The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
During Eastertide, we are having quite a few Bible readings that include sermons by the apostles. This was part of the process of starting the church. The last words Jesus had spoken to them before he ascended into heaven were clear: Go to all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We will get around to reading those words in our Sunday lessons as we approach Ascension Day, but we need to think about it now, because so many of the Eastertide readings tell us how the apostles obeyed that command.
Today's reading from the Book of Acts of the Apostles is one of those readings. I don't know if you really listened to it while it was being read a few minutes ago. If you did, you notice that Paul, who was speaking, followed much the same pattern we find in the sermons of Peter and other apostles. First, he speaks directly to the Jews present and reminds them of what God has done for them through the ages. Then he explains how the life and ministry of Jesus fit into the teachings of the prophets whom God sent to the Jews long ago, in Old Testament times. And then he tells how Jesus' life and ministry fulfill the prophecies and promises that they had been taught to expect as part of the coming of the Messiah. Finally, Paul offers the salvation of Jesus, which is God's gift, to the people who are hearing him.
Usually, in the book of Acts, we find a large number of people coming forward to be baptized after a sermon like this. Sometimes, we find pagans coming forward to grab the preacher and try to kill him, because the Good News about Jesus is always a threat to false gods and the people who make a profit from false religion.
But, of course, the point is that this kind of a sermon is characteristic of the days of the early church, and it was very effective. It brought thousands of people to Baptism and made the church grow by leaps and bounds. This is also the kind of preaching that Christians used for many, many hundreds of years. It is the kind of preaching that brought about the many great revivals of the past, such as those of Charles Wesley and the tent preachers here in America.
So, why are we not using this type of preaching today?
I really do not know. At some point, we stopped preaching to people who did not believe in God, and began to preach to members of the church, instead. Members of the church are supposed to already know the things that Peter, Paul and the other apostles preached about....perhaps that's where the saying, "preaching to the choir," came from.
You do not see many street-corner preachers nowadays, do you? You do not hear of many tent-meetings, or revivals which are aimed at the community at large. The revivals we have nowadays seem to focus mostly on getting people who are already church members to be more active in their church, more regular in attendance, and more deeply into their belief. And at the same time we are hearing of large numbers of people who are unchurched, who have never heard of Jesus, who think God's name is a swear word.
As I think about the preaching in Scripture, more and more I believe that it was never meant to be the job of ministers only. If we look back through the time in the Bible before Jesus came to us, we notice that it was the people of Israel who were responsible for spreading the word about God to their neighbors and friends. The ancient prayer that Jews were told, by Moses, to say four times a day, is an example: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one! And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength....and you must love your neighbor the same as you love yourself. This is certainly a short sermon for a believer to repeat to a non-believing neighbor or friend. In fact, if someone heard another person praying, this was a fine sermon for the one listening! Jesus himself used it and quoted it several times in the Gospels. And that is not the only evidence we have; many of the Psalms are really calls to worship God. The Jewish people would sing the Psalms, and they would have the effect of sermons for non-Jews who heard them: Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us raise a loud shout to the God of our salvation! or, Come, praise the Lord! Let all flesh bless his holy name! Almost any of the Psalms could be a start for an explanation to a non-Jew of what Jews believe and why.
It seems to me that what the Bible is telling us is that every believer has the responsibility to spread the Good News about God and Jesus to all other people. Some churches call this witnessing. Many people don't feel they would like to be a witness to God's love to others. It's
embarrassing, they feel. It might be rude to talk in public about our God and our religion. Proper people don't talk about money or religion or death in public. Most of us would rather witness through our actions instead of talking about our faith. There are many other excuses, including the ones the prophets used in the Bible: I can't talk good, Lord; I am too young; I wouldn't know what to say..... and so on.
But it is clear all through the Bible that God expects us to share our faith. It has drawbacks, of course. In today's Gospel reading, we find that even when Jesus himself said publicly that he was the Messiah, some people, maybe most of them, still did not believe him. But the point is that he DID witness! God himself tells some of the prophets something like this: You must tell the people what I order you to say to them. If they believe you and correct their life and begin to obey Me, that's fine. If they don't believe you and hold fast to their wrong ways of living, that is THEIR fault, not yours...as long as you have told them what I said you should tell them, you have done your work for Me.
Now, in this time of Eastertide, don't you think it might be a good idea if we all began following the Bible way? Can each of us find a way to talk to one person every day about God's gift of salvation through Jesus? Can we learn to look for an opportunity to bring up the idea, just say a sentence or two, and answer any questions they ask? Can we perhaps invite them to come to church with us next week? If each one of us tells one other person, how much can the church grow, and how much deeper can our own faith become? Amen.
