Saturday of the Third Week of Easter Years 1 and 2 2024

Title

Two aspects of evangelization

Outline

In the Protestant world we have gone through evangelization formulae

First there was the development of the altar call

Then there was the development of easy materials for street evangelization

Then it went to seeker friendly churches

And about the same time came signs and wonders

But our God defies all formulae

In Acts we have signs and wonders

After Paul’s conversion and especially after Paul left Jerusalem the Jewish Christian Church that was left, basically Aramaic speaking, had peace and could stabilize in the faith. Peter can visit communities distant from Jerusalem.

Peter visits Lydda in the Shephalah on the road to Joppa. He finds the bedridden man Aeneas who may or may not have been a believer, and has the impulse to declare him healed. There is an influx of new believers, “all the inhabitants of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.” We do not know if they were all Aramaic speaking Jews.

Then Peter is called to Joppa - not his plan - because the believers do not know what to do about Dorcas, a pious woman whose piety was known to the whole community, but who had died. Peter also does not know what to do but he does know to pray and receives the impulse to command her to rise. The Christian community was surely comforted, but the effects were evangelistic: “This became known all over Joppa, and many came to believe in the Lord.” Joppa was quite a mixed seaport city.

This “accidental evangelism” got Peter God wanted him for Cornelius to call him and gentiles to be directly converted. And then the fat would hit the fan. No more peace in the Church for a while.

We notice that healings are not planned and basically serve an evangelistic purpose, which fits with the miracles of Jesus.

Now look at Jesus and his strange methodology

He has given the “bread of life” discourse, so important for understanding the Eucharist and so off-putting then as now. His considerable group of disciples is upset: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Rather than trying to explain, Jesus gives them a harder saying, “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” He knew that “many” of his disciples had “sign faith” - they believed he was the Messiah because he worked miracles. But they did not get that he was the Son of the Father come to earth. So he sifts them with hard sayings and they leave.

Jesus asks the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Peter, who likely is puzzled by the “Bread of Life” discourse too, responds, “You have the words of eternal life.” He had gotten it that “the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” so even if he did not understand yet he would sit with the words knowing that there was life there.

In case there was any thought of pride in this Jesus notes that his level of understanding was not their doing: “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”

God was active in gathering the world’s “wrong sort” of disciples in Acts and in scattering those whom God knew were the “wrong sort” of disciples.

There are many things in these texts for us

First, there is not technique for evangelism other than following God’s leading. You do not need to understand, only to obey, and sometimes that means waiting in pryer.

Second, if you are listening to Jesus and following him, do not get upset if he does not follow your plan. Be prepared to sit with his words (and often with the words of his authorized representatives) and let them become clear in God’s time. Keep on praying.

Third, large numbers, peace, and comfort are not necessarily God’s goals. Sometimes he has to shake us out of our comfort zone to go to people unlike us, to go to places we do not want to go to, to disturb the comfortable unity of the Church so that it will go to non-Aramaic speaking and eventually non-Jewish people who will live differently than we do. Follow God’s plan, not your comfort.

And may God be with you.