Rocky Soil

A couple of years ago our church had a booth at the activities fair for students at the University of Vermont.  This is a day where groups as diverse as Domino's Pizza and the campus hiking clubs have information and sometimes swag for students.  Domino's swag is always popular if not always delicious.  We had little packets of post-it notes with "St. Timothy Anglican Mission" on the back.  We gave quite a few away.

Yet one young man wandered by our table and picked up a packet.  When he had read the name of our organization he put it down hurriedly with what can only be described as disgust.  Hang on to this story.  I'll come back to it.

I live and minister in New England. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that some mission agencies who send people to Muslim countries send them to New England first.  To quote the apostle Frank, "if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere" (and I realize that New York is not a part of New England).  It is, as we all say, rocky soil.  Like that's never happened before.  I think we should stop saying it.  It is not novel.

Faith in Jesus spreads in contexts like this.  Or at least it used to.  The conditions of New England and, I would argue, most of North America are startlingly like that of the first century.  Here are some examples:

1.  New England is highly urbanized.  Vermont, northern New Hampshire and northern Maine are exceptions to the rule.  The rest of it is all city pretty much.  (My apologies to those who live in the beautiful rural towns of the other states for insensitively failing to understand your context.)    The New Testament church was mostly an urban movement.  Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Colossae, Jerusalem. None of these were remote villages.  The advantage to gospel ministry in urban centers is that there are lots of people there.  People whom Jesus loves and whom he wants to know.

2.  There is a diversity of belief in New England.  The Mediterranean culture of the first century was NOT religiously or philosophically monolithic.  As if.  Read about Paul in Athens (Acts 17).  He noted the great variety of altars and shrines to every god imaginable.  To be fair he was distressed by it, but he didn't berate the Athenians when he spoke but noted, quite rightly, that they were "very religious".  Every worldview is essentially a faith in something - science, money, a green earth, Jesus, Buddha or Dagon.  The people of New England are very diversely religious.  They are, I can assure you, passionate about what they trust in.  What I don't see in the New Testament is the complaint that "it's not like it used to be when we were a Christian culture" because it never had been.  But I was working on similarities here wasn't I?

3.  Much of New England is antagonistic to Christianity.  In the first century there was plenty of antagonism toward faith in Jesus Christ.  Paul's pre-apostolic career is just one example.  Paul's post-conversion experiences are another - just read Acts, or 2 Corinthians 11.  We might be tempted to think that modernly we have it harder (which we SO do not) because now people have baggage around Christianity - witness my opening story and the revulsion of the young man at the mention of "church".  In the first century Christianity was new, ergo, no baggage.  Well perhaps no baggage due to history but certainly some due to our practice.  In the first century people were disgusted by Christians because at their services they were cannibals, eating flesh and drinking blood.  Wait, that doesn't count.  They misunderstood what the Christians meant.  I am arguing that the current antagonism we experience and the disgust that the aforementioned young man felt are precisely for the same reason.  People do not understand what we mean - what the faith is all about.  And we've had time to explain - Peter and James and John were starting from scratch.

So what's different?  The automobile, mobile phones and soft-serve ice cream aside, I'd like to consider two things.

First.  There were missionaries to take the Gospel to those pluralistic and antagonistic urban centers.  Please don't take umbrage in thinking that I am condemning us for not being evangelists and failing to ask our co-workers if they have been saved by the blood of the Lamb.  There is much effort in many congregations in New England to grow the church.  And that's the problem.  We're trying to grow the church - not make disciples.  And here is the mea culpa moment.  As a pastor, like many pastors, I love the trappings of success - lots of people on a Sunday, programs for every imaginable group by age, interest and applicable dysfunction.  Much, not all, of our effort is is to get more people in the door.  It makes us feel worthwhile and significant. Forgetting that we are worthwhile and significant because God has loved us in Christ Jesus.  It is, of course, good for the Church to grow.  But that is a by-product of making disciples by taking the Gospel to those who do not know it.

This is blessedly absent in the work of St. Paul.  You will note that he never says in his letters, "I give thanks to God that your Sunday numbers are over 300".  He gives thanks for their faith, for their love.  If you read the book of Acts you will notice that Paul often doesn't stay around long enough to work on "church growth".  He is not growing the church.  He is preaching Christ crucified - a scandal to the successful and foolishness to the prosperous.

Second. Paul proclaims the truth of the Gospel in love.  Wait, why is that different?  Don't we do that too?  Yes.  Sometimes.  But not always.  It is easy to be sentimental, glossing over the inconvenient truth (apologies to Al Gore) so we can continue to feel warm - what we call love - towards someone or something.  That's love without truth.

But I am (and we are) also easily tempted to rant about how bad "society" is - as if we weren't a part of it.  Or we loudly condemn in word and deed things we find appalling or distressing.  I heard a story last week of a Christian responding to a blog post by a transgendered person.  The response was, "Disgusting!"  The response was disgusting.  I remind you of Paul in Athens. Paul was "greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols".  (Acts 17:16)  But the Athenians were blithely unaware.  of said distress.  Our distress is entirely beside the point "for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." (James 1:20 ESV)

Make no mistake Paul proclaims the Gospel clearly:


Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
(Acts 17:29-31 ESV)


Here is a clear call to repentance combined with real love.  And for whom?  The idolaters.  He was just following the lead of the One who loved tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus make us missionaries not just church growers.  For the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Help us, O Lord to speak the truth in love, because you love sinners and invite them to your table.

So here we are in New England.  Or Milwaukee or Toronto.  In very similar circumstances as the first century.  So that means we only have about 300 years before the future counterpart of Constantine makes it easier for us again.  Hope you weren't in a rush.