How do we Share our Faith?
James Krahn, July 13, 2008
How do we share our faith? How are we extensions of Jesus into our day to day world? How are we salt and light? How are we good news bearers? How are we small ‘e’ evangelical, not so much are we evangelical but how and when are we evangelical? Maybe this word triggers us from negative press or from an unpleasant experience. Maybe we’re really just beginning the recovery process in the body of Christ, the recovery of the meaning of words related to our faith in Christ, that have sometimes gone sour. Today’s teaching will focus on Jesus; the same teaching could be redone with a focus on the Holy Spirit or on God the Father. But today I will focus on God the Son, God our Saviour, our rabbi/teacher, God our friend and brother, God with us , Immanuel. It’s interesting that the apostle John, who seems to have had the closest or the tenderest relationship with Jesus, person to person, being to being, is called “The Evangelist;” that from this relational place he becomes known as the evangelist, maybe the first evangelist we could say. There’s something about this nearness, this breadth and depth of relationship with Jesus as a personal being, that seems like a good link in my mind and heart with bearing good news, with sharing faith.
I want you to try on the following statements related to faith in Jesus. Try not to immediately position yourself under one of them, but just check your emotional reaction to each one.
1) We push Jesus…
2) We promote Jesus…
3) We offer Jesus…
4) We’d like you to consider, if it’s not too much trouble, the possibility of checking out Jesus… some time…
5) We know Jesus, but let’s just leave it at that…
Now ask yourself, when you think about the gospel accounts, including the parable of the sower we heard today, did Jesus push Jesus, did He offer Jesus, did He just let Jesus be etc? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that each one of these approaches could be called for at various times, and could probably be found in the scriptural accounts directly involving Jesus and in the many epistle writings about Jesus. Out of the context of a close, a tender, and a real relationship with Jesus as a personal being, each one could fit and work and be appropriate. I don’t know if it’s our Canadian character or the phase we’re in right now in the history of the body of Christ, but it sure seems we often gravitate to the cautious and tentative end of the spectrum, myself very much included.
I’ve learned recently that it’s possible for any person (including those of us who are trying and committed to following Jesus) to increase our perception of Jesus being with us, especially being with us in situations we’ve been through where we did not perceive His presence. I’ve met people last month, who have been Christians more or less all of their lives (two I’m thinking of were church-community members from Reba Place Fellowship, one in their 40’s one in their 60’s or 70’s) who fairly recently had their very first experiences of being able to perceive Jesus’ presence with them in a memory they were focusing on, where He didn’t seem to be there before. They now have at least one experience to go to where they can actually perceive Jesus present with them. The point of it is, we can go years and decades with a faith in Jesus, and not perceive His presence with us in an experiential way. Could this be part of what makes it more difficult to share the good news?
In my work as a physician at Wellspring, I have set out, with the prayer and moral support of many in Grain of Wheat and beyond, to make it a place where, together with the patient in need, we make consultations to the Great Physician. Here, in a very real sense, I share and also very much work out, my faith. There are times when it is just glory and things almost beyond description happen. And there are times when my stuff gets in the way or probably becomes the lowest common denominator. The other day, not while working, while on vacation, I confess I found myself cringing at the name of Jesus being used in a prayer. I wasn’t even in the zone of “I know Jesus, and let’s leave it at that.” Thankfully, Jesus is not like Monty Python’s character who sits waiting behind the door marked “Insults”: you inconfident, sniveling, scob James. I identify with Peter after his denial, and then Jesus says, “do you love me” and I say of course I do. “Then feed my lambs.” Jesus, the word made flesh, full of grace and truth, will show me, when I’m ready, why do I cringe at His name sometimes. And why, in this work of being a physician, trying to see Christ in people and trying to be as Christ, to be good news, am I like the welcome mat I saw on Honeyman Ave. several days ago while doing a housecall that said “Go Away.” Now this wasn’t Marvin and Marcie’s mat, it wasn’t Larry and Noelle or Linda’s or our local MLA’ s welcome mat, but it’s there, up closer to the park, in a large multi-suite rental house: a welcome mat that says “Go Away.” Not grafitti, but a welcome mat, designed that way. I’m like those disciples that said to Jesus, send the people away – enough already. Jesus responds, you give them something to eat, you make their day when they’re getting weary and tired, you be good news to them (rather than disappointment).
You know what’s a big help? When I did the exercise a few weeks back of trying to perceive Jesus in my office when it gets really busy (a situation where I didn’t perceive Him) I realized, He’s in that extra chair behind me, along the wall, where no one hardly ever sits during a visit. And what made it easier to perceive Him there was to first go to a place where I did perceive His presence with me and warm up to Him and that experience first. What it’s shown me is that we can build a whole collection of experiences where we can perceive Jesus’ presence with us and with His help we can transform experiences and situations where we never thought He was there.
If you’ve heard this story, be patient with me, but this, by itself, is so faith-building, so amusing and delightful, so faith-sustaining and a good news story to share again and again. In fact I realized for the very first time yesterday morning, maybe Jesus sent the patient involved, who I have not seen again in about 7 years now, as an angel, knowing the faith I’d need to continue the work and not give up. I was sensitively checking in at the end of a prayer session with the patient who was clearly still receiving truth, and wonderful, remarkable input from Jesus the great physician about what had been processed during our time together. The patient had received truth about something negative they had believed, emanating from a painful experience, that was being converted from a traumatic to a wisdom-building experience, as God intends and designs us for in every encounter of our lives. (God really has made our brains that way, to “metabolize” an experience from painful through to wisdom-building instead of through to traumatic.) Because the person was kind of soft-spoken, a little shy, and seemingly tentative, I asked if they had been bothered by any of the questions we asked during the session of an hour or an hour and a half. In the midst of still receiving revelation from Jesus, the reply came back “No” , a short pause, then “He says He doesn’t mind the questions either” then another short pause followed by “He says he’s the one who gives you the questions to ask.” I was amazed, amused, taught a deeply revealing experiential truth, astounded, and given about 800 kilojoules of faith energy in short order.
Hearing that, is there any doubt about today’s words from Isaiah “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Maybe this can help me and help you get over this dualistic, second-guessing kind of thinking, I wonder if those are just my thoughts, or my ideas; was that really the Holy Spirit, was that really God or did I just make it up.
Since through Jesus, all things were created, since He spoke and it came to be, since as today’s Psalm (65) says “your word O Lord brings forth life” and since He is the word made flesh, maybe we wouldn’t be far off in arguing and believing that He literally is the physics that is holding us, our earth, and all we know, together; that if it wasn’t’ for Him, it would ALL blow apart or shrink back to nothing. Now that’s a powerful guy, that’s a powerful being.
In our home, where, as you know, there are lots of girls, I have often heard excited and delight-filled reports about their times hanging out with other families and friends. I hear things like “I just love him,” “I just love that girl” or “I just love that whole family,” outpourings of love, and appreciation and admiration. Just imagine two sisters talking together about someone they’re getting to know and spending time with, saying: “you’ve got to meet this guy!” Now what is that: holding in mind but not mentioning, cautiously considering, offering, promoting or pushing? Sounds a little like Jesus sitting at the well and saying “If you knew”… Try telling a woman in the transitional stage of labour not to push, to quiet down and keep things to herself, or be judicious and careful in what she does next. Her whole heart, body and brain are loudly proclaiming let’s birth this baby already! And the Romans scripture today says that we and the whole creation are in that state, eagerly awaiting the push through to new birth. Remarkably, our creator has seen good reason to subject us to that state because through it, somehow, comes freedom and glory.
There are other times when pushing is just not on the agenda, and the call in sharing my faith/in sharing our faith is to watch, to wait and to hope. It’s hard to get away from the reality that people trip over Jesus, or hit a wall or whatever you want to call it. The parable of the sower demonstrates this. It’s one of so many of Jesus’ pieces of historical fiction (Jesus didn’t say, my neighbour went out to sow or my aunt Elizabeth had this precious coin), his magnetizing short story telling that gives such wide-ranging permission for engaging at various levels or really not engaging at all. And Jesus gives such opportunity (the parable of the sower is one of so many) for people to locate themselves in the story, to attune to him,to be transformed, or to check out entirely. In fact He says something to the effect that some will listen to His short story telling and simply bounce; that’s not me in there, perish the thought I might get healed. I’m outta’ here.
As I’ve worked with patients, I’ve sometimes spent four years or more, building a relationship of trust, before offering, yes offering, prayer-psychotherapy that leads to an encounter with Jesus. He can bring good news into places of pain buried in their lives, going through the trauma short circuit over and over in their present day lives, which in the medical office often translates into a thick chart. At Wellspring we can cross the little space where everyone arrives, and is already half healed by their encounter with Esther and the light of Christ in her, over to the Intensive Prayer Unit. Here patients can go deep into their lives, with Christ’s and our closely attentive care and presence. They can come to the realization that they are not obligated to carry or to figure out their pain on their own. Many do have that realization, some do not, or continue to carry a “stumbling pain” with Jesus that still awaits a break- through. But we know and believe the light of Christ has come into the world, has come into their lives.