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Becoming A Duck: Some (More) Thoughts on Evangelism

1/25/2018

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I’ve been party to many conversion experiences.


There was the time, in 2001, that I sat next to a field at a public school in Jamaica and shared the Wordless Book with like thirty kids and led them through a sinner’s prayer.


I had more than a few similar experiences sharing the Roman’s Road while doing weekly door-to-door evangelism jaunts with my youth group, growing up in Orlando—including a REALLY embarrassing story involving an over-eager German Shepherd while leading some kids through asking Jesus into their hearts (I’ll maybe tell you the story if you ask me sometime).
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I'll also tell you about the Wordless Book (please ignore my messy nightstand in the photo)
I think about all of this today as I think about Saint Paul’s own conversion experience. And, really, it’s a pretty amazing story. Aside from the fact that Paul was a radicalized religious extremist, Paul’s conversion is amazing because it did not involve an evangelist. Not entirely, at least.


Paul, then going by Saul, was going about the business of trying to rid the region of what he believed was a dangerous cult that was undermining the authority and power of the Jewish religion and risking a provocation with the Romans with their whole “Jesus is Lord” talk. The Romans weren’t interested in recognizing distinctions among Jewish religious sects. As far as they were largely concerned, if one Jew said it then every Jew said it (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).


And it was then that Saul encountered Jesus, risen from the grave. And, for him, everything changed.


The fact that he is converted as this point is somewhat underscored by his calling Jesus “Lord.” I say “somewhat” because, in Greek, κυριος (“kurios,” where we get “Kyrie” in Latin) can mean something akin to “sir.” But the fact that Saul, after being blinded by the light, calls the holy figure “κυριος” suggests that he recognizes that he’s in the presence of someone Godly. He knew his own religion enough to assume that he might be having a vision of God—which he was, but in a way he did not expect.
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Admit it, the song is in your head now. Which is okay, because if you click the image, you'll get to listen to the song! See, I'm always thinking of you, reader...
One of the sad realities of us Episcopalians is that we are not as conversant about our faith as we probably ought to be. What I mean by this is that we don’t really “share” our faith all that often. And, really, even Evangelicals have begun to move away from this sort of thing, which is very telling of the times in which we live. But I digress.


However, I will never forget a conversion experience I once experienced while I was in seminary. It involved a member of my field education parish’s congregation. Not that it’s all that important, but to help perhaps underscore the emotion of the story, I will add that this individual was, let’s say, gender fluid. I will not share their actual name, so let’s call them “Shell” (which could be short for either Michele or Sheldon—again, not their name, but something to help you, the reader, grasp a bit of who this individual is). Shell, at the time, was of questionable housing status and was a regular worshipper at the early morning service. At this point, I’d known Shell for maybe two years and we’d talk a lot on Sunday mornings.


Shell was pretty clear that they were not Christian. They’d come to church in order to take advantage of the breakfast we offered after the early service. But Shell was more of a “spiritualist,” keeping in line with their grandmother, who’d been a major influence in their life.


On this particular morning I found Shell in deep thought before the service. So I took a seat in the pew and said hello. (I will use script-writing for the conversation in order to avoid the cumbersome qualities of trying to use gender-neutral language here)


Shell: Let me ask you a question.


Me: Shoot.


Shell: So I’ve been coming to the church for a long time. And I listen to what you all are saying every week about God and I like it and I realize I’m starting to believe it. Does this make me a Christian?


Me: Just so I’m clear, you’re saying that you believe in God, specifically God revealed in Jesus?


Shell: Yes. I think so. Does this make me a Christian?


Me, after a couple of seconds of thought: Shell, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…


Shell thought for a little while, and said: Can’t I be a goose who hangs out with ducks?


Me: It doesn’t really work that way.


Shell sat for nearly two minutes, looking at the ground and thinking. After that, Shell turns to me and says: Well, I guess I’m a duck.


What a great statement of confession, right?


I share this story because conversion often does not look like we think it ought. Maybe we think of altar calls at revival meetings, or the door-to-door evangelist armed with tracts and pocket-sized Bibles. Maybe we think of the subtle drama that comes with the phrase “bow your head and pray with me” as you being to say “Lord Jesus, I confess that I’m a sinner…”


Sometimes conversion involves Jesus slapping us off our horses.


Sometimes conversion involves comparing one’s self with a duck.


The one thing that all of these stories have in common is that they all involve metaphorical seeds coming to fruition.


Paul was armed with a lifetime of knowledge about the scriptures and commentaries of his religion. Shell had spent years sitting in a church pew as an observer.


“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” the Psalmist declares. In Romans, Paul will eventually cite this passage and say:


“How can they call on someone they don’t have faith in? And how can they have faith in someone they haven’t heard of? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15 CEB)


Paul here is acknowledging all the moving parts involved in evangelism. Evangelism is, indeed, a process.


At the same time, we need to be equipped in order to give an answer. Because, who knows, maybe we’re the one who’s been sent? Maybe we’re the one from whom their ears hear the good news?


I’m not interested in suggesting that people’s eternal destinies are contingent on any one person’s abilities to do the work of evangelism. I heard enough of that growing up and, frankly, the implications are quite heretical.


Instead, I’d love for all of us to know the joy that comes with experiencing watching another person come to faith in Jesus Christ. To be like Ananias, who did the powerful (and, indeed, scary) work of shepherding Paul from religious extremist to faithful disciple.


I’d love for all of us to see people recognize that they are, indeed, a duck.
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And, who knows? Maybe they'll one day become Bishop Duck and you can say that you knew them back in the day! (image from Pinterest)
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Adventures in Not Getting It: On Peter's Confession and Participating in the Lord

1/18/2018

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Detail of "Giving of the Keys to Saint Peter" by Pietro Perugino (click image for link to original source)
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​In the Church’s calendar today we celebrate Saint Peter confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, identifying for us that which had been slowly dawning on the Lord’s disciples during those brief years of ministry.


However, I always remember that Peter, that brash and impulsive friend of Jesus, is also called “Satan” by Jesus shortly after this confession because he feels its okay to rebuke Jesus and tell Him that He’s wrong. I always remember that Peter, even in the midst of divine revelation, is just as prone to get it wrong as he is to get it right.


No wonder he often speaks for all of us.


While I ponder this fact this morning, I also think of the theological notion of “participation.” This is an important facet of Radical Orthodoxy, a theological movement that has been very important for me and my thinking in recent years. Coming out of Plato’s ideas—which influenced the theological thinking of Saint Augustine of Hippo and, later, Saint Thomas Aquinas—the notion of participation is related to connections. God is not disconnected, in other words. Rather, as Christians, we participate in God and God’s work.


“Why do you call me ‘good’?” Jesus asks the rich young man, with an air of leading, “No one is good but God alone.” This verse helps us understand this notion of participation. “Good” is not something that exists in and of itself. Something is only “good” if it is rooted in God. In other words, if it is “goodly” then it is “godly” and vise versa.


Goodness is the fruit on the vine. God is the root. The fruit swells with the water and substance drawn up by the roots and passed through the branches. The fruit participates in the life of the tree, it carries no existence apart from tree.


This is part of Saint Peter’s problem. He carries in his mind a working definition of the Messiah. So, when he confesses Jesus as the Messiah, he is attempting to fit Jesus into this working definition. What he fails to acknowledge is the full understanding that Jesus is the Messiah/the Messiah is Jesus.


To reference a fairly embarrassing moment in the presidency of Bill Clinton, it all depends on what our definition of “is” is.


Jesus is the Messiah. What this means is that whatever Jesus does or says those things are messianic. Peter can’t quite wrap is head around this notion. Which is why Peter feels it’s okay to take Jesus aside and try to teach Him “actually, Jesus, the Messiah doesn’t suffer and die because…” Peter is working from a disconnected understanding of Messiah. For him, the Messiah is an office, not a person.


Given his historical context, this makes a degree of sense. There had been many people running around trying to be the Messiah. They all attempted to fit into that office. Their inability to be the Messiah had nothing to do with a lack of effort, however. It had everything to do with the fact that they weren’t Jesus.


This notion is dramatically recalled in the Revelation to Saint John:

“I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’



“Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered […] He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne.” (Revelation 5:2-7 NRSV)


In this vivid scene, we see that no one is worthy to open the scroll. That is because they were not the Lamb.


To confess Jesus as Messiah and Lord is to recognize that His lordship and Messiah-ship are tied directly to His personhood. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the Messiah. These things are all bound together in the same way that an orange is orange.


Peter tries to teach Jesus what he thinks the Messiah is all about. Jesus winds up teaching us all the truth, while also revealing our missing of the mark.


In this story of confession and rebuke is, too often, our story.


From my perspective, we all tend to get caught up in a Christianity that lacks a vision of participation. We carry working definitions divorced from the person of Jesus. We must remember that to be “Christians” (which means, basically, “little Christs”) is to live a life that participates in the life of Jesus—in much the same way an avocado participates in the life of the avocado tree.


The Church is a place where people’s lives are constituted by sacraments. Where material things become not only divine encounters, but where we are united directly to God.


In his popular book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes: “I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze.”


Miller hits it pretty close here. That the life of the Christian is not a life where things like “Jesus” and “Church” are abstracted entities apart from life. We are the Church, we don’t simply “go to Church.” Jesus Himself does not say that He assists us in our life or offers us a better life, rather He plainly states “I am the life.”


To be Christian, to confess Jesus as Messiah and Lord, is to participate in Jesus. To live a life rooted in Jesus, defined by Jesus, nourished by Jesus. He cannot be abstracted or put aside. To do so would be to completely miss the point.


When we confess you, Lord, help us to participate in you more fully. Amen.
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    Father Charles Browning is the Rector of The Chapel of Saint Andrew and the Head Chaplain of Saint Andrew's School.

    He is also a husband, father, avid surfer, reader, writer, and (over) thinker trying to make sense of this Jesus business and how to be a faithful minister to God's people in The Church.

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