Words'nTone

“I occasionally wondered if the gospel was myth, but I came to see the gospel as myth fulfilled in reality—in a real time, place and Person.  Science and art reveal the reality of the biblical story.  Astrophysics reveals a beginning and the necessity of an immaterial first cause.  Biochemistry and DNA reveal a ‘language’ of encoded instruction, a logos becoming flesh and blood.  Archaeology and history reveal the Bible as accurate eyewitness accounts of real events, people and places.  What—rather, Who—I experience behind all the beauty seems too good to be false.  Sometimes it’s a haunting.  Sometimes a glory.  The story has what C. S. Lewis called ‘the ring of truth’” [Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas, p. 21].

Kullberg, as someone who went through the battle of keeping her faith at Harvard and fought in the trenches as one who sought veritas, truth, reveals both the positive of debate for the Christian faith and is cryptic in her exposure of atheistic scientism’s weakness.  I found what Kullberg said in her introduction here a great way of expressing that Christianity is open to debate, examination, and tests for validity, empirical consistency and experiential relevance.  Albeit, ultimately the Bible’s message is a matter of faith, but it is not absent reason, nor reasonable proofs.

“Send me.” First, we like the idea of God talking directly to us.  So preachers know that if they personalize a text, you know, placing your name in the text or in this case, trading Isaiah for you, then they’ve got us—got our attention and have made us seem as important as, say, an Old Testament prophet.  So we have here, instead of God interacting with Isaiah, we have Him addressing me, Chip.  And I hear the text differently than what was originally given:

In the year of President W Bush’s last year in office, I, Chip, saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the culture and congress trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the church was filling with smoke. Then I, Chip, said, “Wow God is speaking directly to me.  I am something special.  Not everyone gets this experience!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and now, you are forgiven and very special and a prophet of God.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I, Chip, said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Yes, we get all sentimental about seeing ourselves “in the text,” replacing the prophet for us.  And I know, this is hard to take, for so many missionaries responded to the call to the mission field because someone explained the text of Isaiah 6 in this way.  But that does not make it any more correct or proper.

We like the first set of verses—they can be made so personal.  And the “sending” can be adventurous, noble, extraordinary, honoring…but it’s the next set of verses that tell us what the sending is for.  These verses don’t make it sound promising.  The prophet is going to be humiliated—and as we know about Isaiah’s history, he will be sawn in two (cf. Hebrews 11:37).

“He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: “Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed”’” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

God does not intend a huge return on this investment in terms of numbers.  In fact, the message was intended to cause the hardening of people’s hearts.  And then Isaiah (the one God is actually addressing here) asked, “Lord, how long?” How long will I have to proclaim this hard and harsh message where no one returns to You? And the promise is given, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people and the land is utterly desolate…” Tough verses.  Harder to find a joy in ministry.  The actual “sending” doesn’t seem as self-aggrandizing at this point.

So you see, we like to personalize (and preach) the verses that make for good feelings of importance.  It is harder to see this in the tough verses—so we ignore them, take them out of the text, so we can do as we please with the nice verses.  This is not only poor exegesis of Scripture, it is disingenuous and, really, deceitful to those we are preaching to.

As far as my feeble memory can strain, when Isaiah 6 is preached and/or referred to, why is it that I never hear any reference to the following verses in the text? They always stop at the end of verse 8; the preacher never continues with verse 9 and following. We get to verse 8:

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”

And then we never hear what “we” are being sent to do. Per the preacher’s call for application, what are being asked to volunteer to do?

“He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: “Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed”’” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

As the preacher once said, “We selectively ignore the difficult texts.” Ironic thing was, the same preacher had just “selectively ignored” the difficult portion of the Isaiah “Send me” passage. I am guessing that verse 9 and following doesn’t serve the purpose of the one preaching. We like God asking us, “Who shall I send?” And we (can self-righteously) think ourselves like the one originally being asked, that is, the Prophet Isaiah, and respond with humility, “Here am I. Send me.” And in so doing, infer to the crowd, I have already responded, what about you? We—or the preacher, anyway—supply the content of the “sending,” never even taking into consideration what God intends in the text (vv 9ff.). For sure this must be one of the most abused, misrepresented, poorly proof-texted texts of Old Testament Scripture I can think of. And, it is probably one of the most important, given that our Gospel is defined by it in the New Testament. All four Gospels quote it in pivotal places where the Gospel of the Kingdom is defined and/or explained (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8; John 12). And, it is always the tough verses of Isaiah 6 that are referred to, vv 9ff. Even Luke ends his Acts of the Apostles with Paul quoting the tough verses of Isaiah (Acts 28). The Isaiah 6 “send me” text is just one example of the poor exegesis and self-serving proof-texting that happens on a regular basis on Sunday mornings. We tread on dangerous ground.

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will have welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

Claire Gaudiani, in her book The Greater Good , presents an argument that it is philanthropy that actually drives the American economy.  Unlike any other country in the world, Americans, overall, are more generous with their resources, and as a result, have helped to create a way of life that is fuller and more prosperous for the majority of its citizens than any society on the planet.  She points out that “Among others, economists Lester Thurow and Robert Barro and management consultant Peter Drucker concur that investments in human capital make the greatest impact on long-term productivity of the society” (33).  In fact, she posits that it is American philanthropy that has the potential for “saving capitalism.”

Now, it is not my interest to “save capitalism,” nor to save the American way of life—even though I benefit from it and very much appreciate it.  But, it is my within my interests to figure out ways that our Gospel can penetrate the lives of people.  One thing that has always bothered me is why evangelical churches are not willing to invest in the community or communities that surround them (just because it’s a good thing to do).  In my brief review of Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, I observed that “God instructed Jeremiah, ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will have welfare’ (29:7).  Seems a simply enough principle.  Imagine creating an approach to church life, church growth, and evangelism based on seeking the welfare of the city—the city (or neighborhood) that your church represents?  Imagine.

I understand that we live in a corrupt world, as John the Apostle tells us, that is passing away.  This statement was not to lead the church away from caring about the society around them, but to remind the church its existence is not dependent on the world (because the church will not pass away).  Nonetheless, the church is yet still called to be “salt and light” to this dying world, to our own fading culture.  My, now almost a decade long, vocation in the human service world, where everything I do seeks to invest and develop human capital from among at-risk and vulnerable populations, is driving me toward—what I think is—a more biblical view of the Kingdom of God and the life of the church.

After reading my short review for Sidewalks in the Kingdom my good friend Pastor Eric Marx shared a story that has impacted his own church ministry:

James Bender in his book How to Talk Well relates the story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn.  Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.
This reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.  “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.
“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know?  The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field.  If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn.  If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”
He is very much aware of the connectedness of life.  His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor’s corn also improves.
So it is in other dimensions.  Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbors to be at peace.  Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches.  And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

Again, the lesson here is not a hard one:  If we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.  I can almost hear our Lord say, “Go and do likewise.”

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Eric Marx is the senior pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in International Falls, MN.  I highly recommend this church and commend to you the ministry of this most humble and fantastic man of God.

On May 2, I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker for a Church’s 150th anniversary.  The pastor of the church is a Director on our agency’s Board and knows my faith, my background as a minister, and my heart regarding the poor.  So, she kind of knew what mesage I would bring.  The added bonus, for me, was the context of Methodist history and John Wesley, one of my Church heros.  I have posted various rough drafts of the message (slash sermon) as I was writing it, but I thought I’d post the link to the draft as a whole so you can download it--well for those who’d like a copy or to plagerize (which you may freely do, of course).  After the message, a number of poeple indicated that they either are or will be allies in our communities “war on poverty.” It was a great evening, and the response of so many people hints that the Church is indeed ready to take on the task of moving people out of poverty.  I quote one part of the message here that summarizes my intentions...you will have to read the whole thing for the point of the whole message.

I am often accused of seeing “the poor” behind every text of Scripture.  Perhaps that’s a little exaggerated (maybe not).  But perhaps, more so, I emphasize the call to Biblical Christianity through Scripture by showing others their lack of seeing the poor behind much of the text of Scripture.  In fact, this time it is really there—the poor is behind the parables here.  Maybe you can’t see it, but its there…the poor are behind those last verses: THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE.” Yes of course we can see that the Kingdom of God is likened to a large branchy-garden plant, where the animals can find protection.  Perhaps this is the veiled reference.  It is, but there is more.  Jesus references specific Old Testament texts—which his first disciples and those listening to him would have been very familiar, and in the parable of the mustard seed, he reaches back to Daniel 4 and the story of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and a frightening dream that had plagued the king.

Download the full text of Wasted Evangelism (Mark 4): Our Work of Evangelism and Social Action.

Recently a friend and former student ran a thread through email on verses and texts that are often abused and misused and wrongly interpreted.  The list went on and on…I didn’t mention Mark 1:17 (cf. Matthew 4:19), but this is certainly an abused text…but harder to reveal as such.  In the years I have been a Christian, I’d say, aside from the reference to John 3:16 and Revelation 3:20 (“Behold I stand at the door and knock”), Mark 1:17 and Matthew 4:19 have been some of the most quoted and referred to verses I have heard from the lips of Christian leaders.  Ranking right up there with Galatians 2:20 (“I have been crucified with Christ”—a Rough Cut exegetical essay forthcoming someday, I promise), Jesus’ words about becoming “fishers of men” is a staple reference to refer to the way one is to be a Christian, especially in regard to “witnessing.” I, in some measure agree, but not for the same reasons given by most (e.g., fishers of men = witnessing, catching people for Christ).  In fact all the popular verses mentioned above will deserve Rough Cut time on this site!  But this one was well worth the study time.  In preparing this Rough Cut I was struck by the fact that the interpretation I was positing made it difficult for this popular verse to be applied.  My interpretation didn’t seem practical.  I have always struggled with the fixation with application.  I wrote in the fishers of men Rough Cut:

It can be too easy to resort to popular interpretations because they are, however misleading (away from the text), often easier to grasp.  We shouldn’t exclude difficult to understand allusions just because they are harder to relate to, or are more difficult to apply personally.  I pause to point out that we, in the contemporary American Church, are fixated on application.  There is a tendency to skip and even to eschew the vital step of interpretation (by which I mean exegesis).  Somewhere along the way, we abandoned the discipline of exegesis and biblical interpretation in exchange for American pragmatism.  The Bible often becomes, with each individual part (i.e., each text, each verse, and even sometimes just a word here and there in a verse), a utilitarian tool to give detail instructions and application—specific do’s and don’ts.  Every text has to be practical.  This makes it all the harder to offer interpretations that—on the surface—do not seem practical, or easily applied.

This fixation on application and practicality makes it especially difficult to offer interpretations of popular verses that are hard to understand and difficult to apply.  Such fixation on texts having to always be practical can lead us away from what God is actually saying through a text (like “I will make you become fishers of men” or “I have been crucified with Christ”).  As my essay on fishers of men points out, we should seek to understand the significance of a text first, then—and only then—can we apply what God has said.

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For the full essay…“Fishers of men” reconsidered: first significance, then application (Mark 1:17)

I read bumper-stickers.  Someone has to, or all those people are wasting space on their vehicles for nothing.  While cruising on I-95 the other day I saw a bumper-sticker that read, Reality is for those who lack imagination.  My mind immediately knew it was backward.  It is not that reality is for those who lack imagination, but imagination is for those who lack reality. Now I know I am punning on a pun, as well as pushing, stretching a silly bumper-sticker idiom toward some meaningful referent.  And, yes, I think once any profound concept or idea is relegated to a bumper-sticker and stuck to one’s vehicle immediately diminishes that concept or idea, but nonetheless, I comment.  This one is worthy of at least a few lines In the Margin here.  Some of you have read my posts regarding my use of “imagination” as a biblical principle.  (Some fear that for some reason—hopefully they’ll get over it.) But this plastered auto-slogan got me to thinking about our imagination.  I know (I think I know) that the point of the bumper-sticker slogan was to make a slight on those who choose reality over imagination at the most, and at the least to point out that those who have a good imagination are superior to those who need or are “in reality.” But this is a bit skewed:  We are called, in the Bible, to have an imagination because we do lack reality.  In fact, reality is such, that only those with imagination can, indeed and in fact, understand and fathom—maybe even glimpse at—reality.  We are called upon in texts like Ephesians 3:20-21 to imagine what the church is like, and imagine the power it has in Christ Jesus.  In some sense we cannot have reality unless we can imagine it, for it is through our imagination—our God-given ability to imagine—that we are invited into the realities of God’s creation.

Os Guinness, in Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity, quotes Peter Berger, from A Rumor of Angels:

“He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: the (believer) who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter – until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will have gone away to more interesting company.”

In the The Gravedigger File Guinness writes:

“It may be true that there are more Christians in America than ever before and that they have never had so much money at their disposal, such powerful technologies to use, such positions of influence to fill, or such a global opportunity to which to respond. But the signs are that the opportunity will be squandered and that much of American Christendom is more modern and more American than it is decisively Christian.””

Os Guinness writes elsewhere:

“After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted with an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant.”

A few years ago now, when I was a college professor, I had lent an Os Guinness book to our new College President to read.  A few weeks had gone by and I needed to recover the book for a class.  I saw the President walking through the college square, about 25 yards or so away from me. I called his name to gain his attention and shouted, “Are you done Dining With the Devil, yet!” To which he cringed at who might be listening. And I laughed at that serendipitous moment.

Every publication I read (and I read a lot everyday!)…Newsweek, US News & World Report, the NY Times, and countless blogs and sites…lauding or lamenting the Evangelical “pull” with this election.  I am alarmed of this.  On the one hand, it is good for evangelicals to raise their voting-voice; ludicrous, however, to think this actually gives us a political voice to be reckoned with.  Those who need our vote are not our friends, people.  I am hardly opposed to Christians being involved in politics—I am. What concerns me is our own response to this apparent “clout” and its impact on the national politics.

In the wake of the 2004 Presidential election, I was concerned when Focus on the Family founder James Dobson weighed in with a shrill.  Dobson was commenting on President Bush’s victory announcement—namely, that it was short on thanking all the evangelicals for their vote, for putting him over the top. (We should all remember Bush had increased his percentage among virtually all sectors, Hispanics, women, etc. as well.) Dobson said: “The president could have paused to thank all those good people who poured in and gave him power again…The GOP has been given four more years to deliver on marriage and life and family, and if they fumble it…[we’ll] stay home next time” (US News & World Report, 11/15/04, p 42).

I gave pause to the arrogance, the nerve, and the biblical ignorance from what I thought was usually a wiser source. I won’t stay home because Dobson says so this year. With all due respect, who appointed him my leader, my spokes-person?  Plus he should know: Ultimately, despite our evangelical turn out, God is the one who raises and lowers kings—and I assume Presidents. And then to top it off, we have other self-appointed Christian leaders developing lobbying groups to weld power. While voting should be a component of an American Christian’s responsibility and getting involved is good, I am concerned: We need to check whether our spoon is getting shorter—and whether we’re done dining with the devil as well.

“The Word itself creates its own hearing, as it once created its own world, by re-creating those through faith who once had no faith.  Nothing more needs to be done; no homiletical gimmicks or artificial techniques are required to make the gospel effective.  The gospel is mighty to work its way to those who have ears but do not hear.  It breaks hearts of stone to create hearts of flesh.  ‘Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?’ (Jer 23:29).” ~James Daane, Preaching with Confidence: A Theological Essay on the Power of the Pulpit

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Every time the person who accused me of… I am actually not sure what I was accused of, but he sure didn’t like my comments about Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  I had been asked to speak on the background of Ephesians just before the Scripture reading—which was to be from Ephesians—so that people in the audience would have a better understanding of the text.  That was to be my ministry—one of which I am well suited since I have a lot of experience interpreting the Bible (over twenty-eight years).  So I briefly outlined the content of the Letter and then pointed out that much of the Letter was written to help us imagine what the church is to be like.  That for some reason bothered the pastor.  And now I have been banned from helping the congregation from understanding the Bible (imagine that!).  But anyway… I amazed each time we sing, per the pastor’s choosing, “I can Only Imagine” during morning worship.  What made it worse one morning was a reference to Ephesians 3:20-21 (as posted above).  Right there in the very text is a benedictory plea for God to help us imagine what God has done on behalf of and in and through the Church.  The word that is used for “imagine,” is νοουμεν (noomen) which is a Greek word for think, imagine, ponder, consider, “to exercise the mind.” So we have it in the text, an indication that Paul was harnessing the truth about the Church and its nature and mission to get us to imagine what the Church is to be like in this world.  Sometimes we get into the conflict with our own images of the church verses what the Bible actually wants and describes (maybe that’s the real issue here).  We need to be cautious that how we imagine the church ought to be does not overshadow what God imagines.  We tend to want the church—our church—to be made in the image of what we want, rather than what God wants.  That is why God left us—at least one of the reasons, anyway—the written material from the apostles that describe for us what God intends the church to look like and do, and in turn, this written material helps us to imagine “his power that work among us” so that we can see His “glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus,” not ours.  Long before we sang choruses like “I can Only Imagine,” we sung beautiful hymns that molded our minds about God and His work.  I recall singing, “May the Mind of Christ,” allowing it to stir my thoughts—yes, my imagination—on Christ and my commitment to Him.  I loved to sing the final two stanzas:

    May I run the race before me,
    Strong and brave to face the foe,
    Looking only unto Jesus
    As I onward go.

    May His beauty rest upon me,
    As I seek the lost to win,
    And may they forget the channel,
    Seeing only Him.

That’s Paul’s letter to the Ephesians…brave to take on the foe (Eph 6), looking only unto Jesus (Eph 1-2), and living in such a way that, in the end, those around us forget the channel (Christians) and see only Him.  This is what Paul through his letter to the Ephesians imagines for the Church.  If only we can imagine?

How is our wasted evangelism related to showing mercy to the poor?
How is our wasted evangelism related to showing mercy to the poor?  As the Christian community, we know, tonight, that God’s kingdom has come and that heaven rules and that God has a right to have His kingdom invade the very fabric of our nation, our state, and our community.  This is how the king of all the earth, Nebuchadnezzar, was to acknowledge God’s right to rule—fascinating. 

Looking at the issue of poverty and at the poor, for many Christians it is easy to say, “Sin is the cause” and “Jesus is the answer.” But specific applications are so complex that little practical solutions result from expressing such shibboleths.  My view of wasted evangelism here helps us answer how Jesus Christ can be or can become the answer to sin and human social needs.  We are commanded to sow the Gospel of the Kingdom, which includes ministry to the poor, with abandon, spreading our seed lavishly.  We don’t know if our seed will be wasted—we know some will—but like the Master Farmer we care not that some fall on what looks like unfertile soil.  We are not to judge, but to be obedient.

• There are 5,000 people in Norwalk who live in poverty.
• There are 1,200 Norwalk families living in poverty.
• Ten percent (10%) of the children in Norwalk live in poverty; that’s 1,667 children, which is one-third (or 33%) of all those living in poverty in Norwalk.
• We know, from demographic research, that of those who start life in the lowest economic quintile, 40% will stay there for a long period of time…most will not escape poverty.
• We also know that only 1 in 10 poor children go to college.

And we know that children who live in poor families are …

• 3 times more likely to die in childhood
  
• 2.7 times more likely to have stunted growth
  
• 4 times more likely to have iron deficiency as preschoolers
  
• 2 times more likely to be partly or completely deaf ; 1.8 times more likely to be partly or completely blind
  
• about 2 times more likely to have serious physical or mental disabilities
  
• 3 times more likely to die from accidental injuries
  
• 1.6 times more likely to catch pneumonia
  
• 2.0 times more likely to repeat a grade
  
• 3.4 times more likely to be expelled
  

In Connecticut a family household needs to earn $42,480 to put a family into a modest two-bedroom apartment.  A single parent making the minimum wage would have to work 110 hours a week, or the equivalent of 2.8 full-time jobs, in order to afford an apartment.  The Child Defense Fund estimates that each year we allow more than 12 million children to live in poverty will cost our society $130 billion in future economic output as poor children grow up to be less productive and effective workers.  No wonder the king’s prosperity was linked to the state of the poor: There is actually a connection—a socio-economic dynamic—between the potential of a kingdom (i.e., a city like Norwalk in this case) and actions toward the poor.  Ensuring that the weakest and poorest members of the community have equal access to all the blessings and benefits of the community is part of God’s creation and is dynamically linked to socio-economics of a community (state, nation).

Want to start social reform that transforms our culture…move people out of poverty, care for the poor….want to make a difference…with so many views and voices vying for our attention in our pluralistic culture, show God’s singular voice in moving people out of poverty.

I speak not of the simplistic idea of wealth distribution or entitlements, but willful, intentional actions that indicate that God’s kingdom is to reign over all our community in addressing the needs of the poor, assisting them to enjoy the all blessings and benefits of our living in this community.  This means more than just charity—this means deliberate actions to help move people out of poverty.

As many of you might be aware NEON, Norwalk’s premiere anti-poverty agency, has embarked on a developing a strategic plan, centering on alleviating the causes of poverty and moving people out of poverty.  Among other things important to the winning the war on poverty, in that plan we have set as a goal to move

50 families out of poverty by 2011

We also set as a goal to move

25 of the working poor out of poverty by 2011

This is a deliberate choice, an intentional mind-set, a purposeful activity through the means available to us as a Community Action Agency.  This is why we have another goal in our strategic plan: to identify 200 individuals who will commit themselves to help us move people out of poverty.  For some this might be a financial commitment, but more so for many a personal commitment to be an ally in NEON’s war against poverty by becoming resources, tutors, mentors, guides, friends, volunteers in adopting these families that we have committed ourselves to moving out of poverty.

There is a rather strong and impressionable scene in the movie Hotel Rwanda, a 2004 film about a Hutu tribesman who is the manager of a hotel in Kigali, Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. While striving to protect his family and hundreds of Tutsi refugees from the Hutu mass-murderers, he faced additional struggles over international indifference to the country’s plight.  The scene is between this hotel manager and a reporter—we listen in:

Hotel manager: “I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might intervene.”

Reporter: “Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show?”

Hotel manager: “How can they not intervene when they witness such atrocities?”

Reporter: “I think if people see this footage they’ll say, ‘oh my God that’s horrible,’ and then go on eating their dinners.”

[later] Hotel manager: “There will be no rescue, no intervention force. We can only save ourselves. Many of you know influential people abroad, you must call these people. You must tell them what will happen to us… say goodbye. But when you say goodbye, say it as though you are reaching through the phone and holding their hand. Let them know that if they let go of that hand, you will die.”

We have people living in poverty, right here in our prosperous community, and as I conclude and say good-bye, the poor are reaching out their hands to you and letting you know that if you let go of their hands, they will die.

What a great heritage you have…that is why you will not let their hands go…I know you will find a way to become allies in Norwalk’s war on poverty and help us move our friends and neighbors out of poverty.

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This thread has been adapted from a message to be delivered at a local church’s 150th anniversary of ministry.  NEON is the agency I work for in Norwalk, CT.

Intentional Ministry of Wasted Evangelism
Finally, as we celebrate tonight, acknowledging 150 years of serving our King and of service to your community, I’d like to drive your faith toward the future and specifically your church’s intentional ministry of wasted evangelism in this community.  Built on the Mark 4 parables, here’s my understanding and definition of Evangelism:

Evangelism is the result of realizing that God’s kingdom has arrived and acknowledging His right to rule and reign over all of creation, which in turn produces the deliberate and intentional spread of the kingdom’s influence through proclamation and action.  (Viewed this way, social action can be a form of evangelism.)

This implies that we “evangelize” not only people—which we ought to do—but we seek to align the socio-economic structures and relationships in our community under God’s kingdom, bringing all things under the rule of heaven.  As the parable of the mustard seed implies, like king Nebuchadnezzar, we are to do righteous acts that show mercy to the poor.  Like the Master Farmer, we are to lavishly waste our seed of the Gospel in word and in deed (in action) so that all people (including the poor) find refuge, protection, safety, and prosperity as God’s rule extends into every nook and cranny of our community.

For most, evangelism is simply proclamation, but I think the Mark 4 parables help us see that social action can also be acts of evangelism as well, that is, addressing the needs of the poor among us (i.e., “showing mercy to the poor”) through deliberate and intentional actions, individually and as a Church congregation.

John Wesley was approached by those who wondered, “What does it avail to feed or clothe men’s bodies, if they are just dropping into everlasting fire?” Wesley responded, “Whether they will finally be lost or saved [we just don’t know what is good or bad soil], you are expressly commanded to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked.  If you can, and do not, whatever becomes of them, you shall go away into everlasting fire.” Thus, in Wesley’s view (really the Bible’s view) social action ministry was inseparable from the preaching of salvation by faith.  Wesley continues by reminding Methodists to do “good unto all men—unto neighbors, and strangers, friends, and [even] enemies.”

Wesley’s Plain Account of the People Called Methodists (1749) was roughly divided into two halves, the first devoted to spiritual principles and practices, the second to the social.  Wesley gave attention to medical care for the poor, beginning the first free clinic and dispensary in London. He sponsored a poorhouse (financing it by faith offerings), in which he housed widows, poor children, and the working-poor.  He also started a school for basic education, for spiritual training, and for reaching the parents.  Another intentional social action ministry was Wesley’s “lending fund,” out of which he rescued people from debtors’ prisons and set them up in honest work.  He appealed for financial aid to support these actions by urging people to “Join hands with God to make a poor man live” (George Herbert).

Wesley’s most noteworthy effort of social action ministry was his lifelong campaign, first, to improve the lot of the slave, and then to banish from the earth what he called “the execrable villainy” of slavery itself.  And in a letter to William Wilberforce, in 1791, he referred to slavery as “the scandal of religion… and of human nature.” For Wesley, social reform was more than proclamation.  Among other things, he “agitated for prison, liquor and labor reform; set up loan funds for the poor; campaigned against the slave trade and smuggling; opened a dispensary and gave medicines to the poor; worked to solve unemployment; and personally gave away considerable sums of money to persons in need.”

Your 150 years are part of a great heritage of social action, of lavished wasted the seed of the Gospel of the kingdom of God.  While celebrating tonight you also recognize that your Christian message—our Christian message—is one of many messages in our very pluralistic world.  What does it mean to live in a pluralistic world for people of faith?

The rise of options, of choices for our private lives has rapidly multiplied at every level, especially at the level of faiths and beliefs.  This multiplying of options—a plethora of choices—diminishes the significance what is believed and diminishes personal commitment.

I call it the junk-mail effect.  So much junk mail—now junk email: We are molded by the experience of junk mail to consider all mail is less significant.  And this is how it is in the world: There are so many choices presented to us from fast food to TV channels to religious faiths, which in turn makes even Christianity appear insignificant and thus Christianity—for many—loses its social significance.

Most in the Christian church have retreated in light of pluralism and have taken a defensive stance.  We are good at tossing moralistic grenades over the wall of our faith, demanding change or laws to protect the Christian view of life.  Although sometimes such grenades are warranted, they are mostly ineffective and, because of our own issues of self-interest, are not actually a good Christian way of changing our culture.  A better and more biblical approach is to not worry so much about our pluralistic world and become more obedient in our social responsibilities, especially in our relationships to the poor among us in our communities.

Prolonging Our Prosperity (Mark 4:30-32 and Daniel 4)
So, we are imitating our Lord in wasting our evangelism, lavishly spreading the seed of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.  But what does this imitation consist of?  Most, if not all, take evangelism to mean proclamation, witnessing, preaching, sharing Christ verbally with the unchurched and non-believer.  While I agree to the importance of providing verbal affirmation of Christ, it is significantly more than verbal testimony.  Evangelism is, by the nature of the Good News of the Kingdom of God itself, any action that indicates that God is ruler over heaven and earth.  Evangelism must be more than mere words.  Evangelism is the action that stems from the first and second commandments: It is both loving God and loving our neighbor through both proclaiming the Good News and by activities that love our neighbors.

Now I want to look at the next parable, Mark 4:30-32, which hints at how evangelism is more than just mere words, but action—social action:

And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE.”

I am often accused of seeing “the poor” behind every text of Scripture.  Perhaps that’s a little exaggerated (maybe not).  But perhaps, more so, I emphasize the call to Biblical Christianity through Scripture by showing others their lack of seeing the poor behind much of the text of Scripture.  In fact, this time it is really there—the poor is behind the parables here.  Maybe you can’t see it, but its there…the poor are behind those last verses: THE BIRDS OF THE AIR can NEST UNDER ITS SHADE.” Yes of course we can see that the Kingdom of God is likened to a large branchy-garden plant, where the animals can find protection.  Perhaps this is the veiled reference.  It is, but there is more.  Jesus references specific Old Testament texts—which his first disciples and those listening to him would have been very familiar, and in the parable of the mustard seed, he reaches back to Daniel 4 and the story of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and a frightening dream that had plagued the king.

In the context of Daniel, we have “Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language” (4:1) who is terrified by a dream that had awakened him during the night.  The king summons the various court officials, querying them about the interpretation of the dream.  Eventually it was apparent that his court ministers were not able to render an adequate interpretation.  Finally, Daniel, of whom the king acknowledged that “a spirit of the holy gods” is in him and “no mystery baffles” him, offers an interpretation.  But it is not, in the end, a good one for the king of all the nations on the earth.  In the end, the vision was about the king’s undoing, his ruin.  Although great and powerful, the king’s rule would come to an abrupt end.  This seems never to fit into interpretations of Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed in Mark 4.

At first, all looks good.  The dream indicates the king’s power, prestige, and extent of his kingdom.  The affirmation is described in the vision:

   “The tree grew large and became strong
    And its height reached to the sky,
    And it was visible to the end of the whole earth.
    Its foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant,
    And in it was food for all
    The beasts of the field found shade under it,
    And the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches,
    And all living creatures fed themselves from it.”

This is what is referred to in the parable…THE BIRDS OF THE AIR…NEST IN ITS SHADE.  In other words, the kingdom—the king’s rule—provided the safety and protection needed to its citizens.  This is all good—for king Nebuchadnezzar.  His kingdom is described in “beautiful” terms, as if creation under his rule works as it should.  But, it will come to an end, for we read in the following verses:

“I was looking in the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed, and behold, an angelic watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven.
    ’He shouted out and spoke as follows:
       “Chop down the tree and cut off its branches,
        Strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit;
        Let the beasts flee from under it
        And the birds from its branches.”’” (Daniel 4:13-14).

We are told that the king’s reign will come to an end because he does not acknowledge the right and rule of heaven (the real Kingdom and the real ultimate King).  As Daniel tells the story, the seer picks up one particularly surprising point of reference, and maybe even seemingly a little incongruent, almost out of place, namely that the king can forestall the outcome of his demise if he shows “mercy to the poor.” Daniel tells the king,

“Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity” (4:27).

What I find very interesting, of all the things Daniel could have said to help the king identify what needs to be repented of, what needs to be done in order to heed the warning of the night vision, it is the king’s relationship to the poor.  The connection between the kingdom and the poor is made here and should inform us of the nature of God’s rule—and to evangelism.

The picture of the branches in which the beasts of the field and birds of the air take refuge has the connotation of how a socio-economic structure cares for, protects, and causes to prosper its citizens.  (This is often the case in the Old Testament when creation is viewed as working as it should, namely that God’s redemptive action is making things right—restoring creation back to its proper place and function.) In this case the reign of the king and its socio-economic dimension is to provide a safe and thriving structure for those within its sphere.  Daniel in particular makes the connection to the weakest among the citizenry, namely the poor.  In fact, in order for the king to keep his kingdom, showing mercy to the poor might prolong his prosperity.  In order to hear the impact of the parable of the mustard seed, one must take into consideration the connection to the poor.  Once this background is incorporated into our thinking, it will be most natural to view the church’s task of evangelism, that is, spreading the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, as it relates to our social responsibility to the least among us—the poor.

Wesley’s sermons are filled with references to the church’s responsiblity toward the poor.  I also think he understood that evangelism is more than just words.  Reflecting on Matthew 25, he replies to those who wonder “what does it avail to feed or clothe men’s bodies, if they are just dropping into everlasting fire?” To which he response, “whether they will finally be lost or saved, you are expressly commanded to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. If you can, and do not, whatever becomes of them, you shall go away into everlasting fire” (The Works of John Wesley, Vol 1, Sermons).

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“Wesley himself did more than just talk about social reform.  Among other things, he agitated for prinson, liquor and labor reform; set up loan funds for the poor; campaigned against the slave trade and smuggling; opened a dispensary and gave medicines to the poor; worked to solve unemployment; and personally gave away considerable sums of money to persons in need” (Howard Snyder, Problem of the Wineskins: Church Renewal in Technological Age, 172).

The nature of Wasted Evangelism (the parable of the Sower)
When we hear the word, Wasted, what comes to mind—“To no avail; useless (wasted efforts); physically or psychologically exhausted; overcome by the influence of alcohol or drugs.” The term is usually heard negatively.  When we hear of the seed being spread on poor soil (in the parable), we don’t think of that seed being “wasted,” but we should.  I will point out, in this case “wasted” is a good thing when applied to spreading the Gospel.

Hear in the parable we have a sower, a famer who is sowing his seed—we know some seed falls on the wayside, some seed falls among weeds that choke out growth, and some falls on rocky ground.  We know the three bad or poor soils.  However in the end, we hear that there are three good soils which produce crops of 30, 60, and 100-fold.  Three places seed falls where there is failure; and, three places where the soil is good and produces good crops.

Most hear this parable as if the soils are individuals: you know, some who are poor soil, some who are good soil, but it is as if we are to determine (first) what kind of soil a person is before evangelizing them—you know, “Is he rocky soil, or is she weedy soil, or are they are soil that is off the field, on the road, which will never produce anything?” I contend this isn’t how we should hear this parable:  We need to see that the famer—in this case the Premier Farmer, Jesus Christ—is sowing His seed lavishly, with abandonment.  It is almost as if He did not know what He was doing, acting like a pitiable farmer in allowing his seed to be so lavishly sown in bad soil.  That’s actually what is here in the text—our Lord, the Perfect Famer, is sowing his seed indiscriminately, lavishly, with abandonment on good and poor soil alike.  He is wasting his seed. We are not commanded to figure out the soil type, but simply to sow, indeed to waste our seed.  We are commanded (through imitating the Master Famer) not to limit our sowing.  If anything we are to imitate the Master Farmer, lavishly sowing our seed—wasting our seed.

This seed is the Word, and here in Mark, it is the Word of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.  Briefly, the Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, but it is more than just personal salvation—which thankfully it is as well—but also the Gospel of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom of God is the arrival of God’s rule and His right to reign over the realm of mankind.  Thus, Jesus is seen here in this parable spreading the news that God’s kingdom has come.  That’s the Marken context of the parable.  Some accept it.  Some do not.  We are not guaranteed our sowing will be on good soil—in fact, it will often not be…but we are, nonetheless, to lavishly, indiscriminately sow the seed of the Gospel of the Kingdom.