In 1910 a series of pamphlets began to be published, focused out of the Presbyterian Church and Princeton Theological Seminary, it was entitled The Fundamentals, and sought, in their words to state “the fundamentals of Christianity.” Those who subscribed to the ideas being presented in these pamphlets began to be referred to as fundamentalists, which is where that term comes from. But, fairly recently, as these things go, as the term fundamentalist began to be applied to other groups, like fundamentalist Muslims, or those who subscribed to a very strict idea of a religion, with little to no wiggle room to believe other things, and the desire to blow things up to prove their rightness, Christian fundamentalists began to change how they referred to themselves, rejecting that term, and instead calling themselves evangelicals, which, in my opinion, has sort of corrupted that word, and the rest of the church really needs to try and reclaim it from simply meaning fundamentalist. Now it’s not that fundamentalists didn’t also have overlaps with evangelicalism, because they did, but evangelical had meant much more than what it tends to mean now.
And so when I say that the Methodist movement was part of the evangelical movement that doesn’t mean what we tend to think it means currently, instead it was about, much as we’ve talked about already when it comes to Methodist beliefs, about a lived religion that not only sought to make the believer’s life better, to bring about personal transformation, and then from a Methodist perspective to bring about a transformation of the world, but that also sought to spread that message to the world. Or as John Wesley would say, “to spread scriptural holiness across the whole land.” And so, as we already heard, Wesley said that there was no think as private religion, or only personal religion, that it had to be social, and that also entailed spreading and offering the good news to others, and that gets back to an original understanding of being evangelical.
The Greek word from which we get evangelical is euangelion,
which literally means good news, or a messenger of good news. When Mark wrote
the first gospel, or what we now know as a gospel, this was the word he used.
And you can see other words we get in English, like evangelist, and even angel,
who is a messenger of God, usually bringing good news, at least from New
Testament perspective. And that’s part of what we are called to do is to offer
the good news to the world, and that was key to what the Methodist movement was
seeking to do. As Methodism spread beyond just the small group meeting at
Oxford, Wesley was seeking not to form a new church, which is why I refer to it
as a movement, but instead to revitalize the church of England and a large part
of that involved reaching out to those outside of the church, those who did not
attend church, either because they had rejected the church, or often because
the church had rejected them. To move beyond the walls of the church to offer
the good news, to preach not just to those in the church, but to go out into
the fields and preach to anyone who would listen and who could be reached. Even
though Wesley was an Anglican priest, because he was a professor, or started
out that way, he was not assigned to a particular parish, or church, and one of
his most famous phrases became “the whole world is my parish.”
Additionally, he found that many people outside the church
were willing to listen to what he had to say about Christ because he was
putting his faith into action, as we talked about last week, in reaching out
and helping those in need. And if they knew others who had joined Methodism,
they could see their lives being transformed by living the rules of Methodism
of doing no harm, doing God, and loving God. They could see that it was more
than just words that were being thrown about, but a new way of life with
tangible results being delivered. Now that didn’t mean that everyone was interested
or followed Methodism, but just a perspective, what began as a small group of
students at Oxford in 1730 had grown so much that by 1860 there were more
Methodists churches in America than there were US Post Offices, and when you
consider that basically every town had a post office, that’s saying something.
And much of that later growth was driven by circuit riders, preachers who were
constantly traveling to proclaim the good news, and then linking people up with
others so that they could walk the journey of faith. And what was the key to
all of this? In a quote attributed to Wesley claims that he said “All I did was
set myself on fire with the Holy Spirit and people came to watch me burn.”
Now the likelihood is that Wesley didn’t actually say that,
although that doesn’t stop me from still using it because it’s a good quote and
who are we to let a little thing like facts stand in the way? And I know many
of you are scientists, so please remember that’s a joke. But the reason I like
that quote alleged quote from Wesley is because it’s a different way of
thinking about evangelism. One of the arguments we had a lot while I was in
seminary was between the conservatives and those in the middle or progressive
was around evangelism. The conservatives, for the most part, had a very
aggressive take on evangelism that you had to pursue people and ask and ask and
ask and pressure them to make a profession of faith, because the stakes were
too high. But, I and others always asked was the other person’s salvation
entirely up to them? Where was the Holy Spirit was in that movement? And in
that moment?
I know an evangelist who traveled around the country
preaching revivals, or at least he did until two years ago, and he would
metaphorically make notches in his belt for all those he brought to Christ,
although I wouldn’t doubt that he put actual notches in his belt either because
he would routinely brag about how many confessions of faith he received, and
I’m going to ignore the depths of that statement for the moment. But he acted
as if he was the one who did it all. I am completing my 15th year in ministry
this month, and I have had more confessions of faith that I have received than
I can count on both hands, and perhaps even more than I can count on my toes as
well, but how many do I actual take credit for? None, because first I think I
was just in the right place at the right time. That there were hundreds of
people before me who were offering the good news to them in very overt and
covert ways. And then there was always the movement of the Spirit. Remember
that we as Methodists believe in prevenient grace, the grace that comes before,
that movement of the Holy Spirit that is calling and beckoning people into a
relationship with God and that is always there and always working, even after
we have accepted Christ, made a profession of faith, that justifying grace, and
are moving towards sanctifying grace, or entire sanctification, Christian
perfection, it is the Holy Spirit moving and working amongst us that is doing
this work.
And so, one of the things that people often resist about
doing evangelism, of offering Christ, it that it seems like too much work, it’s
too hard, and perhaps too embarrassing. None of us want to have to walk up to
someone and say “have you excepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and
savior?” That just seems a little too much. But that’s because we’ve
misunderstood all the steps and we haven’t learned to trust the Spirit and we
can see that in the passages we heard this morning. The first is the story of
Acts, and what is it that does the work that morning? Is it the disciples? Yes,
but only partially, because they have to go out, but it is the Spirit that is
working in them. They have been set on fire and they go out and people come to
watch them burn. They have received the power of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus
has promised them they would. And then in the Matthew account he tells them
that they are to go and make disciples. He doesn’t say if you build it they
will come, which is how we often want to make church work, because that’s how
it worked in the 50s. But in a post-enlightenment, post-Christian world, it
doesn’t work that way anymore. But, in some ways evangelism is easier than
before because people are hungry for something more than what consumerist
capitalism offers.
So just by a show of hands, who here has ever recommended a
restaurant, a TV show, a movie, a musician to someone else? Alright, just by a
show of hands, who here doesn’t like having to raise their hands? That’s an old
Steve Martin joke. And I’m not going to ask who has ever recommended a church
to someone, even though, while it might not be true here in Los Alamos, in most
communities, in most churches, the majority, or close thereto, have come to
that church because someone invited them or told them about it. And I bet they
didn’t say something like “would you like to come to church with me because the
pastor says I have to invite someone.” That’s not how we recommend anything
else in our lives. When we are excited about something, we set ourselves on
fire and invite people to come join in and if that’s true for restaurants or
whatever we’re binge watching, and I am really enjoying the new Obi-Wan Kenobi
series by the way, then it definitely should be true about our faith. And then
it’s not a matter of being forceful about it, or aggressive about it, it’s
about setting ourselves on fire with the Spirit so that people are drawn to it,
like a moth to a flame, although that’s probably a really bad analogy.
If our lives have been transformed by Christ and we are
living that out in the world, seeking to transform the world, then people will
be drawn to it and want to know what’s going on in our lives. They want to know
why we are who we are and why we do what we do? When we offer the love of God
to the world people want to participate, and it is the power given to us
through the Holy Spirit that leads us and it is what beckons and calls to others.
And so sharing our faith shouldn’t be hard because it’s so much a part of who
we are, it’s about loving God and loving neighbor. And I know that one of the
questions I get asked from people who are worried that someone else will ask a
question they don’t know the answer to, and the simple answer is to say “I
don’t know.” Because sometimes it’s questions we will never know the answer to,
sometimes we just don’t know the answer but can find out, there is this amazing
thing called google that you should try, more street level marketing, or invite
them into conversation with me. I am always open for questions about the faith,
and sometimes will even just say “I don’t know” or here’s what I think,
although I could be wrong. And honestly not knowing all the answers, in our
current culture, and admitting that can be more powerful than trying to pretend
that we do in fact know it all.
The Methodist movement was, and is, part of the evangelical movement, not only because we are called to go make disciples, but also because we want people to come and know and see and experience what we have in our own faith. Just as we want people to know about some amazing restaurant we tried, we also want people to know about this amazing God that we have, and evangelism is simply about that, about being messengers of good news and the Spirit is the one moving and working in us, and in others, that does most of the work. And so don’t worry about what to say or how to say it, simply tell people about what God has done in your life, or even better, set yourself on fire with the Holy Spirit, loving Go and loving our neighbor, and invite people to come and watch you burn, to watch us burn, as we seek to bring about the Kingdom of God here and now, to be the good news to the world. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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