AMOS 3:1-9
PSALM 139:1-11
1 CORINTHIANS 1:10-17
MATTHEW 4:12-23
Sermon – 1/27/02
We Can “Fish for
People”!
“As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
Jesus
did not say, “Um, if you’re not really busy, and if you aren’t already a
committed member of another faith community, and if your kids aren’t in a
Sunday soccer league, maybe you’d like to consider dropping by one of the times
I’m preaching in your area.” He said,
“follow me.”
The
fishermen were busy, and they were already members of another
faith community; we don’t now about youth soccer leagues in First Century
Galilee, though. Even so, they did drop everything and follow him. Not just down the street, but all over the
territory of Galilee, where they watched him “teaching in their synagogues and
proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom and curing every disease and every
sickness among the people.” And they
became increasingly convinced that following Christ was worth totally
disrupting “business as usual.”
That
was the very beginning of “missionary activity”. The first “evangelistic mission” was exactly that: Jesus walking
down the street spreading the Good News of the Kingdom of God: repent, be
forgiven, be liberated and healed, be included in God's beloved community,
participate in the making-new of the world.
That is Good News, and it is just as good and (to many
people) just as much news in 2002 A.D. as in 30 A.D.
The
word “evangelism” means, literally, sharing the Good News. That was what Christ
did, calling people to follow him, calling disciples and assembling a community
of devoted followers who, by the time of his ascension into heaven, numbered
120 persons – fewer than we have in this building on an average Sunday.
And
those first evangelistic missions did not involve people traveling great
distances; Jesus never went over 100 miles from his home in his lifetime. Only after he ascended into heaven
and the Holy Spirit descended upon the faithful at Pentecost did the Good News
of Jesus Christ begin to come out of its birthplace in the Holy Land and reach
out to other nations – a fact anticipated by St. Matthew, who is careful in his
editorial framework to this morning’s Gospel passage to remind his readers that
the very first area Jesus evangelized in person was an ethnically and
religiously diverse area – “Galilee of the Gentiles.”
The
Good News of Jesus Christ came (and comes) as Good News to sinners needing
forgiveness, the despairing needing hope, the sick and the broken-hearted needing
healing, the oppressed needing liberation, the isolated needing community. Once Christ was no longer physically present
in the world to spread the Good News himself personally, those who he
commissioned – and those who in turn followed them – were empowered and guided
by the Holy Spirit to call disciples of Christ themselves.
From
the very beginning there was a struggle over what constituted “the heart of the
Gospel” and what constituted the secondary cultural trappings of those
spreading the Gospel. To some,
representatives of Christianity have expected inquirers from other faiths to
“buy the whole package” as it were, to become Greek-speaking Byzantines, as
well as Christians. That was the
attitude of at least some of the Christian traders in Damascus, Syria, in the
late 6th Century, who also looked down their educated noses at the
“hicks from the sticks” as we might say who came there to buy the fancy
consumer goods of what was the remaining Eastern Roman Empire.
Condescension
and culturally packaged Christianity?
Not a good plan. One of those
“country cousins” who was intrigued by Christianity but turned off, some say,
by the condescension and cultural imperialism he was greeted with was a young
man from Arabia named ...Muhammed.
Instead of converting, he went back to Mecca – and something quite
different happened. Imagine how
different history might have been if the faith had been presented without
condescension and with flexibility around cultural issues.
Why
did not someone translate the Bible into Arabic? A lost opportunity then - but there were other
opportunities. One was taken by two
young monks, also Greek-speaking Byzantines, who left Constantinople
(modern-day Istanbul) to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Slavic
peoples of Eastern Europe.
They
did not seem themselves as the vanguard of the Byzantine Empire,
teaching people Greek, manners, and obeying the emperor. On the contrary, they learned to speak the
language of the people, and then discovered the Slavs had no written
language. So they listened to what they
heard and invented an alphabet for the language. Their names were Cyril and Methodius. Ever hear of the Cyrillic alphabet, that Russian is written
in? After learning the language orally,
inventing an alphabet for it, developing the written language from that, they
and their followers then translated the
Bible into this new written language and taught it to the people.
And
some people today complain about having to take two years of Spanish in High
School!
It
is no wonder that many Slavic people, with this as their first exposure
to Christians and Christianity came to feel that this new faith was their
faith. And even 74 years of atheistic,
totalitarian communism could not stamp it out.
Christian
missionaries have not always been so patient to learn the language and culture
of a people, so free from political agendas, and so willing to yield
“ownership” of the Church to indigenous people. Some English missionaries, to
be precise, clearly saw themselves – and were seen – as spiritual and cultural
emissaries of the British Empire, which they considered to be the apex of world
cultural development.
This
is most obvious during the Victorian era in colonies in Africa and Asia, but
Americans got quite a taste of it too.
When we were British colonies, we never had Anglican bishops – partly
because the English could not imagine bishops (who were English lords) camped
out on “the frontier” and partly because a good many Americans had come to this
country to get away from established ecclesiastical authorities and
their government – backed powers to bully people.
After
the American Revolution, when American Anglicans wanted to continue to be both
American and Anglican they knew that to be American meant no more oaths
of allegiance to King George III – but to be Anglican meant to have bishops,
validly consecrated by existing bishops who were part of the succession of
bishops from the Apostles. To the English
bishops it seemed impossible to be both American and a bishop; they didn’t
understand how there could be fellow Anglicans not owing allegiance to
the King. Sooo...the Episcopal Church,
USA, and the Anglican Communion as we know it today, owes its existence in a
crucial way to - the Scots.
The
bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church were also part of the Apostolic
Succession of Bishops, but had never sworn allegiance to George III; the
established, State Church in Scotland was the Presbyterian Church. And the Scots were only too happy to put one
over on the English. So Samuel Seabury,
the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA, was consecrated by three
Scottish bishops. After that, the
English gave in and consecrated the next two American bishops and the idea of a
community of independent national churches in communion with the
Archbishop of Canterbury but not under him – or any Pope or King – was born.
And
today, the Anglican Communion – just one part of the Christian family, and one
that does not claim to be the only true Church – is made up of 38
self-governing provinces located in more than 164 countries and with 75 million
members. Only about 3% are
Americans. The number of American
Episcopalians is dwarfed by the number of Anglicans in some other countries,
notably Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Australia as well as England, and coming in
close behind our 2.4 million members are the Churches of Southern Africa, Sudan
and South India.
And
a wondrous thing has happened: as the sun has set on the British Empire,
the Anglican churches founded in former British colonies have been freed from
their connection to the Empire and, rather than dying, have boomed as never
before. And, all over the world, these
churches have become more themselves while remaining Christian – and
Anglican.
“Unity
in diversity” is one of the themes of the worldwide Anglican community, and it
is enormously challenging, given the enormous cultural diversity of the
countries involved. Yet part of
Anglican heritage is balance, creating our theology by considering the Bible and
Reason and Tradition, with the Bible holding supreme but not suffocating
authority, with our intellects (“Reason”) recognized as gifts of God which can
be guided by God, and with Tradition as a great gold mine of 2,000 years of
diverse inheritances, not the tyranny of “we’ve always done things this
way here.”
Anglicanism
today appeals both to the heart and the head, offers a rich heritage which is
continually open to new understandings, and offers to a volatile and war
filled world the example of an
incredibly diverse family of faith trying our best to grow in mutual respect,
understanding and mission.
And
so we have a lot to celebrate: and today at St. Barnabas on what we call
“International Sunday” we celebrate the Holy Eucharist with a liturgy drawn
from Anglican Prayer Books from the West Indies, South Africa, England, Guyana,
Jerusalem, Australia and New Zealand.
In
the interest of maximum comprehension, we have limited ourselves to Anglican Prayer
Books in English – but let us remember that Anglicans pray in many other
languages as well.
But
we’re not just celebrating. We’re also
standing on the shoulders of Cyril and Methodius. We are called to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the
people where we are in a language they
understand. Here. In Central New Jersey.
This
is the mission field for us. Here
is where we can find a multitude of people who may have no current lively
experience of Christ in their lives, or who may have no current lively
experience of Christian Community, or perhaps of a Christian Community which
celebrates unity in the essentials of faith and morality and diversity in
everything else.
To
any people whose lives we touch who may fall into these categories we can say,
“Come on in, the water’s fine.” And
increasingly, St. Barnabas members are inviting neighbors and friends to
“come and see.” If you haven’t yet,
invite someone to come to church with you, with the annual Adult Inquirers
class and Lenten study groups coming up next month, this is the perfect time.
If
you’re not sure about inviting someone yourself yet, then meet someone new to
you who is already here -perhaps here for the first time or who you
simply haven’t met before. Experiencing
being part of God’s beloved community involves meeting more of God’s
friends. It will change all our
lives. And change for all of us is
possible because of those first few fishermen who didn’t blow him off when
Jesus said, “Follow me.” Like them, we
too can “fish for people.”
(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church