"Go, therefore and make disciples..."

Prompted by my recent and unexpected immersion in the Jesus People Movement of the '60s-70s and Trip D's recent reflection on how many deacons are too many, today I came across what just might be the best thing on evangelism I have ever read, by Pastor Jake Kircher, who serves as Youth Pastor at Grace Community Church in New Caanan, Connecticut. In an article that appears in Relevant magazine, he asks whether Christians have gotten evangelism wrong by making the church building the locus of evangelization.

While he writes from an Evangelical Christian perspective, I think much of what he writes is very relevant to Catholics. I mean how often do we hear that we need to lighten up the liturgy in order to make it accessible for people, or update it to keep up with the times? In my view, there is nothing more outdated and seemingly irrelevant than a lot of what we now, anachronistically, call contemporary liturgy. Our preaching often falls prey to these kinds of ideas, too. No biblical exposition for Catholics! Why do exegesis when we can pile stories on top of stories in an effort to make the same point repeatedly, namely that we must be nice at all costs? This also permits us to avoid those challenging readings, the ones that really hit us where we live, calling us to repent! As C.S. Lewis once asked, does conversion wrought by our encounter with Christ make you a nice person, or a new person, being made day-by-day into His likeness? The two are not always, nor even often, mutually exclusive. However, Lewis goes on to note: "It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of his presence." This is true because it makes plain our need to repent, that is, to change, which deep human desire, borne from our great need, is the basis of all authentic evangelization. Back to the point Kircher is trying to make, he asks whether our attempts at "relevant evangelism" are ultimately self-defeating.

Pastor Jake notes that it is weird that very often evangelism revolves around programs that happen at church. This seems to defy the whole notion of evangelism, which requires Christians to "take it to the streets," as it were. Kircher cites Jesus' Great Commission, given in the last chapter of Matthew, in which the Risen Lord says to the eleven, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go..." (28:18-19) As Catholics, every Mass (except some Life Teen masses from years ago, which serve as a great Roman Catholic example of the kind non-evangelizing evangelism at which Kircher takes aim) ends with a dismissal, wherein the deacon or the priest dismisses the congregation, the ekkelsia, the assembly, with one of the following formulae: "The Mass is ended, go in peace"; "Go in the peace of Christ"; "Go in peace to love and serve and the Lord." It is not unusual to hear this- "The Mass is ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord and one another." In any form, these are unmistakable calls to evangelize, to take Christ to the world, which needs Him so badly!

This is a good context to mention how fond I am of two of the three dismissals in the new English translation of the Roman Missal: "Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord" and "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life." It always helps to remind ourselves that word "Mass" refers specifically to being dismissed, or, in the words of Jesus from Matthew, "Go..." What are we sent to do? To "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (28:19-20a)

This young pastor wisely goes on to point out that the idea of evangelism as drawing non-believers, or fallen-away believers, to a meeting in a church building reveals a very defective understanding of what it means to be Christ's Body, the Church. Instead, Kircher insists, Jesus calls us "to be an attraction outside of the church walls." The Lord wants "to shine through us where we all work, live, play, shop and do life together." To properly understand the distinction between the priesthood of all believers, which is clearly set forth in Scripture (see 1 Peter 2:5; Romans 12:1-2), and the ministerial priesthood, we have to understand that a priest's ministry is primarily, if not exclusively, in and to the church, while the rest of the baptized mostly exercise our ministry outside the church, that is, in the world, revealing that there is also a diaconate of all believers, through which Christ calls us to render diakonia, that is, authentically Christian service to others.

We have to get over the notion "that sharing the Gospel should be left for the professionals" because, by virtue of our baptismal profession, we are the professionals! I like the way Kircher underlines the absurdity of the notion that evangelism should be exclusively left up to the clergy. I tweak his statement to put it in a Catholic context- "You want your friend to know Jesus? Why don’t you bring them to our next parish retreat, lecture, or even Mass where he can hear it straight from our parish priest!" Jesus did not work this way!

Indeed, as Kircher notes, the Lord "didn’t set up a tent somewhere and invite everyone to come out for a revival every Friday night. Instead, He went out to where the people were. He sent His disciples out, untrained and confused as they all were, to spread His message. The Church began, not because everyone was invited to an outreach, but because the disciples were out living life together when the Holy Spirit moved through them." (Acts 2)

There is a lot more I could write about this article, but I want you to read it for yourself, assuming that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. If you are a follower of the Lord, then you take His Great Commission seriously, even seeing it as your baptismal vocation, for which you received a fuller outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, a task you are strengthened for each time you participate in Eucharist before being sent forth to accomplish it. In addition to pointing to our continuity through time and space, this being sent is what we mean when we say the church is apostolic.

Kircher ends with this lovely exhortation/observation:

Evangelism is not something we are supposed to do; it’s something we are supposed to be. If we ourselves have been immersed into the character and values of Christ, then by simply living our lives, we are immersing others into that same Jesus. It is theologically incorrect to say that evangelism isn’t your thing and that you only do it once a month at the outreach event. It is something we all should do every day

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"It's fun to lose and to pretend"

Kurt, we still miss you. 17 years gone, but not forgotten.

Smells Like Something Weird, raw, the way it was meant to be played. If you don't play it raw, then at least have the decency to play it as part of a Vegas lounge act with Paul Anka.

I'm worst at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed... Kurt Cobain

For when I am weak, then I am strong... Paul of Tarsus

Hence, it's a matter of where, or to whom, you look.

When he was a young man, Cobain lived with the family of one of his friends, Jesse Reed. The Reeds are Christians. When he lived with them he became a Christian and was even baptized. By all accounts, at least for a time, he was devout. It would be less than fair not to point out that Kurt later renounced Christianity. The Nirvana song Lithium is about his Christian experience. Nonetheless, like a lot of artists, Cobain used Christian imagery in his music right up to the end. The lyrics to Lithium make me believe that Cobain was yet another victim of Christianity reduced to moralism, even to Pelagianism, which holds that you save yourself, perfect yourself, by your good works. If, like Ronnie James Dio, this is true, he was right to reject it.

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Experience is to moralism what spirit is to letter

This week I offer something of an old-fashioned exposition on our Sunday Gospel. Hopefully this gives both my readers a solid basis to think about and explore what relevance this has to our individual lives, our family lives, and our life together as God's family, the ekklesia, or Church, which, consisting as it does of all the baptized, is not merely co-extensive with the Catholic Church. Perhaps sometime I'll take up this very complex passage from Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (a.k.a. Lumen Gentium):

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (par. 8- underlining emphasis mine)

Reading: John chapter 9

The innocence and simplicity of the blind man Jesus healed, who we read about today from John's Gospel, is very moving. When he was asked by those who recognized him as the formerly blind beggar, "How were your eyes opened?" he told of his experience with no embellishment: "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went there and washed and was able to see." Upon hearing this they took him to what appear to be the leaders of the local synagogue, to which his parents belonged, to discuss his healing and to deal with the fact that Jesus did it on the Sabbath.

When asked by the "Pharisees" to tell them what happened, the man simply said, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see". This caused a division among the Pharisees with some saying that Jesus could not possibly be someone sent by God "because he does not keep the sabbath", whereas others wondered, "How can a sinful man do such signs?" So, they asked the formerly blind beggar what he had to say about Jesus. Like the Samaritan woman at the well in last week's Gospel, his initial response was that Jesus, "is a prophet". Despite all of this we are told that "the Jews did not believe" that the man had truly been blind and regained his sight.

Their disbelief caused them to summon the formerly blind man's parents to testify that he had been blind from birth and now could see. They testified that he was born blind and could now see, but that they did not know how or by whom he gained his sight. This at least brought these men to acknowledge what had occurred. There is an indication here that the man's parents knew that their son claimed to have been healed by Jesus, but were afraid to say so because anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue. So, in today's terms, they threw their son under the bus, saying, "Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself" and, a short time later, "He is of age; question him".

So, the Pharisees, having overcome their division and having been forced to acknowledge the miracle, tell the man, "Give God the praise. We know this man is a sinner". "This man," of course, is Jesus. The beauty of the simplicity of the former blind beggar is once again shown when he responds, "If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see". The Pharisees ask him to again relate what happened to him. One can only surmise, but one reason they would ask him to tell what happened again was to see if they could discredit the event, his encounter. His reply, while still innocent and without guile, is bolder: "I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" At this suggestion they begin to ridicule him: "You are that man’s disciple; we are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from."

Gaining in boldness, the formerly blind beggar retorts, "This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything". This aroused their indignation, which they thought was righteous. So, referring to his being born blind, which they attributed to sin, they responded, "You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?" We know from Jesus' answer to the question by his disciples at the beginning of the chapter about whether the man was blind because of his own sins or those of his parents that "Neither he nor his parents sinned". He was blind, according to Jesus, "so that the works of God might be made visible through him" (showing us explicitly that God uses everything that happens to us to draw us closer to Himself, thus allowing us- not forcing us- to give witness to "the light of the world"). "Then," the Gospel tells us, "they threw him out."

Upon learning that he had been expelled from the synagogue, Jesus went to him and, finding him, asked the man, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" Understanding that Jesus was referring to the Messiah, again, like the woman at the well last week, the man, showing that he had not yet fully gained his sight, with great simplicity, asks Jesus, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" One can almost hear the tenderness when Jesus says to him, "You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he." The man responds, saying, "I do believe, Lord," and then proceeds to worship Jesus. After this, Jesus says, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind."

Hearing this the Pharisees ask Jesus, in a very self-serving manner, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Meaning, "You are not really saying here in front of everyone that we, the leaders of the synagogue, are blind in the way you just described?" Jesus, catching their drift and engaging in a little rhetorical equivocation, tells them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains." In other words, Jesus is telling them, "You are in an even worse state than those who see and become blind because you see and refuse to acknowledge what unfolds before your very eyes."

Let those who have eyes see; let those who have ears hear.

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Christians and Muslims: Qu'ran burning re-visited

With the encouragement and apparently under the supervision of so-called pastor Terry Jones, who did not carry through with his own threat to burn a Qu'ran last 11 September, another person in Gainesville, Florida, claiming to be a pastor, that is, a minister of the Gospel, one Wayne Sapp, actually burned a copy the Islamic holy book. The burning, which took place on Sunday, 20 March, dubbed by these folks as International Judge the Koran Day, was witnessed by around 30 people, took place after Sapp conducted a mock(ery) trial of the book.

After Sapp made his case against the Qu'ran, the jury took all of 8 minutes to find it guilty. Given that the book had been soaking in kerosene for about hour prior to the verdict, an appeal would seem a slam dunk for the defense, assuming it had one. As the book burned some of the congregation posed for pictures alongside the barbecue on which it burned. One attendee, a supporter of Jones named Jadwiga Schatz, said she was alarmed by the increasing "threat" of Islam in Europe. She went on to say that, at least for her, Muslims "are like monsters", before going on to state- "I hate these people."

In a post during Christmas, Notes from Eurabia, I quoted a Dutch seminary professor, a lay Christian, who said of the situation in his country, "we would have nothing to fear from Islam, if we were Christians. And it often seems that today the Dutch are afraid of everything: of having children, as they are of immigrants. But fear is the exact opposite of faith." This stands in stark contrast to hate-mongering rooted in fear of the other. It is a good day to remember JPII's motto and constant exhortation: Be not afraid!

Predictably, all too many Muslims in Afghanistan were eager to live up to the worst stereotype, which is the lens through which people like Schatz view all Muslims, just as people like Schatz, Sapp, and Jones are all too representative of Christians in the minds of many. Today riots continue in the country where, the AP reports, "Anger over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a Florida church fueled a second day of deadly violence half a world away in Afghanistan, where demonstrators set cars and shops ablaze Saturday in a riot that killed nine protesters." The report continues that the outrage "even brought violence to the normally peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, when a crowd of protesters — apparently infiltrated by insurgents — stormed a U.N. compound in an outpouring that left four Afghan protesters and seven foreign U.N. employees dead."

All of this makes very timely an interview that appears in the current issue of Christianity Today, which arrived in my mailbox just yesterday. The interview, conducted by CT's Mark Galli, is with Protestant theologian Miroslav Wolf, who teaches at Yale Divinity School. The occasion for their sitdown was the publication of the professor's new book, which I am eager to read, Allah: A Christian Response. The title of the piece is Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? Of course, for Catholics the answer is unequivocally, Yes.

How can I use the word "unequivocally" when answering this question from a Catholic perspective? In the first instance Allah is simply Arabic for "God". Arabic-speaking Christians use the word in liturgies that pre-date the advent of Islam. The Shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, when translated in its entirety (i.e., we don't translate it into, say, English except the word "God"), is "There is no God but God". More explicitly and definitively, we look to Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. (par. 3)

Volf, in answering Galli's question, "Okay, then- do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?" says something notable: "First, all Christians don't worship the same God, and all Muslims don't worship the same God." He goes on to clarify by saying, "I think Muslims and Christians who embrace the normative traditions of their faith refer to... the same Being, when they pray, when they worship, when they talk about God."

This brings up a great question, namely what normative Christian tradition do Jones and Sapp embrace? I also wonder whether I worship the same God in whose name they claim to act.

Volf insists that there are several things that should never be forgotten when engaging the question about whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The first is that for both Christians and Muslims God is one. Secondly, God is merciful. Thirdly, God is just. Volf goes on to give a very good lesson on God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- one God in three divine persons: "Some Jews and Muslims accuse Christians of being idolatrous for believing the Trinity." Volf rightly points out that Jews and Muslims who think this "fundamentally misunderstand the Christian understanding of the Trinity. It's not that we worship three distinct entities who sit on three thrones next to each other; we worship one undivided, divine being who comes to us in three persons" (no doubt Volf is not implicitly endorsing modalism here- he is walking the tight rope of orthodoxy). He goes on to say that the explicit denials of the Trinity found in the Qu'ran "are denials of an inappropriately understood version of the Trinity". Hence, what Muslims deny about God as a Tri-unity of persons "ought to be denied by every right-believing Christian".

Volf ends the interview on a note very reminiscent of Pope Benedict's take on these matters:

We've come up with this idea that Muslims are our enemy, and the Muslim terrorism and extremism are the most important enemies we should be combatting. I think this is bogus. Terrorism is an important issue, but it pales in significance compared to the hedonistic character of the culture we inhabit. to have Muslims as our allies in combatting de facto hedonism is a very important thing.

To have a robust conversation between Muslims and Christians about what provides for good living, a life that's an alternative to hedonism, is what's required of us at this moment. Just like evangelicals at one point discovered Catholics can be their allies, I think in a much more attenuated sense (because we are dealing with two religions) , Muslims can be our allies in struggles for a proper way to live in the world today.

I would add that any meaningful Christian/Muslim dialogue must also include a serious discussion about religious freedom, which JPII put right after the right to life as the most fundamental of all human rights. The deliberate and even constitutional denial of this right in many Islamic countries, even to the point of persecution unto death, must begin to be rectified. By insisting on this, let's not forget that it was not until Vatican II, specifically the Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignatatis Humanae, that the Catholic Church formally made this important concession. It began with acknowledging something that was not new, namely that "[t]he truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power". (par. 1)

Building on the axiom above, the Catholic Church then formally recognized- the oft-repeated "error has no rights" notwithstanding- "that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits." (par. 2) The council also declared "that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right." (par. 2)

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JPII: "to live in His love today and forever"

Pope John Paul II passed into life eternal six years ago today. I still miss him tremendously. Watching this elicits very deep emotion in me, it stirs my heart. He lived what he preached to the very end of his life, thus giving faithful witness to the One he faithfully served to his last breath.

In anticipation of his beatification on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1 May 2011, the Holy See has set-up a YouTube channel dedicated to JPII.

Papa Wojtyla, pray for us!

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"Some seed fell by the wayside, some of it fell among thorns..."

In light of the Jesus People landslide this week, our traditio for this Third Friday of Lent is Sower by All Saved Freak Band

Hurry, take what you've got, do with it what you can.
Because the Reaper in heaven needs a sower in the land.
Hurry!

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Why Lent Must Rise Again

This article on Lent by United Church of Christ minister and journalist G. Jeffery MacDonald appeared in the Boston Globe 11 March 2011. I found it on an Orthodox blog. Yes, that darn Sanidopoulos again.
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This past Wednesday marked the start of Lent, the 40-day Christian season of fasting and sacrifice in preparation for Easter. Lent resembles the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, though with one big difference: Muslims actually take Ramadan seriously. American Christians talk about fasting and deprivation, but most practice nothing of the sort. For Christians in this country, self-denial makes life less pleasurable. So why do it?

The question goes to the heart of what’s happening to Christianity in America. Practitioners are purging the tradition of its sacrificial dimensions. We’re remaking it as a type of spiritual self-help whose effectiveness is measured by how well it entertains us and affirms what we already believe. Since Americans love parties and hate to do without, Christianity is evolving to deliver. The diminution of Lenten practices illustrates the trend and highlights what’s lost when religion becomes a consumer commodity.

To see how far we’ve come, let’s recall our roots. Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and other biblical figures used 40-day periods of self-denial to cultivate humility as they prepared to face major challenges. Lent itself began in the early fourth century during a time when Christians were being fiercely persecuted. Seeking divine strength in discipline, some ancient communities would fast during daylight hours for weeks. Others would eat a minimal diet – no meat, no dairy, scant oils – as the Orthodox still do today. Repentant prayer and alms giving became other hallmarks of a serious season for pondering and practicing the costs of discipleship.

Today Lent is widely ignored in Christian America. Seasonal sacrifices, if observed at all, tend to be token. For Catholics, “abstaining” can now consist of sumptuous fish dinners on Fridays; even a Good Friday “fast” can include two small meals. Some Protestants conveniently eschew sacrifice altogether – if no one can earn divine favor, why bother? Still others bring a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, marked by promises to exercise daily or do without sweets for a few weeks. True deprivation is rare. As a pastor I know once told me, giving up something for Lent “is kind of a big joke.”

How did Christianity’s most serious season become a joke in this supposedly religious country? We let desire become our master, and desire has no use for sacrifice. For centuries, Christianity sought to temper primitive desire for addictive pleasures, dominance of neighbors, hoarding of resources, and other idols that ruin lives. But the broader culture has persuaded us to cut loose, to obey our lowest passions, lest they fester into perpetual frustration.

Now religion is desire’s handmaiden. Americans routinely quit churches that fail to please them. And churches, anxious to survive, vie to offer what congregations want: happy, clappy celebrations; entertaining multimedia shows; supportive gatherings of like-minded people. Meanwhile, they jettison the harder and more edifying parts of Christianity, such as practicing repentance, sharing in others’ sufferings, and observing Lent.

In purging self-denial from the tradition, American Christians play into the hands of corporate merchandisers, who hope we’ll spend more and more year-round to quench unquenchable desires. Yet the highest price we pay is spiritual. Self-denial for a season fosters humility. It blunts the insidious delusion of entitlement. It shapes compassion for the poor and hungry by raising at least a measure of awareness of their circumstances. It breeds courage as we tell our lowest desires: No, you are not my master. I answer to a higher authority. With God’s help, it opens a way for higher desires to take root – for the creation of a new heart, in biblical parlance. To trade the inherited wisdom of this way for the cheap platitudes of self-help therapy is costly indeed.

Strangely, Americans recognize the value of sacrifice in pursuing material goals, such as prosperity via education. Yet we tell ourselves that spiritual growth can be cost-free.

It’s time for American Christians to reclaim the power of their tradition. Lent is the right time to start. The season beckons Christians to grow in character and compassion by walking in their ancestors’ footprints. Sure, we have no desire to fast, pray, or give alms this month. But that’s exactly why we should.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald is a minister and the author of Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul.

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