THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Cathy Church Norman

May 13, 2007

Can I Get a Witness?

Let me set some context for our Acts passage. The Apostle Paul (once a persecutor of Christians is now one of Christ's biggest witnesses), and he's on a mission-to tell people about the love of God in Jesus, whether they're Jews or Gentiles. His mission has been spreading all over the place, and is moving into Asia minor. Paul wants to go toward Asia but the Spirit of Jesus wants him to go north towards Troas.

There Paul sees a vision of a man from Macedonia, who asks Paul to help them. Paul is convinced that God has called him to proclaim the good news to them. So, Paul journeys to Macedonia and the mission to Europe begins. The gospel is moving off the familiar map into uncharted waters. Paul encounters a woman named Lydia and she becomes the first European to convert to Christianity.
Listen for the Word of God as it comes to us from Acts 16: 9-15.

Acts 16:9-15

During the night Paul had a vision:
there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."

When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

We set sail from Tro-as and took a straight course to Sam-o-thrace,
the following day to Neapolis,
and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.
We remained in this city for some days.

On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river,
where we supposed there was a place of prayer;
and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thy-a-tira and a dealer in purple cloth.

The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.

15When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Back in seminary I had to do a guided visualization for one of my pastoral care classes. We were talking about fears that day and how fears can hold us back. We were supposed to close our eyes and imagine one of the most fearful experiences we had ever had.

When I closed my eyes I was taken back to a swim lesson I had as a young child. The theory back then (at least to those teachers) was sink or swim. Parents gathered around in a circle (I'm sure my mom would want you to know this Mother's Day that she was not the parent involved) while children swam underwater around the outside of them, holding on to their legs. When we came up for air we were told to swim and pushed back down again.

I guess they figured if they exerted enough pressure on us (literally and figuratively) we'd learn to swim.

I remember seeing legs not faces of those parents and gasping for air. That was a terrifying experience! And guess what? It didn't teach me how to swim. It only made me afraid and nauseous. So nauseous that I threw up all over my swim teacher.

I later learned how to swim after being in the pool many times with my parents. They spent time teaching me to breathe and teaching me strokes-teaching me the basics. And they took it at my pace, only sharing what I was ready for. Instead of bullying me, they loved me and a love of swimming was born in me.

I want to talk today about something that strikes fear in the hearts of many. If I were to ask you to close your eyes and think of something that really scares you about your faith, even something that Scripture tells us to do. What would it be?

I think for many of us it would be sharing our faith. What scares many of us is a word that can sound like Christian profanity. . . the "E" word-evangelism.

As those who follow Christ we are called (as we say at baptism) to "go and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20) As those who follow Christ we are called to be evangelists.

At this point because of my use of the dreaded "E" word many of you are tempted to check out, but stay with me, even though that word may have some baggage for you.

Let me tell you why I think the word "evangelism" can be so scary. A group of very vocal Christians (perhaps well-intentioned Christians) have co-opted that word for their own use. When many of us hear the word evangelism or evangelist we think about televangelists with big crowds, lots of crying, and alter calls or we think of street preachers shouting with megaphones-confronting people with their sins. We have flashbacks of people handing out tracks that show the fires of hell and say something like "turn or burn" or "do you know where you'll be spending eternity?" We think back to people who've asked if we're "born again."

Our K-group (my small group at the Kirk) is studying John's Gospel. Recently we read the story where Jesus says, "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Our study guide then asked how we felt when we heard the words "born again."

Many people, maybe most, in our group had negative feelings about that phrase. It reminded them of times they felt pushed or judged for not being the right kind of Christian. That passage too has been co-opted by some who use it to pressure people into making a decision about eternity. They talk about how you can't enter the kingdom of heaven without being "born again," though this passage talks about the kingdom of God not the kingdom of heaven. There's much more to this passage than heaven and hell. Evangelism that focuses only on heaven and hell is missing the point. To really get what God is doing in the world, to enter into God's community means that we have to have a different way of seeing and doing things. We have to develop new eyes to see what God is doing, new hearts to care for those whom God cares for, new ears to hear the cries of the needy, and new hands to help build the kingdom. God's kingdom is different than that of the world and we need God to transform us to be able to see it and live it! We need a different mindset to make things the way they should be instead of accepting things the way they are.

Evangelism is more than talk about heaven and hell and securing someone's place in eternity. Evangelism means good news. To evangelize is to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others.

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus encounters many people and heals them and then asks them to keep quiet about it. But the news is so great they have to share it anyway. We see this in Mark 7 when Jesus opens the ears of a deaf man. Jesus orders the crowds to tell no one, but Mark says, "the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it." (7:36)

Those who have encountered God in Jesus can't help but share it. We share the good news, the gospel, because it's the best thing we know. How can we help but tell others?

We tell friends about good books we've read and movies we've seen. We insist they try a certain restaurant. I got an email the other day from a friend who wanted to share news of the best kitchen gadget ever. It's so natural for us to share the things in our lives that bring us joy.

On a day like today, when we're celebrating three baptisms, we affirm that raising our families in the faith is the best thing we can do. It's the best life we can give our children. Lydia thought this too, that's why she and her whole household were baptized at the same time.

We share God's good news with our children because we feel compelled to. They are a blessing to us and we want them to live in a community where they feel God's blessing too. There are other reasons to share Christ with others beyond our own families. And I'll share a few: The Bible tells us to-Jesus tells us to. We've already talked about that one. Another is that if we know Christ, someone at some point in our lives has shared the love of God in Christ with us. Whether we were children, youth, or adults, someone has nurtured us in Christ. We had to find out somehow about Jesus.

Author and pastor Frederick Buechner writes about his early years in Sacred Journey. He says that he moved around a lot as child of the depression, while his father looked for work. He writes about a woman named Mrs. Taylor who became his caregiver, "After she put my brother and me to bed at night, she would lie down next to us in the dark and lead us in the same songs we always seemed to sing, one of them the 'Spanish Cavalier' and the other 'The Old Rugged Cross,' which as far as I can remember was the only hymn I ever heard as the child of non-church-going parents, although I had no idea what a hymn was or what a cross was or why it was something to sing about in the dark.

She was my mentor, my miracle-worker, and the mother of much that I was and in countless unrecognizable ways probably still am, yet I don't know where she came from or anything about her life apart from the few years of it that she spent with us." (p. 13-14)

Who was Mrs. Taylor for you?

A third reason we share our faith is that people want to hear it. People want to participate in amazing endeavors. No matter how young or old they are or what their status is, they want to have the most meaningful life possible. They want to know, as John's Gospel puts it, how to have abundant life or life to the full.

Last fall some of us from the Kirk went to a small groups conference just outside of Chicago. We heard a fantastic speaker named Donald Miller (the best selling author of Blue Like Jazz). He said he writes spiritual memoirs because about 15 years ago he had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and he's been trying to make sense of it ever since. In Through Painted Deserts he writes about a road trip he took with a friend when he was 21. On that trip he realized he was searching for more meaning, searching for God. Not long after he left home, Houston, he thinks, "My life, this gift I have been given, has been wasted, thus far, attempting to answer meaningful questions. Recently I have come to believe there are more important questions than how questions: How do I get money. . . how do I become happy, how do I have fun." He starts entertaining why questions. Miller writes, "I confess I wanted to believe life was bigger, larger than my presuppositions. Out there under the cosmos, out in the desert of Texas, beneath those billion stars and the umbrella of pitch-black eons of nothingness, on top of that hill, I started wondering if life was something different than I thought it was, if there was some kind of raging beauty a person could find, that he could get caught up in the why of life. And I needed to believe beauty meant something, and I needed God to step off His self-help soapbox and be willing to say something eternally significant and intelligent and meaningful, more meaningful than the parroted lines from detergent commercials. I needed God to be larger than our free-market economy, larger than our two-for-one coupons, larger than our religious ideas." (p. 12)

In our passage, Lydia was a successful business woman, maybe the kind you'd read about in the Triangle Business Journal. She was a dealer of fine purple cloth, which meant that she had a wealthy clientele.

When Paul came to Lydia she was ready to hear what he had to say. Though she wasn't yet a Christian, she was at a house of prayer. She wasn't ignorant of the ways of God. She worshipped God. She just didn't know about Jesus. And she was ready to hear about him. The passage says, "The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul."

She and her family were baptized and then she was ready to serve. She invited Paul and the others to come to her home. By the end of the this same chapter in Acts, Paul and Silas visit Lydia at home after they have been released from prison. They're encouraged by brothers and sisters there. It appears that Lydia's home is now the site of a home church!

And a final reason (though this list is not exhaustive) why we share our faith is that it helps us be more certain of what we believe. When we share with others how we've seen Jesus working in our lives, we start to pay more attention to the fact that Jesus is working in our lives. And then we feel more alive in Christ.

So, that's why we evangelize but how do we do it? That can be the scary part, where we feel like we're really treading water.

I'm going to offer four steps for how we share our faith:

Step 1: Instead of standing on street corners or twisting people's arms, I believe the best way to share our faith is relationally, through relationships. Get to know people, really know them. Let them get to know you, too. And don't put a timeline on this. Relationships like learning to swim take patience, persistence, and time. Ask people about their stories and share your stories, too. Play bridge or bunko, go golfing or watch games together. Meet each other's families. Remember what's going on with them. Listen to them and love them. Practice divine hospitality by sharing your life and your home with people. I'm not advocating we have an agenda in our relationships-that wouldn't be authentic and misses the point. Enjoy honest friendships-you'll be blessed by them too. At the wrong time, sharing our faith can be awkward, but at the right time not sharing our faith is awkward because we're withholding something very important to us.

Get to know your neighbors. Do you know the people right around you? Get to know church members and visitors? Again do you know the people right around you? When church consultant Roy Oswald was here a couple of months ago, he had an idea that as we're leaving worship, we could try to spend five minutes talking to people we don't know before we hang out with the people we're most comfortable with. Two minutes would be a good start. Try it-today if you like.

I remember seeing the pastor of my home church at our neighborhood grocery store one day. I was behind him in the checkout line. He was smiling and talking to the clerk who worked there. He seemed like he was talking to a friend he'd known a long time. I thought, that's how I want to be. He was beaming with the love of Christ. Everybody's got a story to tell and appreciate when people take the time to get to know them.

Step 2: Live authentically. Be yourself. Don't feel like you have to put on pretenses about being a super-Christian or having it all together. People appreciate honesty. If you don't know the answers to all the questions, don't worry. Know-it-alls are generally intimidating and not fun to be around. You can help people by pointing them to people and places that might have some answers. People want to know that they don't have to be perfect to follow Christ. Our baptism was not a cure for our sin, but God promises to continue to wash us clean. It helps to know that people struggle, doubt, or even that they have a messy house sometimes. It helps to know that parenting is a challenge even for the most faithful or that work can be tiring even if you feel like God hand-picked you for your job.

It also helps to know that you have a real joy that comes from Christ, so share your joy not just your struggles. Count your blessings aloud with people. Not to one up anyone, but so that people know that your hope is in Jesus Christ. Don't be afraid to share a book (even a Christian one) or a verse that has made you think.

Step 3: Pray. Pray for friends and family, for strangers and neighbors. Pray for opportunities to spend time with them, to allow your life to be enriched by theirs. Pray that God would show you when to live out your faith and when to speak about your faith. And then pray that God will give you the words to say.

We don't know what Paul said to Lydia, but we do know that God made her heart ready to hear it. It's not our job to make people accept Jesus. We can just tell how God has enriched our lives. Perfect words aren't necessary, just a willing heart to be in the right place at the right time, open to saying what God puts on our hearts.

Step 4: The fourth step is the most scary. But it gets easier if you just take the plunge. Invite. Invite friends to come to church or your small group, or to read a book with you. A recent study of Presbyterians found that 47% of people visit a church for the first time because someone personally invited them.

Invite someone to come on a mission trip or help with a mission of the church. Wanting to help people is not a distinctive characteristic of Christians. And often when people come to serve, they experience God in a new way, and God transforms them. Invite neighbors to bring their children to VBS and to volunteer too. It's always nice to feel invited when the invitation is genuine and pressure isn't involved.

Lately I've been inviting more people to the Kirk, sometimes even people I've just met. That's not always easy for me. But I think God is doing amazing things at this church, and I don't want them to miss out on a great experience because I was too uncomfortable to invite them. Some people come, others don't. But I feel better for asking. Not pressuring, just inviting. For others, like some friends in my neighborhood, I know may be a long time before we talk about faith or church, but spending time with them is enough for now. It's a blessing just getting to know them.

Though the word evangelism sounds scary, talking to people about the full life we have in Christ doesn't have to be. We don't have to exert pressure. That might make people nauseous, after all. Believe me, I know. Live life together. As we share our lives, sharing our faith becomes a natural extension.

We're good Presbyterians here, and often people don't associate Presbyterians with evangelism. Presbyterians are pretty safe, and we do not want to offend. But when I look around, I see some evangelists in our midst or we wouldn't be such a growing, vibrant congregation. We are people who have good news to share. And I challenge you to be open to hearing God's call to share it. Amen.

Benediction
Go in peace and share the good news of our Lord.
Share what God has done for you.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you this day and f