Sadly, evangelism is often neglected in the church today, but in fact the origin of evangelism is in God. At the heart of today Gospel reading (John 5:16-27) is the idea that it was the Father that sent the Son. Jesus Christ, the Son, would later say to his disciples (and thus to all Christians today) as the Father has sent me, I am sending you (John 20:21). This means that even our own evangelism begins in the very being of God, with the Father s sending of the Son.
Some people have even argued this matter more deeply, by relating it to the nature of God as Trinity. What they say, and there is some truth in this, is that the persons of the Holy Trinity (i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit) relate with each other by constantly reaching out to the each other. So there is in the Holy Trinity a nature of reaching out, which is what they extended to the world when the Son and the Spirit were sent.
The communion of the persons of the Trinity is not to be understood as closed in on itself, but rather open in an outgoing movement of generosity. Creation and redemption are the overflow of God s triune life.
The sending of the Son is captured in that well known verse, John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. The motive of this sending is God s love for the world. This is not a theoretical love; rather it is the love with which Jesus loved his disciples. He did not just send his disciples as he was sent, he also loved them as he was loved: John 15:9, As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you. And the love was demonstrated in Jesus laying of his life for his disciples and for us. For the salvation every single one of us has received is because of the love of God.
So this love goes hand in hand with the sending; and this should be the same for us. All Christians are called to be both recipients of God s love and carriers of that love to the world beyond them; recipients of the benefits of Christ s coming into the world, and carriers of that benefit to the world beyond.
Diagram (imagine an arrow pointing down from Father to Son and another one Pointing down from Son to Us .
I want to make two further points from this diagram
This diagram helps us to understanding the rightful relationship between evangelism and the church. You see, many people still think evangelism is something the church should do if it has some time to spare, and that the main purpose of the church is to maintain its community life and pastor its membership. In fact, I suspect that the training of ministers in the Church of England still operates as though this is the case. But, if this diagram is anything to go by, we can see that the church itself came into existence through the evangelistic work of God (i.e. in the sending of the Son). This is why somebody has said that:
It is not the church of God that has a mission to the world But the God of mission that has a church in the world.
And this is supported by the stories of the work of the early disciples. Paul, Barnabas, Silas, John Mark and the others went on missionary journeys and at the end of that churches were formed at places like Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, etc and by the time they left, a church had been formed at that place. And these churches would have carried on the evangelistic task long after these missionaries had gone. It is the same for us today. The church is not only the product of mission but should be the agent of mission. And I thank God for St John s with Holy Trinity for all your missionary and evangelistic initiatives so far, and pray God s blessing on all your efforts.
Also, I want to look at one more thing we can see from the diagram which is that Jesus is the first evangelist. We know from the account of his life in the Gospels that he evangelized through word and action. He preached when he needed to and got alongside people in relationship when he needed to. This, I believe, should be our model for evangelism. We should not have an approach to evangelism which is only about words; our actions have to match the love of God which we proclaim. In fact, sometimes action speaks louder than words.
In my work with refugees in Canning Town, even though we have not gone about verbally telling people to convert Christianity, we believe that the love and generosity we have shown them speaks powerfully to them. And I know St John s have had community programmes from time to time.
As today is Pentecost Sunday, it is fitting to finish with the work of the Holy Spirit in this process. We have said much about Jesus Christ, but in fact, the Spirit is also involved all the way. In the motion of sending the Son to the world, the Father is the Sender, the Son the Sent and the Spirit is the very act of Sending (if you life, the energy or force of the sending). This pattern is very much repeated between Jesus and the disciples. In the passage we quoted earlier, John 20:21, Jesus said, as the Father has sent me, I am sending you and then breaths on them and says, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). So not only is love accompanying the sending all the way, but the Spirit is moving it forward at every stage.
The implication of this for us is that we ourselves are doing evangelism, it is the Spirit that energises us. Otherwise, the very thought of evangelism can be tiring. But next time you think about it, just think it begins from God, motivated by his love and the energy for doing it will come from the Holy Spirit. Amen.