BAPTIZE EVERYBODY? John M. Buchanan

Matthew 28:16-20 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
June 17, 1984 Columbus, Ohio

I've always wondered what it's like to be on the receiving end of Christian evange-
lism, particularly the more combative type: to be told, in essance, that the deity
in whom one believes, to whom one has been praying, from whom one has received
comfort, sustainance and meaning, doesn't exist: to be informed, further, that
the religious rituals which have given order and symmetry to Hfe are superstitious,
pagan ceremonies; and ~ further ~- that, the end result of it all will be an eternity
suffering torment in a fiery hell, I have learned that to tell someone that his/her
deep beliefs and highest hopes are utterly wrong is not ordinarily a very good way
to begin a conversation or enhance dialogue. It is, rather, to put the other on the

defensive; to call out beligerence, argument. I have learned, further, that if my \)
purpose is to share my truth, the best way to do that is to relate somehow to the of
truth the other person possesses: somehow to convey respect for the other, to \s
listen, to engage in dialogue; to understand that the truth is always mediated through

f
my own very human perceptions. JI live on the basis of the maxim - that one should N C \s"
be wary of folk who know the whole truth about anything: political parties, music,

religion or the best ever baseball team to take the field’) \

I have concluded that to be on the receiving end of some Christian evangelism
is to be put dewn, to be relegated to the status of spiritual imbecility or, at best,
immaturity. And I further conclude, that the evangelistic zeal to turn everyone
into Christians just like us, seriously diminishes the God around whom the entire
enterprise revolves. In fact, it seems that God appears to be an image of the people
doing the most zealous evangelizing.

The theologians have always known that the God about whom human beings
dare to talk is a God experienced, perceived, and discussed in very limited human
terms. Your God Is Too Small, J. B. Phillips said in a book title. That's always
the case. My perceptions, my intellect, my emotions are human: my God (my
belief in God} is limited at least by my own humanity. Thus Luther could talk about
"the Hidden God” who exists beyond all human religious systems. And in our day
that intriguing concept was echeed by Paul Tillich under the guise of "the God
beyond theism." The theologians know that, and in our clearer moments we know
it too. But it is not universally an important idea. The God of religion can be rather
provincial and is pretty small. South African churches seriously propose that Apar-
theid is in the Divine Order of things ~ in the same way that German Christians
somehow made peacé with an Arryan god who had turned his back so thoroughly
on his Semitic children that they. could simply be eliminated. It sounds to me some-
times like God is a Baptist, or a Brethren, or a Roman Catholic ~ and that God's
agenda for all creation is simply to get everybody believing the same doctrines
and singing out of the same hymnbook,

The issue has been around a long time. The Deuteronomy text this morning
contained the theological assertion of monotheism ~- “there is no other." That's
the radical word which came to Israel] - there is one God: Jahweh is God's name.
There are two ways to interpret that, however, and there is a constant intermural
struggle in Israel between those who see God's oneness in universal terms - i.e,
Ged is Lord of the Babylonians too - only they use a different vocabulary; and those
who see God's oneness very narrowly, as our private secret, our God is the real

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God, yours is just a fake. When Jonah gets called to go to Nineveh, the crisis is
not so much the voyage and big fish as it is Jorjah’s absolute certainty that the
Ninevites are utterly lost and wrong and besides that, they don't matter, That
God loves Ninevites is a shattering thought to Jonah...

At their better moments Gad's people, in the Old Testament, know that they
are chosen - not to be God's only children or to enjoy privileged status as God's
indulged children, but to live as God's people in the world: to be servants, to be
a light to the whole world - to show the world what God means by human life. The
tension, however, is relentless between that universalist position and the inevi-
table religious exclusiveness which sounds like a game of "mine is better than yours"
played on the stage of history.

It is there in the life of Jesus. It surfaces everytime he bumps into and challenges
the constricting exclusivism of religion. When Jesus breaks bread with sinners,
associates with tax collectors, and talks to a Samaritan woman in public - he is
shattering the religious exclusivism of his day and challenging ours.

It was perhaps the toughest issue facing the early Christian church. At precisely
the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, the early church was asking itself whether
God cared enough about Gentiles for them to bother telling the story of Jesus in
Gentile cities. Or should they, Jewish Christians, simply stay put, enjoy this new
truth, and look down their noses at the rest of the world?

Thus the Gospel of Matthew ends with the Risen Christ-on a mountain with
his followers: a mountain Hke the one on which Moses negotiated the original cove-
nant, Matthew wants us to understand. It is the setting for the great Missing Com-
mission, Go - to all the world baptizing, making disciples. The radical word is
"all nations." The first and intended impact of the words of our Lord, I submit
- was to break open the exclusivism of religion; to shatter the tempting, comfortable
theology of God who cares mainly about me and peaple Hike me. Clearly the emphasis
here is on the word "all." The intent of Jesus is to broaden the focus of the early
church to encompass the whole world. That was, and is, a radical word.

And so, into the world his followers have gone: compelled by the power of this
great commission, We have gone more faithfully when we have heard the emphasis
on "all nations” and know, in that God's great love for the entire world. Not long
after Jesus said the word ~ the Roman Empire became Christian - by fiat. Even
more fascinating are those bursts of missionary activity down through history,
almost mystical to me when I reflect on them. The allure of the Island of Iona,
off the West coast of Scotland, is partiy that. For hundreds of years Irish monks
lived there and then sailed off to Great Britain and to the continent ~ telling the
story of Jesus. Or the Jesuits in the Far East, sometimes following, sometimes
leading the trading companies. Or the thousands upon thousands of men and women
who responded to the commission by going from America and Northern Europe,
to China, Japan, Africa, in the 19th and 20th centuries. Or today, the Christians
from Columbus whe practice medicine in Zaire, or work for peace in Northern
Ireland: the teachers, engineers, pastors, nurses and farmers ~ whe go, still today,
inte all the world - in the name of Jesus Christ.

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The old issue remains, however. It is raised for us by the text. It is the matter
of religious exclusiveness: the temptation to portray our news as the only news,
Reinhold Niebuhr once taught that human sin was best illustrated by the simple
fact that every philosophy known to us, sooner or later, concludes that it is the
only philosophy. Niebuhr warned that religious pride was the worst kind of pride.

Historian Martin Marty believes that we live in a time that appeals to the univers
sal human need for exclusivism and the certainty that "I am right" which accompanies
it. In a recent book he notes the world-wide “resurgent fundamentalism of the
kind that has gained political power in Shiite Islamic Iran,..and is behind a powerful
Opus Dei movement within the Roman Church, and which surfaces among beligerent
American Protestants promoting Christian Yellow Pages.” (By Way of Response,
p. 89)

In a world full of ambiguity, theological certainty has enormous appeal, But
we also live in a world that is growing smaller and which must learn to deal with
its own diversity and pluralism. A fascinating theological perspective is added
by controversial thinkers like John Hick who argues that the same God is at the
center of all religion, and African scholar John Mbiti, who wrote very poignantly
in a recent essay, “God must have been active among African people as he was
amnong the Jewish people - was he not there in other times and in such places as
Mount Fugi and Mt. Kenya as well as Mt. Sinai." Mbiti notes the incredible recent
growth of the Christian Church in Africa. In 1900 there were 9 million Chvristians
in Africa - 7% of the population. In 1980 there were 200 million - 45% of the popula-
tion. He writes, "The God described in the Bible is none other than the God who
is already known in the framework of traditional African religiosity. The missionaries
who introduced the Gospel to Africa in the past 200 years did not bring God to
our continent. Instead, God brought them. They proclaimed the name of Jesus
Christ. But they used the names of the God who was and is already known by African
people." (Theologians in Transition, p. 54/55, “The Encounter of Christian Faith
and African Religion").

Is the point of it all to get everybody singing out of the same hymnbook? Believ-
ing the same doctrines? Using the same vocabulary? Living by the same rules?
Does going into the world, baptizing and making disciples mean turning the whole
world into one big Southern Baptist Revival, or Roman Catholic parish, or dour
Scottish Kirk? History would seem to argue against that. Even if God is a Baptist,
or Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian, getting ‘people to affirm the same doctrines,
or be baptized under the same rubrics has not always produced more peace or happi-
ness or sanity in God's world. Christians have killed one another in many wars
proving the point. And we're still at it. "Making Christians,” as an isolated impera-
tive I would submit, is not the point. In fact, lam moved by Martin Marty's integrity
when he writes: "Never again approaches to mission that make God into a predator
~ dependent on my ability to pounce on others...Never can 1 make proselytism the
focus of my relation to others.” (op. cit, p. Tit).

The alternative word which came to the writers of the New Testament, particu-
larly Paul, is that God's fundamental purpose in creating, and in becoming incarnate
is to heal, make whole, reconcile the whole creation, enhance its life, nurture its
peace and forever love its children so that they will enjoy life and live it fully.

6c*

Tall

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I find compelling power there and an impulse to theological integrity - maybe
even some theological bravery.

_ Jesus Christ sent his disciples into the world - sends us, who would be his disciples
into the world - with the burden of God's love for the whole world on our hearts,
Our task and privilege is not to convince everybody to become Presbyterian, but
to tell the story of God's love: to bear witness to the liberating truth of God's
love that we have discovered. To baptize, first of all, whatever culture we are
living in, with the spirit of the Christ who sent us. The mission of evangelism,

‘in 20th century terms, I believe, is to be the church of Jesus Christ with all the

integrity and love we can muster: to witness to the truth of the Gospel by the
quality of life we live as the church, not to devote all our energies to persuading
others that they are now wrong and we all right and that they will be eternally
safe if they simply cross over to our side,

Evangelism, (the word is almost offensive because of its exclusive connotations),
I propose is to baptize this culture here and now with the gentleness and justice
of Jesus: to baptize the hurting people around us with a love that values each one;
to baptize our neighbors with respect for them as persons. Evangelism, I believe,
more than ever, does not mean slicker devices to persuade the customer to choose
our product; it means to be the church, to witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ
by the way we are the church in this place. People are convinced, I believe, not
when they receive convincing argument and effective marketing, but when they
see its when in the name of Christ the cold are sheltered, the hungry fed, the op-
pressed set free, the lonely loved, and the story told. Make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them.

I suggest that the commission is an invitation to be the church with integrity
and great love, and to believe boldly, bravely, that God really does love our whole
world, that with God all things are possible, that our job as disciples is not to be
responsible for production quotas, making Christians, but to bear witness to the
truth of Jesus Christ, trusting that the activity of God's spirit in the world will
do the persuading and that God, not the preacher, not even the church, is in charge
of conversions, : '

It is, I believe, an invitation to believe radically that God's eternal love extends
even to those who don't know about Jesus, or who de know and choose not to believe:
that we are not responsible for saving folk from or for anything; that we finally
and profoundly are called to experierice and énjoy and to tell the story of a love
so big it includes all nations, all people, even us. It is an invitation to let go of
all exclusivism and to believe boldly, bravely, that all things - even human history
~ are in God's hands;, that in God's time, and by God's grace, and through God's love,
there will be a day when "Jesus shall reign wherever the sun — its successive journeys
run." Amen, ' ,

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