Lenten Blog – Day 21 – Baptismal Covenant, Part 7

Celebrant	Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People	I will, with God's help.

When you take a look at the Episcopal Church, it has made the news over the years. One, by allowing women to be priests (and Bishops) and two, by allowing openly gay men or women to be priests (and Bishops).

We don’t do a lot of Street Corner Preaching. We’re not known as fundamentalists. You’re not going to find a lot of Episcopals on the 700 Club or Trinity Broadcasting. That’s really not our thing. But we do get in the news.

This passage in the Baptismal Covenant is one that pushes that evangelical/fundamentalist angle. “Proclaiming by Word” means actually talking about our faith. “Proclaiming by example” means actually, you know, being “Christ like” in our daily life and work.

It’s one thing to be Christ like in church. It’s another to, you know, be that in the outside world. What if someone asks us a question? What if someone wants to know what’s what? What if someone actually dislikes us for our spirituality? What if? What if? What if?

Well, of course, all those “what ifs” are based in fear. Fear of being disliked, fear of being put on the spot, fear of actually trying to explain what it is we believe. Fear of actually writing 40 blogs during Lent to explain what I believe.

My missionary father used to brag about how many souls he had saved. When my brother and I visited my father when we were teenagers, he took us to a remote Japanese village where children flocked to the funny looking Americans and we handed out religious tracts. My father took that whole “proclaim by word” seriously. Those tracts often had in the back a prayer of salvation and to mail that prayer to my father (or some organization). So he had a running tally of souls that he had saved. Good for him.

A year before he passed away my brother’s family was going to visit him and he wanted them all to partake on a missionary trip with him. My brother and family certainly wanted to visit, go to museums, check out some attractions and inserting a missionary trip into this vacation didn’t seem very vacationy. But that was my dad’s shtick.

When my father found out that I worked with a person of the Hindu faith, he put it upon me to convert her to Christianity. I don’t know how he explained it to me but something along the way of I was going to let her soul rot in hell if I didn’t do something to change her path. I loved my co-worker and had worked with her for years and she was one of the hardest working amazing people I had ever met. I knew she was a Hindu, she knew I was a Christian. She also knew me as the best boss she had ever had. I was deeply influential in her life on many levels and my love and acceptance for her was my way of being an “example of the Good News” as opposed to using the “Word” to convert her (besides, I probably would have been fired if I started proselytizing to her).

Another co-worker of mine who had lived a hard life of drinking, drugs, punk-rock and the like had become either an atheist or an agnostic. I found out the day before he was about to be laid off and I couldn’t tell him what I knew. The decision was out of my hands and I felt deeply struggled that he was going to be out of a job. When he was finally informed and was about out the door he said to me:

“You know, Matt, I’m not a Christian and I know you are and you’ve been the best example of Christ’s love to me.”

I may not be good at the “words” (coming from a guy who is on day 21 of his 40 day Lenten Blog) and I’m trying to get better. But I sure as heck try to do the “example” thing. I may not always succeed. But I try.