she determined to make the best of it, and who knows, perhaps he did, too. They soon worked out their little means of communicating. She learned a couple words of Spanish and he of English. They found a way to let each other know what tools were needed and when she was clearly getting in the way. In her own words, “the longer I worked at it…the longer I focused on figuring it out…the better it went. So here I am, working away on the scaffolding in hot, hot Mexico, with Juan the mason and long about Thursday it hits me. This is what serving God is all about;” quietly, trusting, obeying, growing…”and when I returned home I made a commitment to try to serve God the way I served Juan.” JeanEllen made a commitment to try to live out her faith, not just with her words, which clearly had been taken away from her in Mexico, but through her actions. That’s not the end of the story, but it directs us to the fifth great tradition of our faith which we are going to look at today – the evangelical tradition, which is also called “practicing the Word-centered life.” Admittedly, the word “evangelism” has fallen on hard times and actually scares a lot of people, perhaps because we’ve had some unfortunate experiences with it, or at least with those who claim that they are doing it; but it needn’t and shouldn’t be that way. The word evangelism comes from the Greek word “euangelion” and it is one of the most beautiful and powerful words in the New Testament because it means “announce or to proclaim good news.” So, an evangelist is a “good news teller”! Now what can be so wrong or scary about that? Unfortunately, many have attempted to share the good news in ways that don’t make it sound like good news at all. Which means that if the news we have to share really is good news, which it is, then we don’t have to coerce, or manipulate, or intimidate people with it at all; we simply have to share it in such a way that it actually sounds like what it really is, “Good News”. In our Gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus is just beginning His public ministry in His own home town of Nazareth, in Galilee. We read, on that Sabbath He stood up to read the scroll that was handed to Him, and it “just happened to be”, what we might call a “holy coincidence”, the lesson for the day just happened to be from the prophecy of Isaiah. So He reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor”, that is, He has chosen me to be an evangelist, to be a “Good News teller”! And what is this “good news”? “He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is the Good News! And when Jesus finished reading He returned to His seat and everyone in the congregation was amazed at what He said. No doubt He read that passage pretty well, as one who had authority; but then He shocked them when He said, “Oh, by the way, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” I am the One you have been waiting for. I am the promised Messiah and I have come to announce the in-breaking of the Kingdom of Heaven. Everything you’ve been waiting for, watching for, praying for has come. I am the One. As Malcolm Muggeridge puts it, “Jesus’ good news was that the Kingdom had come…and that He was the Kingdom!” Friends, this is the Good News! In a word, the primary purpose of Jesus’ entire ministry can be summed up in this, “Jesus came to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God.” Jesus came to be an evangelist, announcing the Good News! At the end of this lesson we hear Jesus say, “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” If then that was the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, then that means it is our purpose in ministry as well as His followers, to be His evangelists, announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God, in all that we say, in all that we do, in all that we are. According to Matthew’s Gospel, this is Jesus’ final command to us, His so called “Great Commission.” In His parting words He says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 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 observe all that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” This is the great calling which Jesus has given to us as His followers, we are to make the good news known, we are to be disciples who make disciples, we are to be evangelists/”good news tellers” pointing others to Jesus, so that they will be His followers, too. At the heart of the evangelical tradition is this desire: to point people to Jesus. It is so called the Word-centered life because those who follow this tradition, and I would include myself in those ranks, believe that the Word is the source of all of life, and by “the Word”, we mean three things. First,
the Word is Jesus
Christ Himself. We read the opening of John’s
Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God and the Word was God…and the Word (Jesus Christ) became
flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.” Jesus
is the Word of God! The
third way we understand the Word is through our own words. While
none of us would, or should, ever be so bold as to say that our words
are on the same level as God’s Word, we must accept the reality
that our words do, in fact, become God’s words to others as we
attempt to articulate our faith. To say that it is just the words
of the preacher or of the sermon is far too narrow, for as disciples,
our words - our everyday, ordinary words - become the witness to the
presence of the Kingdom of God among and within us. In this sense,
we become the Gospel, we become the Good News, to others. In
fact, we may be the closest thing some people will ever come to reading
the Bible or to actually understanding what it means to be a Christian. We
must never under-estimate the power and effectiveness of our words because
our words actually become God’s words. So we must make sure
that they are well-informed by the Word of God – the Word of Scripture,
as they point to the Word of God who is Christ Himself. How are they to hear without someone to proclaim Him? We are those “someones” who have been called to tell the Good News and announce His coming. How are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? Our words about God must be firmly grounded in the Word of God, which is Scripture. We aren’t interested in convincing people of “our” truth, but of God’s truth, so our words must be shaped and informed by His Word. And finally, How are they to call on one in whom they have never believed? Our words, shaped and informed by God’s Word, ultimately point to Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God and who alone is the Giver of life, abundant and eternal. So this passage ends by saying, “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the Word of Christ.” (10:17). The sole purpose of evangelism, according to our own denomination, is “to introduce people to the Kingdom of God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, so that they might enter in to full participation in the community of faith, that is the Church, as an expression of the Kingdom of God.” Friends, we’ve got Good News to share. Good News of a God who loves us, unconditionally and eternally. Good News of a power which is greater than any power which binds or controls or holds us captive; a power that is stronger than death itself; a power that can change us and transform us and make us all that God intends for us to be; a power that can assure us of new life, now and eternally in the Kingdom of Heaven. Friends, we’ve got Good News to tell that the Kingdom of God has come near and that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. We don’t need to manipulate or coerce or intimidate anyone with that Good News, we simply need to share it in a way that actually makes it sound like the Good News it really is. Exactly one year later they return to Mexico. It is Easter Sunday morning and as JeanEllen and the others sit in the worship space they have helped create over the past several years, Juan makes his way toward her with a huge smile on his face. He introduces her, as best he can, to his wife and their children and grandchildren, then he gives her a gift, a teddy bear holding a heart that says, “You are special” in Spanish. After the service, she has an opportunity to hear the rest of Juan’s story. It turns out, recently this little congregation held a celebration. They celebrated Juan and Marta’s wedding anniversary, and also the one year anniversary of Juan’s coming to faith in Christ. One year? Juan tells that he came to faith because he wanted to understand this Jesus that motivates people like JeanEllen and so many others to come and serve with people like him! She realized then that God has used her to touch his heart and bring him to Himself. JeanEllen would later confess, “I can’t really even fathom it. I get confused about my faith all the time. I didn’t read one Scripture to him. I didn’t pray with him. I didn’t even talk to him about my faith. All I did was serve him with all my heart and soul…and he decided to come to Christ.” Now she will readily admit that her part was only one part in Juan’s story of coming to faith. There are many wonderful people in that church who have loved him and taught him and no doubt prayed for him, but what I love about that story is that it reminds us that God uses the likes of you and me to be His evangelists, even today, through the words that we say, or are unable to say; through our little acts of kindness and service, insignificant though they may seem to be; through our actions, as feeble and faulted as they are. This story forms a bridge between the social justice tradition which we looked at last week with its emphasis on doing the Gospel and the incarnational tradition which we will look at next week with its emphasis on the balance between our words and our actions. The focus of the evangelical tradition is simply this, and may this be our prayer: that our words, spoken both in the things that we say and in the actions that we take, may they be shaped and formed and informed by the Word of God which we know as the Scriptures, to the end that they may point others to the Living Word of God, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Friends, this is the Good News: The Kingdom of God has come, and Jesus is that Kingdom. This is the Good News we’ve been called and commissioned to share. Amen and let us pray. This prayer
was composed for the Lambeth Conference in 1948 and it seems fitting
for us today. “Almighty God, give us grace to be
not only hearers, but doers of Your Holy Word; not only to admire, but
to obey Your doctrine; not only to profess, but to practice Your true
religion; not only to love but to live Your Gospel. So grant that
what we learn of Your glory we may receive into our hearts and show forth
in our lives. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Exercises:
Resource: A Spiritual Formation Workbook, James Bryan Smith and Lynda Graybeal; A Renovare Resource for Spiritual Renewal, HarperSanFrancisco Publishers, 1999.
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