June 13, 2013
So there was much joy in that city. Acts 8:8
My brother Tom wrote some thoughts down after his Sunday sermon, reflecting on of all things, 1 Kings 8, the prayer of Solomon blessing the Temple. One question he raised, in a long series of thoughtful questions, was Do the “foreigners,” sitting in my classrooms or standing in our workplaces, look in on the meeting place where we are and desire to pursue a relationship akin to ours with the LORD God? Tom thinks it’s part of the role we have as priests, like Jesus, after the holy order of Mechilsedek.
And as I read The Acts of the Apostles these days to reflect on what an empowered Church looks like, the sort of Church that causes those in opposition to marvel as they marveled gazing at Steven, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel, it is quite clear that is not the impression we often leave with those on the outside. It is also quit clear who has shifted: the opposers have not grown more wicked or clueless, since these particular opposers were about to stone Steven, and when they were threatening Peter and John, they they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.
It is also quite clear that having all the imaginable moral laws in place does nothing to turn hearts to Jesus. If that works, then Jesus died in vain. He came because the Law failed. And I fear the American Church has sadly lost its way, and is no longer filled with the joy that comes from His presence and His power being manifest in our lives.
Phil Drysdale has written a few thoughts on evangelism, or good news:
The problem we find ourselves with though, is that most of our evangelism is fruit focused rather than vine focused.
We focus on the fruit, the healing, the great conversation, the prophetic word, the salvation. Yes all these things are fantastic… they are all great fruit. But the fact of the matter is they must remain that… fruit.
So what is evangelism?
The thing is our word evangelism comes from the Greek word “euangelion” which literally means… “The Gospel” that’s right… “Good News”! Evangelism isn’t just someone getting saved, or healed or anything else for that matter – it is simply the good news of what Christ has done for humanity. The great conversation, the healing, the prophetic word and even that person accepting Jesus are all fruits of the good news.
Evangelism is in its most simple, boiled down form is God’s love for us and that love spilling over in our lives onto everyone around us.
Our goal can not be to go into a broken world and drag everyone kicking and screaming to church so they meet Jesus. Our goal is to go out into the darkness as the light of the world and be confident that as Christ in us is revealed every head will turn to watch us burn.
So, as I gaze down over State Street and Michigan Avenue, I wonder how clearly my light is burning.
The vine does not work at producing fruit. The fruit is a natural product of being planted in good soil and being watered, and in the Church's case, it is The Spirit that produces the fruit. My job is to remain in Him, to practice His presence, and to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ in word and deed.
And in the early Church one of the fruits of This Spirit was joy. May it be so.
And my brother the high school English teacher had a story to tell. Well, he actually had several great stories to tell about this Mechilsedek role that each of us holds, as a member of this new priesthood:
A student of mine, Katey, knew that I was “religious,” and quietly approached me to ask that I would pray for her aunt who was going through some early chemo therapies. When a student approaches me with a request, I have a tendency to try to pray right then and there for whatever it is that they want to pray about. It’s way low-key.
“Okay Katey, I’ll pray about this. Do you want to pray right now?”
“Uh, Cov—we’re in school.”
“Yeah, well, God can hear us at school.”
“Yeah, but what about everybody else? Isn’t it illegal to pray in school?”
“Actually, I can pray any time and anywhere I want to, but, this is what we’ll do….”
I told Katey to just look at me as if we were in conversation, and that I would look at her, but pray out loud to God. No one—unless they were listening to our “conversation”—would even know what we were about. And, of course, I encouraged her to “talk back to me” if she wanted to say something to God.
So, we began to pray. I started out by addressing God, and thanking Him that we could talk to Him here in my classroom. Then it happened: I was looking around as I spoke, and I glanced down at the floor near my feet. As I did, just for a nanosecond, I saw that I was wearing a strange off-white brocaded smock-like shirt with all of these shiny jewels studded down the front. I blinked and it was gone. I verbally paused because it was so startling. Katey kept looking at me with a little apprehension that some classmate might approach us. But when I looked down again, it was gone.
You’re probably picking up what I’m putting down. For a flash, I saw that I was wearing one of those ephod-thingy’s with all the gold-and-jewel breastplates like all the glossy pictures of Jewish priests in the back of my children’s Bible that I had as a kid. Now, I know what you’re thinking—that I’m one of those loopy English teachers who imagines all kinds of weird things most of the time. (I’ve even admitted occasionally that I was born in Southern California.)
In retrospect, I think I was given a little picture of my appropriate role as a priest—someone who stands between God and man under the authority of The Holy Order of Mechilsedek. Here is Katey, a timid 17-year old girl who has heard rumors about a God who is approachable regarding her and her family’s anxieties; Tom, a religiously-biased evangelical, boxed in by years of an exclusive and somewhat skeptical dogmatic perspective; and Bruno, a man who has messed up in his life, and who does not have a clue about much in the way of a standard theology. Then there is God, standing in the kitchen by the refrigerator, beckoning us all forward in our toddling steps, moving closer and closer—almost in spite of ourselves, into his welcoming embrace.
Bob, in our Sunday school, is right—there is so much that we don’t know. The grand mystery of the Unmoved Mover, living in us—us, rather ungainly temples made without hands, carried to all kinds of places to stand in the gap for all kinds of people. We are priests of The Most Powerful, a strange and peculiar people indeed. He is willing—wanting—to dwell in the likes of me, adorned in a sweaty Boston Red Sox shirt, amid White Mountain grandeur, and in need of a mid-life diet.
Amen.
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