Tuesday Lectionary Leanings, Is Evangelism a Four Letter Word? edition

Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35

In Acts, Peter tells the people what they are to do if they believe. We have the paying of vows in the Psalm, 1st Peter wades in the blood of the lamb, and Luke takes us down the road to Emmaus.

This week, my mind has been captivated by Acts. Peter TELLS the people.

In my tradition (Presbyterian), we really, really like talking about the importance of living out our faith.

For example, consider the movie about Johnny Cash, Walk the Line. Do we want to be the kind of Christians who gossip and think we should ostracize those who have fallen short, or do we want to be the kind of Christians who flush the addict's pills down the toilet and refuse to allow the dealer access to the addict?

This focus on deeds (based on faith, of course) is not a bad thing, but sometimes we like to focus on living out the faith because it keeps us from having to talk about our faith.

But. In the life of faith, we're not just supposed to walk the walk, we're supposed to talk the talk.

In my mind, talking the talk, (aka faithful evangelism) isn't bullying and it isn't knocking on, much less knocking down doors.

It is being ready to walk in when the door is opened. Listening, paying attention, caring for others, and when moments to arrive, being ready to receive them. To be able to articulate what it is that you believe as a way to offer compassion, comfort, and hope.

Theologian Shirley Guthrie:

"Christian witness does include telling the story of our own faith journey and how we have experienced the presence and work of God in our own lives, but the goal of authentic evangelism is not to talk about our personal religious experience, but to talk about the God we have experienced…. The story we Christians have to tell is not only about how God has been present and at work in our individual lives; it is to set our little stories in the context of the story of all of God's people…."

“Evangelism in a Pluralistic Society- A Reformed Perspective"
Shirley Guthrie at the Covenant Network Conference, 2002
http://www.covenantnetwork.org/sermon&papers/guthrie.html.

Brian McLaren offers this interpretation:

"Good evangelists… are people who engage others in good conversation about important and profound topics such as faith, values, hope, meaning, purpose, goodness, beauty, truth, life after death, life before death, and God. They do this, not because they like to be experts and impose their views on others, but because they feel they are, in fact, sent by God to do so. They live with a sense of mission that their God-given calling in life is not just to live selfishly, or even just to live well, but to live unselfishly and well and to help others live unselfishly and well too.

Evangelists are people with a mission from God and a passion to love and serve their neighbors. They want to change the world. Good evangelism is the process of being friendly without discriminating and influencing all of one's friends toward better living, through good deeds and good conversations.

For a Christian like myself, evangelism means engaging in these conversations in the spirit and example of Jesus Christ."

Brian McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize, Zondervan, 2002, p. 16.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. How about you?