In a letter historians call "The Epistle To Diognetus," an
unknown second century disciple wrote to a skeptic named
Diognetus to answer his questions about this strange new
religion called "Christianity." The opening lines of his letter
capture what people must have found so appealing about followers
of Jesus roughly 1,750 years ago.
"I have noticed, my lord Diognetus, the deep interest you have
been showing in Christianity, and the close and careful
inquiries you have been making about it. You would like to know
what God Christians believe in, and what sort of cult they
practice which enables them to set so little store by this
world, and even to make light of death - since they reject the
deities revered by the Greeks no less than they disclaim the
superstitions professed by the Jews. You are curious, too, about
the warm fraternal affection they all feel for one another ...I
pray God, the Author of both our speech and hearing, to grant me
such use of my tongue that you may derive the fullest benefit
from listening to me."
Notice that phrase, "...even to make light of death."
I wonder how many times Diognetus had watched a disciple of
Jesus die a martyr's death before he was prompted to ask
spiritual questions.
One of the strange things about 21st century churches is the
lengths we are willing to go to look, talk and act like the
people we are trying to reach and our obsession with making
Christianity easy and palatable. If we learn anything from our
spiritual forbears, most of whom blow us out of the water
evangelistically, it is that evangelism flourishes the more
difficult and counter-cultural we make the Christian journey,
not the other way around.
Just recently I was reminded of this while teaching in our
weekend worship services. We were studying that horrible story
in 1 Samuel 15 where God tells Saul to do something that we find
incomprehensible today. In verse three of that chapter God told
Saul,
"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything
that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and
women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and
donkeys.'"
While I was preaching I kept thinking, "This is it. This is
going to be the sermon when some nut jumps out of his seat and
hurls a large coffee at me and storms out." Fortunately that
didn't happen. But after the message I braced for the worst in
the hallway. Surprisingly it never came. In fact, just the
opposite happened. I was shocked. Spiritual inquirers I had been
building bridges with for over a year came up to me and
complimented me like I was Billy Graham. At first I was tempted
to pat myself on the back and shout, "You da man, Brian! You da
man!" But I knew it had nothing to do with my meager teaching
skills. Non-believers I encounter aren't grabbed by easy,
make-me-comfortable messages. What spiritual inquirers want is
to hear a counter-cultural word from God, even if they
vehemently disagree with it.
One of the hardest things for a non-believer to handle, at least
in our context, is baptism. In fact, shortly after our new
church in Philly launched we lost 27 people in one week over
this issue. In my experience nothing un-nerves a skeptic more
than watching someone get baptized. That's a good thing. One
reason it disturbs them is it's a little odd. And if you've ever
seen a baptism, admit it, on the surface, it is a strange thing
to watch. One day a guy is putting with his buddy Harry on the
8th hole of the neighborhood golf course, and the next day he's
joined some nutty religious group dunking him under water. It's
also humbling. Everyone gets wet. No exceptions. No-one can
baptize themselves. Everyone is stripped down to a t-shirt and
shorts just like everyone else. Cell phones don't work real well
when wet. Neither do luxury cars, expensive homes and stock
options. Baptism makes everyone equal. But the biggest reason
non-believers are unnerved by the image of baptism is because
they get it -- they finally get what it means to be a disciple.
Nothing in our religion so powerfully conveys the
counter-cultural re-direction of a life like a person being
baptized. Baptism is an act that tells an unbelieving world
we're slamming on the brakes with both feet, wildly swerving the
car around and heading back up a one-way cultural street.
Romans chapter six makes it clear that one of the primary images
Jesus had in mind was decomposition. Baptism is actually a mock
tomb. You are lowered into the water as if you were being
lowered into a grave. As you come up it symbolizes that, just as
Jesus was raised from the dead, we too are raised to live a
completely different life. It is like God is saying through this
image, "Let me clarify something from the very beginning. This
whole journey is about death. Death to your self. Death to the
culture in which you live. Death to your ambitions, your dreams,
your wishes, your everything. But it's also about life. My life
within you. My life to recreate. My life to work in and through
and around you to accomplish my will on this earth."
One of my children's favorite games when we go on vacation is a
game they call, "Baptize the sinner." It goes something like
this. Starting 1,400 miles away from our destination my kids
start asking, "Are we there yet?" After 32,435 "Not yets" we
finally make it to the hotel. We drag our suitcases to the room,
they change into their swimsuits in under three seconds flat and
make a mad dash for the pool. We'll swim for what seems like
hours and then at some point I'll overhear my middle daughter
yell out, "Are you a sinner!?!" My oldest will yell back, "Yes!"
And then my middle one will yell back, "Well, be baptized you
sinner and become a Christian!" and slam her into the water like
a heavyweight wrestler. Then my newly redeemed offspring will
jump up and say, "My turn. My turn." This continues until
everyone has been dunked four or five times. When I first saw
this I muttered to my wife, "This is utter blasphemy." She
laughed, "What kinds of games do you expect Pastor's kids to
play?"
Baptism has the same affect on skeptics too. It's a mental image
that's hard to shake, especially at our baptism services when as
soon as people come up out of the water people hoot and scream
and clap and high five one another.
Sometimes it's hard to know how far we've strayed from the
course until we receive an outside reminder. In 1883 the
scholarly community was riveted when a previously unknown
Christian document from the second century was re-discovered and
published. Early church leaders and others talked about a book
called "The Teaching of the Apostles" that had somehow gotten
lost in the shuffle of history. That book, now commonly called,
"The Didache," which is the Greek word for "the teaching," seems
to be a second century church handbook on how to make disciples.
If we were to create a similar document today, I wonder how we
would begin such a document. Maybe we might be tempted to list
all the benefits of becoming a Christian or how Jesus meets all
of our needs and desires. However, what was the first line of
"The Didache?"
"There are two Ways: a Way of Life and a Way of Death, and the
difference between these two Ways is great."
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