Words'nTone

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.