Making Jesus Known: Look at How Jesus Did It – Part 1
In the final episode of Andrew Wilson and Glen Scrivener’s The Post-Christianity Podcast, their guest (author, speaker and all-round Massive Brain, Rebecca McLaughlin) referred to a talk she had given recently at her church in Cambridge, USA, about evangelism. I haven't heard that talk – only the ideas from it she mentions in conversation with Andrew and Glen – but the four section titles she referred to set me thinking.
She related how her talk had been under four headings: Evangelism is Hard; Evangelism is Hospitable; Evangelism is Humble; Evangelism is Hopeful.
Now, I don't know what she shared about those things in her address, though there are some hints in what she says over the course of the podcast. But I have since been reflecting that Jesus himself shows us what good-news-sharing that is hard, hospitable, humble and hopeful looks like. So, over a couple of blog posts, I wanted to ponder those thoughts further, and I trust Rebecca would forgive me for stealing her helpful headings.
Evangelism is Hard
Making the good news known requires vulnerability, and letting ourselves be vulnerable is hard. It involves letting people see our lives, our loves, our hearts and our hopes. It involves standing firm while standing out. It doesn’t hide weakness, it courts rejection, it doesn’t curry favour, it takes risks. If you think about the accounts of Christ’s life and ministry in the Gospels, Jesus shows us what it looks like to let people get close in that way – to walk with you when you’re tired, to listen in to your prayer life, to witness you at your weakest, to have you be utterly and only honest with them – all with the purpose of proclaiming God’s kingdom, whatever the cost. And it cost him.
Rejection, not just of the message but of us, the messengers, is hard. In our Western context, that is the persecution we most fear: some people might not like us anymore, some people might call us names, some people might make life hard for us. Now, it’s easy to mentions those casually if you’re not the one whose family have turned their back on you or whose life or livelihood is in jeopardy. But Jesus didn’t just warn his disciples that the kingdom message and messengers will not always be welcomed(John 15:18-20); his life and death were the very embodiment of (and ultimately the saving solution to) that rejection. And so he can command us to share it anyway, because we do so knowing that rejection by the world is not a failure or a derailing of God’s plans for our witness any more than it was for his saving mission.
Some costs, then, are real. They are truly ‘hard’. But one assumed ‘hard’ that we probably need to challenge is the intellectual ‘hard’ of feeling we need to (and don’t) have all the answers. Jesus showed in his frequent citing of or appeal to Scripture that God’s word provides all the answers we need and all the answers God is going to give. Of course, we don’t have the same perfect knowledge and understanding as the author of that word. But we don’t have to have: we're allowed to say I don’t knowand I'll get back to you. But we can trust that Bible has answers to people’s questions and seek to keep growing in knowledge of it because Jesus has shown and told us that it is all about him.
A different sort of hard: toil. When we look at Jesus we see not only the cost of our salvation at Calvary. In the years of ministry that preceded it we see the daily cost of proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God for the King himself. Just as he set his face towards the cross, for that is why he had come, he did not shirk any of the tiring work of his years of ministry. It came first, it didn’t fit around other things, it wasn’t parked in order to secure sleep, it was never abandoned in favour of ease or security or comfort. Jesus shows us what hard work for God’s kingdom looks like!
So, a final thought: when we think of the pictures of kingdom growth Jesus shares in the gospels, thinkhow often they are agricultural. Of course that’s a relevant and relatable realm of experience for his contemporary audience, but they also tell us something about working for the growth of the kingdom: it is hard! It’s demanding work, full-time work, year-round work, never-ending work, commitment-requiring work. The parables and other teachings that picture kingdom growth as involving sowers or farmers or harvesters tell us: expect to work hard. It’s work that involves sowing seed liberally, regularly, unfailingly, and then entrusting the growth to God.
And that’s a helpful reminder: however hard we’re working, God is, as it were, working harder.
Next time: Jesus shows what it looks like to share the good news with hospitality, humility and hope…
