Acts 3:12-19, Psalm 4 Page 587, BCP, 1 John 3:1-7, Luke24:36-48 In today’s gospel reading , the disciples were gathered together,telling each other how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Then all of a sudden, The Lord appeared intheir midst not as a Spirit, not as anapparition, but as resurrected flesh and bone. This was a pivotal moment and Jesus used it to challenge the community,and this challenge was life-changing for the early disciples, and it is equallylife changing for us today, and it will be life changing for the church yet tocome. Jesus declared, “Repentance andforgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginningfrom Jerusalem. You are the witnesses ofthese things.” If you listen closesly to Jesus’ words, you can hear themissional commission of the church being declared. Listen closely and you can hear Jesus’ passionateplea for all disciples to go and proclaim the Good News. If we open our ears and listen, we may hearOur Lord telling us that God’s love is to be shouted from the rooftops, and youmay hear him tell us we are witnesses in the world. Jesus is asking us, “Can I get a witness?”
The other day, I was surfingvarious church podcasts on ITunes, when I came across this pastor who waspreaching with great passion to his congregation. At one point, he made a specific point aboutthe topic he was addressing, and then out of the blue he shouted, “Can I get awitness?” Without hesitation, someone fromthe congregation shouted back, “AMEN brother!” The congregation cheered and clapped. I was intrigued by this back and forth dialogue from the pulpit and later,I discovered that in some traditions, this is a practice by which, a preacher willseek an affirmation from his or her congregation, and they will respond in away that he or she knows that the people are getting it.
Iimagine when our Lord set the church on her missionary journey to share theGood News, he might have wanted to ask the disciples, “Can I get a witness?” Did you know that you are a missionary? We Christians, and believe it or not, we Episcopaliansmost assuredly are missionaries! Somefolks may not know this, but did you know that the proper name of the corporateentity of the Episcopal Church is The Domesticand Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the UnitedStates of America. It was inseminary in my Episcopal Church History class that received that little tidbitof information. Imagine, the very heartof our identity as a part of the Body of Christ, is firmly grounded in a corevalue of commitment to missions, both domestic and foreign.
Missionariesare not always folks sent to far off places to spread the Good News. We are all missionaries, because we are allwitnesses of the transformed life we have experienced in the living Christ. You see, our call as missionaries is to goout into the world and in so doing, show, and communicate the love of God inChrist to all peoples. The love of Godis the message of repentance, forgiveness, grace, and peace, which theresurrection makes a reality. A Frenchtheologian Francis Xavier Durrwell once wrote, "Everything begins with theresurrection of Jesus. 'He has risen!' was the cry of the church at its birth. Faith woke on Easter day, in its encounterwith the risen Christ. In our day, thatencounter is where the same faith continues to be enlightened". F.-X.DURRWELL, Cristo, nuestra Paà cua, Madrid 2003, p,12 [English translationof the original French: Christ, Our Passover, 2002]. Our mission, the Church’s mission is to go out, to besent out, and to make possible for all to have an encounter with the risenChrist. Can I get a witness?
“Waita minute Eric,” you may say, “I didn’t sign up for this missionary thing youspeak about.” I am more than happy tosupport sending missionaries overseas, for is that not where the mission fieldis ripe? Maybe it was 50, 100, 200 yearsago but today, in a culture where “somewhere between 25-30% of adults under 30claim no religious affiliation,” (Christianity after Religion, Diana Butler Bass) the mission field is right here in our ownbackyards. When we are becoming more andmore every day, a post-Christian people, we cannot wait much longer to answerour missionary call.
Thenews I am sharing may sound a little bleak, a little hard to believe, but I cantell you that we must become a missional community and honestly, it is easier thanwe might think. Remember, Jesus gave usthe mandate of missionary service when he said, “you are witnesses to thesethings.” We have to tell the story, and wecan with confidence, let the Spirit do the rest!
Youmay ask, “What can I do, what difference can I make?” Do you remember the little candle youreceived at your baptism, that symbolic representation of the Paschal Candle;the light of Christ. Where is thatcandle today? Do you symbolically carryit wherever you go, or is it possibly in storage at home, tucked away in adrawer or lovingly wrapped up in cloth and stored in a treasure chest? “Let your light shine before others, so thatthey may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (NRSVMatthew 5:16)
Shiningour light means we must be willing to bring that “Christ encounter” to thosewho may have never experienced it before. We must build relationships of trust beyond the walls of thechurch. By the way, that definitely necessitatesdoing more than just opening the doors and sliding folks a handshake and afriendly hello and welcome. We must expandour reach into the community, by living faithfully in the community. We must seek new ways to reach those who arenot willing to come to us. We must followJesus, and go to them. We will have toimmerse ourselves in the lives of those around us and honestly, that may put usall in a zone of discomfort. The messagethe gospel is in our hands. Jesus entrustedus to be witnesses to the world of the Good News of reconciliation, love,mercy, and grace. The question is, whatwill we do?
Theother day, I heard again with fresh ears, the lyrics of a song written by a popularpop artist, Natasha Beddingfield. Thislittle tune seems to capture the missionary opportunity of the Church, in a societydefined by some scholars, as post-Christian. The landscape of evangelism has changed and the mission field is verydifferent than it was 25 or 30 years ago. The chorus of the song is:
I amunwritten . . . I am just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned. Staring at the blank page before you . . . let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find. Can you speak the words on your lips, Drenchyourself in words unspoken, Live your life with arms wide open, Today is whereyour book begins, The rest is still unwritten.
Onthat momentous day, when Our Lord appeared to his disciples and challenged them,to take all that he had taught them, embrace all that they had experienced, andremember all that they had seen, and then go and share it with a world that hadnot yet experienced the Risen Lord. Overtwo thousand years later, we stand in the midst of a mission field that is notunlike the one, those earlier followers faced so long ago. The mission is clear, the field is ripe forharvest, and the workers are few. TheGospel is in our hands. “Will we speakthe words on our lips, drench ourselves in words unspoken, live our lives witharms wide open? Today is where OUR book begins,and the rest is still unwritten.”
Can I get a witness?
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