January 19, 2014
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42
Witness: Our Faith in Action
As Pastor Ken mentioned last week,
we are in the middle of a three week series on Faith in Action. Last week we heard about baptism. Next week Pastor Ken will return to talk
about membership. And this week is about
witnessing.
Some of you may know that my husband’s background is not
Methodist. He grew up Lutheran, part of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, or ELCA. Every three years, the ELCA holds a national
youth gathering, in which many of the youth from across the country gather in
worship and celebration. In 1997, their
youth gathering was held in New Orleans, and my husband had the privilege of attending
with his church youth group. Every day
they would participate in small groups and other youth-oriented activities,
each evening they gathered in the Superdome for worship, and the rest of the
time each youth group was free to explore the city or do as they pleased. One of the details he clearly remembers from
that trip was when his youth group ventured into the French Quarter one evening
to take in the sights, and they saw a street corner evangelist. There he was, standing in the middle of
Bourbon Street, wide-brimmed hat, holding a gigantic cross covered in neon
lights, proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord to the college students walking down
the street with a drink in their hands. You’ve
probably seen one yourself, the guy on the street corner, yelling at the top of
his voice, thumping his Bible, trying to convert the masses walking by. If you walk too close to him, he’ll be in
your face asking if you know where you’re going after you die. I surprised one once, in Raleigh, by
responding that yes, I did. Now, when
Lee and I returned to New Orleans many years later on our honeymoon, Lee
thought he saw the same guy, still on his corner, still trying to convert the
world. That guy definitely gets points
for persistence. However, his style of
evangelism does not match the examples we are given in our texts this
morning. In this morning’s Gospel we are
given two examples of witnessing – John the Baptist, and Andrew.
In both cases, their approach was relational. John the Baptist and Andrew each told people
they already knew about Jesus. Jesus’ first disciples, according to the
Gospel of John, were originally disciples of John the Baptist. John’s hanging out with some of his
disciples, sees Jesus, and points out to his disciples who he is: “Hey,
look! It’s the Lamb of God!” And guess what? Based on John’s testimony, his disciples left
him and started following Jesus. John’s
disciples knew him and trusted him. They
had a relationship with him. So when
John could point the way to the Messiah, who John had already said was not him, his disciples believed John’s
testimony and followed Jesus.
Now, one of those disciples was
Andrew. He becomes one of the twelve
disciples and so we know he’s around in other scenes, but the only mention of
him acting or speaking – in the entire bible – is in this passage. What did Andrew do? The text says, “He first found his brother, Simon Peter, and said to him, ‘We have
found the Messiah,’ and he brought Simon to Jesus.”[1] Andrew went and got his brother. His brother had not been hanging around with John the Baptist, but Andrew knew that
this was important, that his brother would want to know about it. “We
have found the Messiah.” This is big
news, especially for Jews who had been waiting and expecting the Messiah to
come. And it’s a pivotal moment because
of who Simon Peter is – Peter, the rock upon whom Christ builds his
church. Peter, who becomes one of the
more outspoken disciples of Jesus and who plays a pivotal role in the early
church. Peter, Peter, only becomes a disciple because his brother invited
him.
And that brings us to our second point
about witnessing: it’s invitational. Sharing the good news that we have found the
Messiah invites the hearer to also come and find and be found by the
Messiah. I know I picked an Easter hymn
to begin the 8:00 and 11:00 services today, that’s because that’s the good news we have to share! “Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!”[2] “Love's redeeming work is done… fought the fight,
the battle won… Christ has opened paradise… Once he died our souls to save,
Alleluia!” That’s the good news we have to share! How do we share it? Through an invitation. The invitation Christ issued in our text was
for those first disciples to “come and see.”
Invite someone you know to church with you. Invite a friend to join your bible study or
Sunday school class. Invite someone to
join you in serving with the youth or the kids or at IFC or cooking for
Homestart. If possible, make it
open-ended. The first thing Jesus says
to the first disciples is “What are you looking for?” Not, “Are you looking for me?” or “Do you
want to follow me?” He doesn’t give them
a yes/no question, he gives them a question they have to think about. “What are you looking for?” And since they’re not quite sure off the tops
of their heads, he follows up with that open invitation, “Come and see.”
Finally, our Isaiah text this
morning tells us about the location of our witness, and it is both local and global. We had a
district clergy meeting this past week.
It began with worship led by the Bishop and she is always good at using
lectionary texts. She pointed out that
this Isaiah passage, today’s lectionary Old Testament reading, is also the Old
Testament reading on the feast day of John and Charles Wesley in the Anglican
Church. Brothers John and Charles were
the founders of the Methodist movement within the Anglican Church; their goal
was to rekindle some of the missing zeal and passion that had been lost in the
Church of England. While both were
Anglican priests, John primarily went about it through preaching and Charles by
writing hymns, such as… “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” But getting back to the Isaiah passage, which
has Wesleyan themes of prevenient grace and calling, in that passage God says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes
of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to
the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”[3] It is too light a thing that you should go
just to your own people, I will give you as a light to the nations. We are called to do more than restore our people, we are called to bring God’s
salvation to the ends of the earth. We
are called to serve locally and
globally. We serve in our own community,
at IFC, at Homestart, at Durham Urban Ministries, and we serve far away, such as our Kenya mission team and other
missionaries whom we support in other countries. We, individually and collectively as the church,
are called to this work. We are to be a
light to those who still dwell in darkness and share with them the good news
that Christ has come, that Christ has defeated darkness, and that we are
invited to partake in his victory and live in his light.
Who knows, perhaps the Bourbon
Street Evangelist was effective in his work and that was how God called him to
share his message. I can’t say, other
than I don’t think most of us are called to that particular method, of
preaching condemnation to strangers on a busy street corner. Thankfully, there is another style put forth in
our texts today. We can invite people we
have a relationship with, neighbors, co-workers, friends, yoga classmates. When you already know someone at a new
church, it makes the new place a little less scary and a little more
inviting. We can offer an open
invitation to “come and see,” no promises, no judgment, no secret handshake or
secret language, just an offer to come and see what has made a difference in
your life. Finally, there are places of
darkness everywhere; there are needs
here in Chapel Hill and there are needs to be met at the ends of the
earth. As the body of Christ, we are
called to meet both. Individually, no, not all of us are called to
serve internationally. Some of us are, though, and we must
honor and affirm those brothers’ and sisters’ calls as well as our own.
I’d like to close this morning with
the collect, that is, the special prayer that was written for the Wesleys’
feast day.[4] Let us pray:
Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with
burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence
in speech and song; Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that
those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ
may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
