Did you notice, in the reading, that John the Baptist is proclaiming Christ to some people who were hanging out with him? As in, these were disciples of John. These were followers of John, and he wasbasically telling his disciples to stop following him, and to start following Jesus.
Think about that for a second. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, he was a disciple of John the Baptist. He was a follower of John, and spent a lot of time learning from him, and growing in his faith through John the Baptist's teachings. And John has to live out his earlier injunction, where he said 'He must increase, and I must decrease.' That small sentence is what we as Christians have to deal with, especially when we are on the evangelism train.
We want to have people come to Jesus. We want people to come to faith, we want them to believe in Jesus, to be part of the family of God, all that. But we want to be involved in it. We want people to come to Jesus, but come to Him through our work, through what we do. In effect, we want to be accessories to the faith, we want to be the ones who made the difference, we want to be the ones who do the work, who span the gap between humans and God.
But there's a snag to that. We don't want people to come to Jesus without us, and in a different way than we do. In the show Family Guy, there are a couple of episodes in which people can't stand that someone else is the big noise, they can't stand that someone else is well thought of, so they go out of their way to sabotage them. And that's sort of us, too. We want to have people follow Jesus, but not at the expense of not following us anymore. There's a chain of command here, people!
When John the Baptist looks at it, though, he knows that his job is to prepare the world, and the people, for Jesus. So when some of his disciples leave him, and follow Jesus, he counts it as a victory. It's a win if people find Jesus, follow Jesus, even at the expense of them following John. Why am I telling you about this today, though? Why is this important for us to know now? I would be fairly sure that none of us would be overly upset if we lost some disciples, since we don't have any disciples. But the difference for us is going to have to be how much we stand between people and Jesus?
The most damaging thing for mission work is usually Christians. Not the faith itself, no. Most people don't have too much of a problem with that. They don't have a problem with Jesus, either, he's usually deemed to be okay by the majority of people. But the trouble is when we present ourselves as the best and brightest examples of the faith, the best thing that Christianity has to offer. We present ourselves as having not just the best prayer life, the best outfits, the best worship style, the best music, the best lives, but having the only ones worthy of consideration. But when we present ourselves as being the finished product, as the best and brightest, something goes wrong. We try to conflate ourselves with Jesus, that if someone is going to find Jesus, they are going to have to go through us first. They will have to be carbon copies of us.
And that would be fine, of course, if the hype was true. But it's not. We actually aren't that great.
When John says of Jesus 'he must increase, and I must decrease.' And that's exactly what happened. The ministry of Jesus took off, was a huge success. It began to span all across the land, he gained followers, he gained stature, and became the most well known person in history. John? He lost his followers to Jesus, he got locked up, and his head was eventually presented to Salome as a party favor. Was John ready for that? He was. Are you?
Ghandi famously is rumored to have said 'I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.' If you're a Christian, you should know that that quote is accurate. If you're a Christian, then
you will be saying things on Sunday mornings like how you have erred and strayed like lost sheep, about how there is not health in you. You will be saying things about how you're by nature sinful and unclean, and how you cannot heal yourself. You need to understand that this is all the case because you are a long way away from where Jesus is. You are a long way away from where the perfection of Jesus is.
So how is mission work ever to be done? How can you ever do mission work if you're such a dud? If you're a sinner, and I'm a sinner, if we are far, far away from our stated goals and will never get there, if we have in mind what a Christian should be, and yet are so far away, how are we to possibly be ambassadors for that faith?
He must increase, and we must decrease.
In any mission effort, in any attempt to bring Christ to the nations, we have to remove ourselves as much as possible from the issue. The more we put ourselves in the way, the worse Jesus ends up looking. But if he increases, and we decrease, then things work properly. Then the mission work doesn't depend on us and how great we are. The mission work doesn't have to depend on how fantastic I am, but on how fantastic Jesus is. He's good enough to stand on his own merits, he's good enough to stand on his own good times, and doesn't need my help. He is great, and I am small. Any evangelism work that I do will have to essentially involve myself only as a redeemed sinner, not a hero, not a conquerer, not a stand out great guy, but as a sinner who has fallen short of the glory of God, and who needs assistance. That's all.
And in doing so, all of a sudden, it's not about me. It's about Jesus. And then the evangelism doesn't rest on my shoulders, but upon his. Then people won't look at me and say 'boy, he's a bad guy. I guess this Christianity thing is no good.' but rather 'Boy, he's a bad guy. Isn't it great that the church, and Jesus himself, have time for him.'
Peace be with you. Humility be with you. Heck, humility be with us all.
PJ.
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