Evangelism: Dirty Word or Beautiful Feet? (Hot Topics pt3) LAUMC All Services August 18, 2013 Romans 10:8-17 Rev. Samuel S. Yun Romans 10:8-17 8 But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because[b] if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. 11 The scripture says, No one who believes in him will be put to shame. 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! 16 But not all have obeyed the good news;[c] for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? 17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.[d] HOT TOPICS: FINDING THE EASY ONE So as you all know by now, we are in this series called Hot Topics. And a few months ago, a survey was conducted online asking the question, What would you like to hear from your pastors? What would you like to see addressed from the pulpit? And this was kind of like an opportunity for all of you the faithful members of the congregation to raise any topic that you d like, be it controversial, tough, sensitive, obscure, whatever. And it was an opportunity to put your pastors on the hot seat, if you will which kind of explains the flames on the screen. People have been wondering about that sermon graphic, apparently, and no it is not in reference to the lake of fire, and no it is not intended to mimic those tv screen fireplaces. (Although that would have been kind of nice and romantic and would have lent itself to a totally different type of Hot Topic sermon series. Maybe I ll suggest that for next year.) Anyway, we received 91 responses, which was an amazing level of participation from the church on this survey. And the topics ranged from things like immigration reform to issues of sexuality to the state of the church to the state of the Middle East. Many were curious about topics like 1
heaven and hell, and life after death, life after retirement, life after divorce, ministry to young adults, ministry to not so young adults I mean, basically, there were a lot of great topics suggested. And the pastoral staff was given an opportunity to review the full list, and kind of take dibs on what each wanted to preach on. Now, I ll confess as I reviewed the list, my goal was to try and choose the easiest possible topic to address. And I have no shame in confessing that, because last year, I got stuck with preaching on things like Why Did Jesus Have to Die, What Happens after Death you know, the real cheery topics. So this year, as I was perusing the list, I was hoping to find some easier topics like, God Loves All the Little Children or Is God Really a Fan of the San Francisco Giants? And that, of course, would have been a short sermon, because the answer would have simply been yes. Amen? Everyone would be happy, and then I could do an altar call or something deeply spiritual like that, right? Well, long story short, no such luck. So here I am this morning, preaching to you on this Hot Topic issue of Evangelism, that s right, Evangelism. No loving the little children. No rallying around the Giants (though they desperately need it right now). No. What I m preaching to you about today is the bright and cheery topic of Evangelism. Now, let s be honest. For a lot of people, and perhaps many in this room today, Evangelism is a dirty word. It connotes and contains all sorts of negative and yucky stuff about Christianity and brings to mind the picture of those judgmental people who try to shove their religion down other people s throats. Whether it s the people knocking on your door handing out tracts, or that guy on a city street yelling fire and brimstone through a bullhorn, the word evangelism tends to breed negative thoughts and negative feelings. THE BULLHORN GUY Basically, we re not too crazy about evangelism because we re not too crazy about what it s usually associated with. In a particular episode of a video Bible study series entitled, Nooma, Rob Bell (its producer and author of the highly popular book, Love Wins) actually addresses this highly negative image of evangelism. The video shows this guy in a white short sleeve dress 2
shirt and tie getting things ready to go into the city to preach the Good News he s gathering his pamphlets, his Bible, a bullhorn and all the while, Rob Bell is narrating the video, and this is what you hear: As I get closer, I hear the words sin and burn and hell and repent. And then I hear the word Jesus. And he s got all these pamphlets, and he s quoting these Bible verses about the anger and wrath of God, and how if I don t repent, I m going to pay for it for eternity, and how I might die, I might die tonight! This might be my only chance! Then there s a pause, and Rob Bell continues: Bullhorn guy, I don t think it s working. All the yelling and judgment and the condemnation, I don t think it s working. I actually think it s making things worse. I don t think it s what Jesus had in mind. Then later in the video, Rob Bell says: See, bullhorn guy, this is why the yelling and the bullhorn are so disturbing to us, it seems like you re just trying to convert people to your religion. Like they re notches on some sort of spiritual belt. But they re not. They re people, they re people that God loves. They re people that Jesus wants us to love. They aren t statistics, they aren t numbers, they aren t possible conversions. I mean, if, if I m loving somebody with an agenda, then it isn t really love, is it? Anybody here ever run across this bullhorn guy before? Anybody here resonating with Rob Bell s narration? When I saw the video, I was like amen! Thanks for saying what I ve been wanting to say all these years. This is why Christianity is at a standstill. This is why the church is in severe decline. It s all the bullhorn guy s fault! Of course! We ve been given a bad rap because of bad evangelism. Christians and Christianity has a negative label because of these negative and hateful people. So that s what I was saying as I watched this video, that is until I hear Rob Bell say this: 3
But maybe you re a Christian, and you re sitting there nodding, and you re agreeing with me and you re going, Yeah! You tell em! It s about time somebody said that! But, what are you doing to change the perception, because that s what it is. Wow, I ll tell you. That really got me. What am I doing to change the perception? It s amazing that even a pastor can be challenged in a moment like that. But so that I don t keep this all to myself, let me invite you into my wrestling around this topic, and ask you as well, what are you doing to change the perception? Because truth be told, all the negativity around this thing called evangelism is really a perception. And in fact, evangelism at its core is supposed to be about the Good News. And because we are supposed to be about the Good News, we are supposed to be about evangelism. There s no getting around this. PAUL S RARE BUT CLEAR ARTICULATION We read a little while ago from Paul s letter to the Romans. A passage of Scripture where I think we see the apostle at his finest penning moment. Now, if you know anything about Paul s writings or have done any sort of Bible study on his letters in the New Testament, you may know that he was pretty notorious for lengthy, run- on, and sometimes grammatically questionable sentences. But here in Romans 10, Paul is actually pretty articulate and makes one of the best arguments for evangelism that anyone has probably ever heard. And this is what we read in verses 13-15: 13 For, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! How beautiful are the feet. You see, friends, evangelism is not really a dirty word. Well, yah maybe by perception, but in reality, 4
evangelism, Paul says, is more like beautiful feet! And basically, Paul s point here is that there is this Jesus this embodiment of incredible and abundant love and grace and mercy - that is available to all. And he is ready to help and bless and love and accept and save all those who call on him. But the problem is that people can t call on him if they don t believe in him. And there s no way that they can believe in him if they have never heard of him. And they probably won t hear of him unless they hear it from someone else. And that someone else may never get to them unless they actually felt that conviction to be sent and actually go. BUT., if they should go man, we re talking beautiful feet type of evangelism here! You leave the pamphlets behind. You leave the bullhorn behind. You leave the agenda behind. And all you take with you is your feet and your heart. Let your heart lead you and let your feet carry you, and for no other reason than to simply share with someone the amazing, amazing things that God has given you, that Jesus has blessed you with. I heard a long time ago that the best and simplest definition of evangelism is simply one hungry beggar telling another hungry beggar where to find bread. I love that definition, and I love this one story told by Tony Campolo, Professor of Sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania that really drives this definition home. It s a story about this homeless man he met on the streets of Philadelphia. The story goes like this: One day around noon when he was walking down Chestnut street in Philadelphia. He noticed a bum coming straight toward him. Tony was wearing his nice preacher s suit. The bum was wearing layer upon layer of filthy clothing. His most obvious feature, however, was a tangled beard that hung nearly to his waist. Bits of rotting food were stuck in the beard. The teeth he had left were yellow and rotted. He was holding a cup of McDonald s coffee in his hand. As he staggered toward Campolo, he said, Hey mister, Ya want some of my coffee? As you can imagine, Campolo really didn t want any of the coffee but reconsidered and then said, OK and took a very small sip. He handed the cup back to the man and said, You are feeling pretty 5
generous today. What s gotten into you? The man answered back, Well, I figure, if God gives you somethin good, you ought to share it with somebody else. Uh Oh, thought Campolo, he s getting ready to hit me up for five dollars. Knowing it was what he was supposed to do Campolo said, Well, you shared your coffee with me. Is there anything I can do for you? Yeah, come to think of it there is, the man said. Campolo started to reach for his wallet. You can give me a hug! Campolo said now he kind of wished the man had asked for five dollars! But he put his arms around the man. The man hugged him back and didn t let him go. There all of the business people in Philadelphia were streaming around these two men, a man in a suit and a man in rags, hugging on the sidewalk. Just as he was ready to push himself away, he sensed Jesus whispering to him, I was hungry, did you feed me? I was sick, did you visit me? I was a bum on Chestnut street, did you hug me? For if you did it to the least of these, you did it to me. DO YOU HEAR THE WHISPER? I wonder, do you ever hear that whisper of God that gently stirs your heart, ushering you to just go and share with someone else the (quote) somethin good that God has given you? You see, truth is, the Good News is rarely heard when it s blared out from a bullhorn. Because usually bullhorns are noisy and the words broadcast from them seem a bit dirty. Evangelism is not meant to be one of those words. Evangelism is meant, instead, to be beautiful feet. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! It s up to us to change the perception of evangelism. It s up to us to reclaim the message of Good News and share it with a world that desperately needs to hear it. And that good news can be manifest in a warm, tasty sip of coffee shared, or it can be shown in the offering of a loving hug, or it can be demonstrated through the feeding of those that are hungry. And guess what, the good news can also and must be manifest in our excitement for Jesus who loves us, forgives us, welcomes us, heals us, blesses us, and sends us with words, 6
actions and beautiful feet to reach the lost, the last and least. Friends, this is all evangelism. But we need to do it out there So, this is what I was thinking. As many of you know, our vision statement of our church is touching heaven, changing earth with head, heart and hands. How about we add feet to that. And as we walk out of this service today, we would all walk out knowing that God desires to direct our feet somewhere, and to someone, and that we would hear of our feet perhaps this week: how beautiful are your feet that brings Good News. Amen?! So, may your feet be beautiful this week. May your faith be bold this week. And may your love be overflowing this week. So that, all may call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Amen?! I have struggled for a very long time with evangelism. It is not because I don't want anyone else to know the love of God - I very much do! In fact, I want to tell everyone I know about it. However, I find that in that moment when I am telling someone about my awesome church, I immediately feel like I have to explain myself ("But it isn't like other churches. We are a reconciling congregation that is loving and accepting of everyone, and we do a lot of work for social justice"). It is a horrible feeling to be almost embarrassed to tell others that I am a Christian and to have to add a disclaimer about my faith. I am not embarrassed to be a follower of Christ. I just get uncomfortable with the idea of identifying myself with what I know many people think of when they hear "Christian" (Westboro Baptist, for instance). How can I reconcile this? 7