Making Disciples of All Nations
January 16, 2000
John 1:43-51; Samuel 3:1-10

Last week in speaking about the baptism of Jesus I suggested that it did not matter if we were baptized or not. Now I was a little surprised that no one questioned me about that.  Hopefully, I made myself clear enough so that you all understood what I meant. I am not against baptizing. I love the event. I loved baptizing both of my children. But I do not delude myself into thinking that makes them fit for heaven or really changes them in any way beyond being brought into this fellowship in a loving way.
As I suggested last week, to be baptized does not make us Christian, it does not give us the status of salvation, in fact it is only the beginning and you don’t have to look further than the baptism of Jesus to understand that the act of baptism is only a beginning of a long process that leads to our God and the service of our God.
Actually, I believe, that all of life is a kind of baptism. You have heard the expression "baptism by fire" which refers to an intense growing opportunity because of a challenging situation. I don’t want to sound too dramatic or make our lives out to be something awful but all of life is somewhat a baptism by fire. Because I believe that every moment of life is designed to give us the opportunity to move closer to God.
Paul writes eloquently in the eighth chapter of Romans that there is no experience in life that even unto death that can separate us from the love of God in Christ.  So all of our lives, through all the experiences we have, we are coming to understand and trust and live in the love that God continually gives. And that holds true right up to that very last moment when we must give all trust over to God, when we can hold  on to the things of this life no longer, we all must give our whole lives to God. If we are faithful people this is what we have tried to accomplish in our living but in our living it remains a goal, a very worthy goal but a goal nonetheless. In our dying it becomes fact. There is no escaping the moment when we must fall into God’s loving arms totally trusting God.   What choice have we got?
So in life there is this continual process -- this baptism of fire that helps us grow unto our God again and again and again until the day we die.  And as I said this process, lived in faith, makes the moment of ritual baptism superfluous to each of us.
Now those of you who have grown up in church or who are students of scripture know that Jesus was fairly clear about baptizing. In his last moments on earth, according to the gospel of Matthew, he says to his disciples, "go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." It is known as the great commission.  Now if you are a student of history you know that these words have been the foundation of the peculiarly strong effort of Christianity to proselytize. Not all religions are as focused on making new disciples as Christianity. But because Christians have this commission Christianity has spread around the world. But these efforts have caused great havoc too in ways that I do not believe Jesus intended.
Besides being the foundation for phenomenal growth, these words have sadly given license to a very dark kind of religious understanding that has too often encouraged political imperialism or colonialism (these had very strong religious underpinnings), the cultural imperialism that often went along with the missionary movement, the forced faith of the office of the inquisition of the Roman Church and like activities in every other Christian sect, and even violence against non-Christians during the Crusades and many other times.   Please understand I am not condemning the evangelical spirit or any other sincere and heartfelt effort to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because I believe it truly is Good News. I am just a little suspicious of the methods. As a religion we have strayed from the love that Jesus always talked about and encouraged. Historically, we too often found ourselves doing unloving things to make another person Christian. We don’t need that and in fact if we would open up our idea of what baptism truly is we might not be so encouraged to be unChristian in our quest of spreading the good news.
In the great commission, Jesus says to his disciples "go and make disciples of all nations." I think it is important to remember how Jesus made disciples. I tell you it was never coerced. He never said anything like believe this or you are going to hell.
In fact he did not compel people to do anything. The first thing he did was invite people to follow him. Invite. Invite. Invite. There was no "or else" involved. No coercion. We don’t know how many turned down his invitation. But as we see in the Gospel reading there were some who heard the words of Jesus and got very excited about it. They needed very little convincing, like no convincing. It was contagious.  The spirit was at work and there was no denying it. I believe that this is the most effective way to spread the Gospel of Christ. Love as if it is Christ in you doing the loving and people will notice. And they will want in. That is why I believe that the man who is honored this weekend is one of the greatest evangelists of the Christian faith.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did so many great things that it is impossible not to notice. In many ways he embodied the love of Christ. He was of course an ordained Baptist minister but as we know that does not mean he lived unto the love of Christ. But when we read about following the call of God to lead the Montgomery bus boycott it is easy to see a powerful faith at work. It was an ordeal that saw his house fire bombed, his wife and children put in harm’s way, saw him get arrested.
But he persevered and brought a great deal of hope and encouragement to the people who continued the boycott until the city of Montgomery had to back away from segregation.
That is the love of Christ at work. That is my kind of evangelism.
He became the spokesperson for a great social movement. As that spokesperson, he gave one of the most moving speeches of the twentieth century. I am very aware of the Holy Spirit at work in that speech and I know that God is at work. This is true evangelism. He was talking about civil rights but he was leading people to God.
That is far better than trying to force someone to adopt your theological position.
But his greatest accomplishment as a Christian, and the reason I call him the greatest evangelist of the twentieth century, was his unwavering stand on non-violence. Jesus lived non-violence. He could have lead a violent and probably successful revolution but he went to the cross instead telling his disciples to put down their swords. His way was never about violence, he knew that this was not how
to bring the love of God to bear in the world.
King agreed as a Christian but he did not learn about non-violence exclusively from his reading of scripture. He learned from another great saint of this century, Mohandes Gandhi. Now it might seem impossible to some Christians that Dr. King could learn to be most Christ-like from a source who was not even Christian. But I actually believe that this is what makes him such an important figure in the history of  Christianity and why I believe that his evangelism is exactly what we need to be doing.
It did not matter to King if the idea of non-violence was an officially sanctioned Christian doctrine. He knew in his heart of hearts that it was the will of God. And this is the most important part of evangelism I believe, this is what the great commission is about, it is what discipline is for.  You see as Christians we get a little myopic and we don’t see the big picture that Jesus was after. We get caught in the idea that what Jesus came to earth for was to make us all Christian. Do not think for a moment that the end for Jesus, the end for his disciples, the end for the nations that we are to make into disciples, the end for every baptized adult is Christianity, that is not where we are headed. Where we are headed is the kingdom and the kingdom transcends every religion and group. And don’t think for a moment that just card-carrying Christians are allowed to in such a state.
The English soldiers who knocked down and beat up and prevented peaceful people from protesting the salt tax in India were for the most part Christian. The non-violent protesters who heard the word and the counsel of Gandhi and were courageous enough to remain non-violent in their protest were for the most part Hindu. I ask you who was doing the will of God? Not those who claimed to be Christian.
I say it again. Jesus came so we might love each other, we all might love each other. So the only true evangelism that there is on this planet, the only true Christian evangelism there is on this planet contains a message that will make all the world more loving and more fit for the kingdom.
That is the true message of the great commission. Bring love to bear in the world so that all might be blessed through you, all might see the kingdom through you, that all might be encouraged toward God through what you do and say. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished this as did his mentor, who he never knew personally but learned a great deal from, Mohandes K. Gandhi.
King described this goal in his life just a few months before he died in a speech called The Drum Major instinct. He is speaking about what he wants people to be able to say at his funeral. "I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that I did try, in my life to visit those who were in prison, clothe those who were naked. I want you to be able to say that I tried to love and serve humanity." (A Testament of Hope edited by James M. Washington; page 267.)