"Evangelism Among The Dead"
An eminent guest preacher with the message that the Gospel is for those outside it.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Canon Prof. Anthony C. Campbell
Sunday, March 3, 2002
Text: Luke 7:11-16
Before I make my few scattered remarks, I have to comment on something that happened to me a year or so ago - I know I am up here in Canada and the words don't always mean the same thing between Canadians and Americans.
I was introduced to a church in California that had sent me a letter saying: Please know, Sir, that we are a conservative church with a conservative theology.
I showed up, fully bearded, and they said to me in the pastors' vestry: "We are a conservative church with a conservative theology." And when they introduced me, they got up and said: "We told Dr. Campbell we are a conservative church with a conservative theology and, as you know, he is from back east where they are not conservative and they may not have a conservative theology."
It really annoyed me a lot, so I got up and I said: "This morning I would like to preach about Moses. He was raised in foster care; he killed someone and never apologized; he was homeless for the better part of 40 years; and he died in the wilderness. And if you can get conservative out of that, 'You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!' "
I think there is an unusual amount of romanticism on the left and on the right: the left trying to make Jesus into a jolly Rotarian who is in favour of everything, and the right trying to make Jesus into some kind of fiscal conservative who demands a balanced-budget amendment and no consideration for the poor and the outcast.
I see Jesus constantly trying to radicalize us, and our constantly resisting it. I see Jesus putting himself in harm's way for the Gospel, as we avoid anything that remotely resembles controversy in terms of trying to extend the Gospel to the people who are outside the walls of the faith.
This particular text is especially interesting to me because Luke there has a way of telling stories that are deeply layered. His stories are never simple and every word in there has meanings: double, and triple, and quadruple. I must say that I would comment critically on the translation that was read, only from the point of view that both in the Greek and the Latin, and later on in every other translation, an emphasis is hit by making the point that will combine in the reading into separate sentences.
"Jesus was on his way into town with his disciples and with him was also a crowd." This immediately alerts me that you can be in the crowd and never be a disciple. There are some people who remain in the crowd who will tell me of their long membership in the church, but not necessarily of their long membership with Jesus.
Longevity in the building is not the same as being vital to the Kingdom of God. You can hang around the premises without ever standing on the promises.
The second thing about this text is that it says that the crowd with him going through the gate saw a woman coming out of town. Three elements that are translations: The boy was there. Actually it says in the Greek the thing was there and, secondly, she was a widow and this was her only child.
Luke's way of telling a story is to pile impossibility on top of impossibility until there is no possibility whatsoever that any good could be done here. This thing was dead. He'd probably been dead for more than 24 hours and a little less than three days, because the Jews believed that the soul did not leave the body until the third day, but in a tropical climate you would have had to put the young man in the ground some time before the second or third day, otherwise he would become a little bit ripe.
So, they were on their way out of town with a dead thing, followed by a funeral procession and in that procession was his mother and she was a widow.
Now, the tip here is that, being a woman, and this being her only child, and she being a widow, she was literally a non-person. She did not have to have a name. She could not inherit property; she could not leave property; she could not give testimony; she probably had never gone to school because women then were not educated. This was a non-person and Luke characterizes her exactly that way: the widowed mother of a deceased boy and a woman. It could not be much worse and Jesus, seeing her, has compassion.
The other thing about this text (and I learned this only from a detailed study of first century Jewish funeral practices) is that on the way out of town they would have hired professional dead thing handlers because Leviticus and Numbers make it very clear: You could not touch a dead thing. You could not even go into a dead thing's room. That room had to be ritually purified; everything had to be washed or burned; and you would become ritually impure having touched a dead thing. So people were hired to handle dead things.
This boy was being brought out on a funeral bier, basically a stretcher, an exposed piece of wood probably just covered with a little bit of linen that wrapped his body. And according to first century practices there would have been someone going in front, making a noise, saying "dead thing coming" and someone walking in back, probably playing a drum or some other percussion instrument, saying "a dead thing has passed." More sacred than any other duty was to avoid touching a dead thing and the second most sacred thing was that you had to join in the funeral procession.
So now the story is set before us: Jesus coming into town with a crowd expecting to see some mighty works; coming into town with the keepers of religious regularity, the disciples; and coming into town and acknowledging a dead thing and that non-person parent.
Why do you call the disciples keepers of religious regularity, Campbell? Well, because they were. Every church has them - somebody who just sort of sits in judgement on everybody else and if someone comes in inappropriately attired there is someone who will say: "Oops, you're not dressed right." If they come in with shoes that are a little bit too flashy for Sunday, I don't know what that means, but if they come in that way someone will say: "That's inappropriate dress. Your skirt is too short. Your pants are too tight. Something is wrong with you."
I went to a church recently in the southern part of the United States and they had a sign in the hall - I guess it was directed at women - "No Pants." I looked down and wondered what was I to do?
I was gravely told by the elders of the church: "This is because Scripture says: A woman shall not wear men's garments nor shall a man wear women's garments."
I said: "Excuse me, they were not talking about pantaloons or pants in those days, because they didn't have pants in those days."
They were shocked. They had spent all that time trying to figure out who could wear a certain garment and they got it all upside down and backwards. There are people who spend all of their time telling everybody else what the appropriate look in dress is. Jesus never said any of that stuff. I think he would be really surprised that we are all gussified in robes and surplices and chasubles? and tippets and all the rest of that stuff. I wear this primarily so that you'll know who I am. God already knows who I am.
So the scene is set now for Jesus to get himself in trouble.
When I was pastoring in Boston we had occasion to have the funeral of a …, of a …, of a …(I don't know how to say this to nice Canadians). Uh, we were going to have the funeral of a pimp, a … , a … pimp, (after church I'll tell you what it means) but a pimp, and the keepers of religious regularity came to me and said: "Reverend Campbell, you cannot have a funeral of a pimp in the churchyard because he was never a member."
I said to them: "Well, I'm doing evangelism because his friends will never come here unless that body is here and the church was designed for those outside of it, so if I let this outsider, this wretched character come in I will have one shot at all of his people. Besides, the funeral is for the living. It's not for the dead."
And all the deacons went out with grave looks on their faces: We've hired a crazy man.
At that funeral, there was every alcoholic, every pimp, every drug addict, every hustler, every low-born person. I don't care how you describe them - that crowd that does not normally come to church filled the church up.
In the middle of that great multitude I went a little bit crazy, because I'm not only preaching like it mattered to someone what I was saying, but at the end of it I even did an invitation to stewardship - in a funeral, in the church, with all of these wretched people there.
Because my understanding of the Gospel is that it was designed for those outside of it. And at the end of it, lo and behold, 16 people joined. Again, there was a crisis. The deacons said: "Reverend, they haven't gone through New Membership Class."
"Well …," said I, "I've thrown the net out. The harvest is plentiful. What shall I do? Throw them back? I do recall that Jesus took a man straight from the cross to Heaven without any water, without a New Membership Class, without even a Pledge Card. What am I to do? I have done what Christ has commanded."
Well, to end the story very quickly, that group that was brought into the church that Sunday, that group that came straight from the world into the church has become the backbone of that church and they are still there to this day. They are trustees, they are deacons and they talk about the day when the angels troubled the water and made room for them.
There is a sense then, in this most unfortuitous moment, that Jesus practised evangelism among the dead and the church is being called to do that. If the resurrection means anything it means in the midst of adversity you proclaim Christ, not before the storm but in the storm, you proclaim Christ.
My poor president in America has spent all his time trying to look presidential. I mean no disrespect, but I saw him look at the camera several months ago and wave his finger and say: "I never had sex with that company, Enron. Not one time. I wasn't in the room. I don't remember it. I didn't inhale." I've heard that speech before. The axis of the evil is not some poor, pathetic, benighted country; the axis of evil is when the church does not do its job.
There are people in the shadow of the church and the church ignores them and closes the door, and locks the door so they can't come in. The axis of evil is when the church does not do evangelism among dead members whose faith has died although it remains in place, and among dead churches whose churches are dying and they remain in place.
Jesus walked over and touched that dead thing.
Now! As soon as he touches it there is another crisis. I can hear the treasurer of the disciples saying: "Uh-oh, we've cut the offering in half."
I can hear someone saying: "Sunday School will empty now because our Rabbi cannot attend."
Someone will point out very tactfully: "I mean no disrespect by the Rabbi but having touched that dead thing, we can't go in the nave, because according to Leviticus, we are ritually impure."
But you see, when Jesus touched the dead thing, the evidence of the deadness was no more. The funeral directors who had been taught not to touch anybody within that casket looked out of their eyes and saw the commission, the dead thing, get up and begin to speak. At that moment the charges of death had been dropped and death no longer had any power or authority. The dead thing was no longer dead because Jesus had touched it.
This is the last point. In that same church in Boston, there was a piano in one of our social halls. It was a church very much like this, frankly, a large established church founded in 1829, an old church that before the unitarian-trinitarian split had been part of the great awakening in America.
This beautiful, old building had a marvellous piano that some of the old members had given and I thought this thing was a pile of junk: The keys were down; the pedals were down. Somebody had peeled most of the ivory off. They had carved their initials in it. I called over a man who restored pianos and I said: "I just want you to tell me what the piano is worth."
He went upstairs and he came back. He said: "Well, Doc, I'll give you maybe 18 or 19 …"
I said: "18 or 19 hundred dollars! Terrific, take it out."
He said: "No, 18 or 19 thousand."
I said: "Why would you pay so much for an old, beat-up thing like that?"
He said: "Well, it's a Bösendorfer."
"I never heard of a Bösendorfer."
"Well, it's a custom-made piano and has extra keys at both the top end and the low end. They only make 40 or 50 a year. This is a very old model, made of a very fine wood. Properly tuned, and properly restrung, and properly restored it would probably be a $100,000 or even a $200,000 instrument."
It looked pretty bad to me and I said: "Are you sure?"
He said: "Come upstairs. I'll show you something."
And on that broken-down, miserable instrument, with keys stuck in the wrong position and the ivory peeled off, he put his hands down and he played a chord that rattled the windows of the sanctuary. He said: "Only a Bösendorfer would have that kind of voice that even in this condition is still, when I touch the keyboard, an instrument of great value and beauty."
Well, we have a Jesus who is able to take that which is broken, and that which is dead, and that which is corrupt, and that which is outside of the household of faith, we still have a Jesus able to find that chord that links us to all humanity and that makes us children of God once again and is able to say to us we can do this evangelism among the dead. But we must have the skill and the genius and the power to believe that dead things can live again.
Amen. And Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.