Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?
I will with God’s help
Last week we talked about temptation, and specifically that Jesus’ ultimate resistance to temptation, his steadfast refusal to be the Messiah of expectations, his steely dedication to the path laid out by the Father, the path walked in the power of the Spirit, the path of the Cross. I suggested last week that the temptation in the wilderness was in fact a snapshot of the inner life of Jesus that continued all the way to the cross. All the way through, Jesus is resisting the easy road. All the way through his life, with each increasingly costly step toward Calvary, he is refusing the devil, he is relying on the Spirit, he is living the Scriptures he quoted.
And he is living this life for us. He lives it as the one human life faithful to God’s call. He lives this life for us in two ways. The easiest one to grasp is that of example. This is what a faithful life looks like under the conditions of a world marred by sin. “And if anyone would be my disciple, let him or her take up his cross and follow.” The easiest one to grasp, but also the hardest one to live out. None of us, we remembered last week, has tasted temptation to the dregs, none of us has forced the tempter to flee, because all of us yield. We give in. We reminded ourselves of that truth when we prayed the prayer of confession this morning. And so we are always called back to the example. We are asked again and again to take up the cross and follow.
Which brings us to the harder, but no less true, understanding of for us. Jesus lived the one human life faithful to God’s call in our place. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And if we have been united to him in baptism, then by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the mercy of the Father, the obedient Son takes up our disobedience. The faithful Son bears our faithlessness. He takes all our dysfunction, all our sin on to his own faithful life and thus bears it away. He who knew no sin, writes St. Paul, became sin in order that we might become the righteousness of God. If it is harder to grasp, it is, perhaps, easier to rest in. For it reminds us that our salvation is not our own accomplishment, that our obedience to Jesus is a grateful response to his saving work.
Well, what does that have to do with proclamation, which is the focus of our baptismal question for today? Just this: this is a simple expression of just what it is you have promised to proclaim in word and in deed. This is the good news of God in Christ. It is not the only way to express it, some of you might say, but it is one. And one that I believe remains close to the heart of the matter.
This is the good news that you either promise, or re-affirm your promise, to proclaim at every baptism you attend.
That’s an important thing to remember also. It’s vital to remember that the ministry of proclamation is the ministry of all the baptized. Not some of the baptized. Not some professional class among the baptized. This past week, we gave thanks to God for the life of Robert Lewis who was, as several have reminded us, a gifted lay evangelist. Robert’s life reminds us that evangelism is not the special purview of the clergy. We need also to add, however, that even as Robert was gifted by the Holy Spirit to evangelize, all of us—the gifted, and the not so gifted—promise to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed.
So, we have heard last week and summarized again this week what the good news is. We have seen that its proclamation is a promise binding on all the baptized. Now, what does word and deed mean?
Word and deed, first of all, come together. Words without deeds are weightless; deeds without words are mute. They come together. In actual practice this is often a tricky balance to strike and it is rare when we get it right. But striving for word and deed together is not optional and pitting each against the other is a sin. They belong together. For each sounds out, and completes the other. Only when they are together, we have evangelism in its fullness.
Word and deed, secondly, signal a lifestyle. Proclamation of the good news is not one Christian activity to be set alongside others. Proclamation of the good news simply is the positive direction of Christian discipleship. We looked at the negative direction last week—turning away from sin; turning in repentance to the Lord. Positively, Christian discipleship may truly be expressed as a lifestyle (our words and our actions) of proclamation. Of pointing people to Jesus—like John the Baptist and Mary as we saw in our Epiphany cycle. Proclaiming his soon coming; announcing his true identity; directing people to him; and most importantly, getting out of the way so that people can meet with him.
Seeking and serving Christ—what we’ll talk about next week; striving for justice and peace—two weeks; safeguarding the integrity of creation—three weeks—all of those are not separate and distinct from proclamation, but are what proclamation looks like in specific situations. And the life of a disciple is an evangelistic lifestyle.
Finally, what does proclamation look like? It can take many forms, and there is not one way that it needs to look. The Christian life of discipleship, the life of the baptized, is that we grow into the people whom God has created us, and foreknown from all eternity, to be. And all of us are different. We are all called to proclaim in word and deed in ways suited to the unique collection of gifts and abilities that make us, us. I cannot evangelize in the same way Robert Lewis did. What can you do that only you can do? How can you live into your promise to be a proclaimer?
While it can take many forms, we are wise not to evaluate our proclamation by what our culture might call success. Sometimes it may. Certainly Jesus’ words to Herod’s messengers in our Gospel lesson this morning, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work,” sounds successful to me. But immediately comes the warning: “Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” Jesus’s proclamation was part of the path that led to the cross. That led to what looked in every way was a failure. It was a proclamation given sometimes in tears: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
We are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful. Our hope lies not in success as defined by our culture, but in the third day, on when Christ’s work was finished. When his proclamation received the public, approving judgment of his father in his mighty resurrection from the dead. That is our hope. That is our goal. That is our Gospel.
Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?
I will with God’s help
AMEN.