Constructing an
Anabaptist Theology of Evangelism: “The Spectacle of Faithfulness”
(I Corinthians 4)
Gerald J.
Biesecker-Mast
It might be well
for us to review what we have proclaimed together this morning thus far. The
Now the proper
thing for me to do here is to say that this proclamation is commendable and
appropriate and respectable: the right thing to do on a Sunday morning when
gathered together with other believers.
And, of course, in saying that I would not be entirely wrong. Here in church among believers these claims
are very plausible and acceptable and even somewhat ordinary. Of course, we
believe that Jesus is alive and with us.
That’s why we’re here. That’s
what people like us are saying all over the world wherever the church is
gathered for worship. But when we think
about the command to share all of this with others—to evangelize—it might be
well to remind ourselves of how preposterous these claims are when they are
made outside the context of the church. In fact, isn’t what we’re saying like
one of those headlines you see in the tabloids when you’re in the check out
line at the grocery store? Elvis spotted in
Come to think of it, do we really believe this stuff? Do we conduct ourselves as if these wild claims about Jesus being Lord are really true? Or are we a bit like some members of the Corinthian church to which Paul wrote—rich and strong and wise and honorable and respectable, not prone to extremism or naïveté or unwarranted beliefs—and thus subject to being knocked down a few pegs, as the rich and powerful repeatedly are in the biblical text which we claim as God’s word written. Are we too smart and well-off and cautious to really act as if Jesus is Lord?
A recent book by New Testament scholar Dale Martin—who is on the religion faculty at Duke University—attempts to reconstruct the social and economic relations among members of the Corinthian church, relationships that Paul was seeking to transform with his inspired letter of admonishment. The problem with the Corinthians, according to Martin, is that they were divided between two groups with competing views of the nature of the church. On the one hand there were the well-to-do members of the educated middle-class who saw the church as a smoothly functioning hierarchical structure ruled over by an educated elite—a well-balanced and properly ordered social body engaged effectively with the surrounding culture. On the other hand, there were the less-well-off members of the uneducated lower classes who saw the church more as a haven of protection from a diseased and evil world—a veiled and clearly distinguishable body of purified believers living separately from the surrounding culture. Because of these different views of the church, the two groups argued about issues like whether it was permitted to eat meat offered to idols, or whether women could abandon their veilings, or how to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Biblical scholars usually refer to the former group as “the Strong” while the latter group is identified as “the Weak.” Martin’s book says that Paul’s letter to the Corinthians tends to identify with the Weak against the Strong, subverting the hierarchical view of the church held by the Strong and insisting that the Weak are to be held in even higher esteem than should the Strong, precisely because they are weak, and even though they perhaps seemed overly protective of the church’s purity.
We are familiar with the powerful arguments in chapter 1 and 2 in the first letter to the Corinthians about God choosing what is foolish in the world to shame the wise and choosing what is weak to shame the strong. And we often thrill to the beautiful language in chapter 12 that describes the body of Christ as made up of many members with different gifts all from the same Spirit arranged by God, as the text says, to give “greater honor to the inferior member.” In the chapter we have before us today, Paul uses these premises to make a pretty blunt appeal to the Strong. You’re all doing very well, he tells them, so quit worrying about success and status and effectiveness and start following my example. And Paul’s example is the example of the apostles who, as he puts it “became a spectacle to world, to angels and mortals.” In other words, it’s time to stop being the quiet in the land and to start making a scene.
Now, I’ve been reading the very excellent sermons that you’ve been hearing in this series on Anabaptist evangelism. So I know that I don’t need to tell you that an Anabaptist approach to evangelism is focused on responding to the needs of the world around us, of walking with people in their joys and sorrows, of becoming communities of grace, joy, and peace so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world. What I want to suggest this morning is that evangelism with Anabaptist commitments will attract people to the good news of the gospel not only by building communities of hope and love but also by making a visible public witness to the coming reign of God. This witness is not primarily about getting involved in political campaigns or running for public office or taking stands on public policy issues, although it may include that. The public witness of which I speak is the kind of witness that in the context of the world’s injustice, hatred, and pride makes the preposterous claim that Jesus is alive and is Lord of the universe.
Now I realize that this is a scary sort of claim and, as I established earlier, it is also somewhat preposterous. We Mennonites have gotten very good at keeping our radical claims about Jesus to ourselves and at smoothing over the rough edges of our theology so that the surrounding culture doesn’t get too uncomfortable with our presence. However, if we want to claim an Anabaptist theology of evangelism, we will need to blow the dust off of that venerable old Mennonite storybook called the Martyrs Mirror, a book whose very long title begins with the remarkable phrase “Bloody Theatre.” What we will find inside this book are stories not only of terrible executions but bold public challenges to the status quo. We will find the story of Simon the Shopkeeper refusing to bow in the marketplace as the emblems of Reformation era civil religion—consecrated communion elements—were paraded by on the shoulders of the clerical establishment. We will find disputations in which Anabaptists scornfully challenged the reigning public theology of the time. We will find illegal gatherings and clandestine conventicles. We will find riot scenes at the sites of martyrdom. In short, we will find radical Christians making an awful lot of trouble. But even more importantly we will find an overwhelming witness of hope and joy and love for Jesus triumphing amidst fire and water and blood. “My heart rejoices in God, who gives me much knowledge and wisdom, that I may escape the eternal, and never-ending death,” claims Felix Manz before his execution. “I will tell the world an incredible thing,” writes one brave young Italian Anabaptist from his prison cell prior to his execution, “I have found infinite sweetness in the bowels of the lion…In a dark hole I have found pleasure; in a place of bitterness and death, rest and hope of salvation; in the abyss and depths of hell, joy; where others weep, I have laughed; where others fear, I have found strength; who will believe this?” Who will indeed believe this? Will we? Will our neighbors?
Perhaps what is most challenging and inspiring to us when we read the testimonies of these early Anabaptist believers is the conviction and commitment with which they made their costly public witness. Such conviction and commitment warrants attention. There must be something behind it. Could it be true that Jesus was really with them? Is there more to life than what we can see with our eyes? Can faith in what is unseen result in such a dramatic witness seen by so many? Can the invisible transform the visible?
Now let me be clear about something. The quiet and unassuming testimony of believers’ lives, of our words and deeds, is the centerpiece of Anabaptist evangelism. We give witness to our ultimate loyalties in the way we conduct ourselves in our daily lives, whether we are teaching, providing health care, looking after children, cultivating the land, making repairs, offering products and services, or responding to the needs of family members. We are people of God’s peace, wherever we go, whatever we do. But we must not shy away from the challenges of dramatic, costly, even spectacular witness to the coming reign of God. We are people of privilege who have access to the most powerful media technologies ever invented, the most influential political and economic power in the world, and the ease of transportation to any place on the planet where there is human need and suffering. It is time for us to make more noise, to make the gospel more visible, to confront the wisdom of the world with the foolishness of God, to become a “spectacle to the world.”
What would such a spectacle look like in our time and place? In the remaining several minutes I want to suggest that Anabaptist evangelism that is a spectacle to the world has at least three dimensions. It must be public. It must be challenging. It must be nonviolent.
The first dimension I have already identified. A spectacle must be public. It must be accessible to an audience. People have to be able to see what we stand for and what we’re committed to. No doubt the most significant example of evangelistic spectacle is simply what we are doing here this morning: worshipping God and proclaiming God’s reign through story, song, ritual, artistic performance, and public address. This is an evangelistic service because here we proclaim the good news in a public event that is announced in the newspapers and is open to anyone who wants to come. But most importantly, our worship together is a weekly inauguration ceremony for the coming reign of God to which we then give witness through weekday words and deeds—much like the presidential inauguration last week launched a new political regime in Washington D.C. whose words and deeds will hopefully live up to the high ideals articulated in that inaugural address. What I want to suggest however is that it is not enough to have this great inauguration ceremony here in church every Sunday. We have to take our inauguration to the streets!
I can think of two examples
that illustrate what I am talking about.
The first one happened three years ago in 1998 when President Clinton
renewed a violent and vigorous bombing of the nation of
A second dimension of an Anabaptist evangelistic spectacle is challenge. An Anabaptist witness makes a persistent critique of the status quo, provides a contrast between the church and the world and offers hope of personal, social, and systemic transformation. According to Paul in his letter to the Colossians, Jesus’ death and resurrection is an event that subverts and disarms the political establishment and conventional arrangements of power: “He (Jesus) disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Col. 2:15). A bit later, after making this dramatic claim, Paul asks “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?” Anabaptist evangelists also must ask this question vigorously. Anabaptists are often accused of being sectarians, of wanting to withdraw from the world. But the best form of Anabaptist sectarianism is a creative, critical, and comprehensive engagement with the social order, demonstrating alternatives to convention and offering new possibilities for community and relationship, possibilities that are not enslaved to the habits of our postmodern consumer culture. No doubt the Amish are presently the most visible example of evangelism through cultural challenge. We have much to learn from these brothers and sisters in Christ from within our own faith heritage about how to bring the whole of our lives under Christ’s Lordship and to proclaim a comprehensive witness of cultural resistance and transformation in obedience to Christ. But we also have the witness of Christian Peacemaker Teams, of Mennonite Central Committee workers and advocates, and of other Christians all around us who make statements and live lives that defy common sense.
Finally, even though it may be dramatic, public, and challenging, an Anabaptist witness must always be nonviolent, respectful of other ways of thinking, and vulnerable to criticism. In a time when many Christians seek to impose Christian commitments and so-called family values through legislative and political authority,” Anabaptists recognize with Conrad Grebel that “the gospel and its adherents are not to be protected by the sword.” They acknowledge with Felix Manz that “the Lord Christ compels no one to come to his glory; only those that are willing and prepared attain unto it by true faith and baptism.” They accept Paul’s characterization of the Christian apostle or evangelist: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.” The history of Christianity is full of evangelism by conquest, baptisms by force, and conversion at the edge of the sword. Because of this brutal history and because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, nonviolence is absolutely central not only to the Anabaptist Christian witness but also to the process and practice of evangelism.
The Anabaptist alternative to the bloody legacy of Christendom’s political triumph in the West is perhaps expressed no more eloquently than in the words of an old Anabaptist hymn found in the Ausbund and translated beautifully by Harris Loewen for our own hymnal. It is fitting today that we sing this ancient song of faithfulness amidst struggle. Because these words also capture so well the spectacle of faithfulness that I have tried to describe this morning, I will conclude my sermon with a part of the last stanza: “For freedom’s sake we bend and break, a sign to every nation, that we have found a solid ground; God’s word our sure foundation.” Amen.