‘Outside the Camp’–a sermon

This is a condensed version of a sermon I preached on living and sharing the Gospel amidst reproach and hostility. I use several examples from my ministry at Penn State as illustration.

[I preached this at Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community last Sunday. My grandparents and several other family friends reside there, and some of my extended family from Miami and Houston were able to join us as well!]

Outside the Camp

12So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Hebrews 13:12-14

Back in October, my brothers and I had the great experience of going to Game 4 of the World Series. The Phillies won big, 10-2. Even our pitcher homered. We serenaded all star Rays 3B Evan Longoria with chants of “EEE-VA!! EEE-VA!!” all night long. It was an intense and memorable experience–as any Philly sporting event should be.

When I was driving back home the next morning, I stopped for a break on the Turnpike. I saw two women wearing Tampa Bay Rays gear, so (of course) I had to say something. Turns out one of the women was the cousin of the Rays pitcher from the night before. (He didn’t have a good game). After some good-natured ribbing, she told me that she had been surprised at 1) how hard it was to find tickets, and 2) how, um, INTENSE the fans were!

I just laughed. I said, “Well, what do you expect? This is Philly, and it’s the World Series!” It was funny how naive she was. I hope she’s recovered from her experience. Her faulty expectations set her up for some PTSD, Philly-style.

I. Bearing reproach for the name of Jesus is to be expected today.

In many ways, it’s harder than ever to be a Christian in University culture.

Less of this generation professes faith in Christ than any previously—one study (The Bridger Generation, by Thom Rainer) found only 4% profess faith in Christ!

Christian students know that fewer of their peers think positively of them than ever. One book, UnChristian, by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, found that only 3% of nonChristians ages 18-29 have a positive view of “evangelicals.”

Nearly ½ of nonChristians agree with the statement, “Christians get on my nerves.”

2/3 agree that “the Church is full of hypocrites.” (Lost and Found, by Ed Stetzer).

And overt hostility against Christians has become more common and pronounced.

Richard Dawkins—“The God Delusion,” Christopher Hitchens—“god is not great,” and others.

At Penn State: My ministry is to the 42,000 students not connected to Christ, the unchurched and the dechurched. I’ve connected with many nonChristians this past year, including many of the leading skeptics, atheists, and agnostics. They need to hear the Gospel: they’ve heard it, but they haven’t heard it.

One student named Yasic is a self-professed militant atheist. He owns 17 copies of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I asked him how a militant atheist ended up with that many copies. He explained that every year on his birthday, several Christian friends ended up giving him a copy. I asked if any of them ever read it with him. None had. That conversation led to a book club/discussion forum that he attended regularly. I really grew to respect Yasic and to consider him a friend during the year.

The atheist/agnostic group sponsored a “Blaspheme for Pizza” day. They wanted to get students to commit the “unpardonable sin” in exchange for a slice of pizza.

Now I could tell stories like that all night, and conclude by saying “That’s why I do campus ministry, and why I need your prayers and support.” While that’s true, it’s also dodging the real question. What we should be asking is,

“How do we live faithfully, and proclaim the Gospel faithfully, in such a context?” How do we live with the reproach, rejection, even hostility the world might have for us? How do I do that, and how do I help students do it?

II. Faithfulness is Found by Going to Jesus Outside the Camp

The answer is here in this passage. We do it by going to Christ, by joining him “outside the camp.”

What does it mean that Jesus suffered so that we would be made holy?

• Going outside the camp means loss

He became powerless; he had no place to rest his head and did not cling to material things or comfort; He lost relationships and was despised and rejected, even by his own family.

• Going outside the camp means shame

He was the victim of a sham trial. Treated as a common criminal. Stripped and beaten. Mocked and laughed at, and abandoned in his moment of greatest need. The reproach of those he created and came to save.

• Going outside the camp means keeping a greater goal in view

Jesus, “for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame…” Focusing not on the now, but on “the city that is to come.”

Jesus did all of this for our salvation, our redemption. His saving work is unique. Though he was God, he emptied himself and did not cling to any of his divine privileges (Philippians 2).

But in doing so, he also demonstrated the way we must live and proclaim the Gospel: not through power and riches, but in loss and weakness. Not through fame and the applause of the world, but often in shame. Not with comfort and ease in the here and now, but with our hearts focused on “the city that is to come.”

Going “outside the camp” means to join Jesus in laying down our lives so that others would hear the Gospel! Just as Christ went “outside the camp” and bore reproach, so can we face mockery, loss of friendship, loss of opportunity, in order to faithfully proclaim Christ.

The bad news is that many Christians in our culture and at PSU have not embraced Christ’s method. Instead of building bridges, they’ve sought to fight. Instead of coming in humility and weakness, they’ve sought power and been arrogant.

The good news is that the Gospel is going forward at PSU, as we’re learning to embrace Christ’s method for sharing the Gospel in weakness. As I’ve just finished my first year of ministry working with students at Penn State, I’ve seen God working in powerful ways. Students are coming to faith. We’ve formed new groups for believers and unbelievers. The Gospel is being shared, heard, and understood.

III. Going Outside the Camp by Sharing the Gospel in Weakness

We have a preacher at PSU, aka “Bro Cope.” He’s a PSU institution.
He stands outside one of the big classroom buildings all day and shouts fire and brimstone. He’s often heretical (he doesn’t believe he sins anymore). Atheists make it their personal mission to argue with him, and hang out there more than anyone. His presence frames much of the debate & discussion about religion on campus.

Most Christians don’t really know what to do or say about him. But everyone notices and remembers his pride, arrogance, condescension, and especially the ridiculous arguments and cases for Christianity he’s made. There was even an incident between my atheist friends and the preacher where the police were called. People said he threatened to pull a knife on the students! Even though that was blown out of proportion, it still confirms the worst stereotypes: Christians are ridiculous, arrogant, ignorant, hypocritical, and yes, a little dangerous. This preacher is one of the main defeaters of the Gospel on campus.

How do we share the Gospel when this is what people are reacting to? We must show that we need the Gospel. If you want to talk with skeptics, give up the idea that your goal is to win the debate. Even if you could (and that’s doubtful), that’s the wrong approach. No, it’s with humility, it’s in weakness. This is definitely outside of our comfort zone. You and I need the Gospel for this. The Gospel power of not having all the answers, of being willing to be shown when you’re wrong; showing you can take a punch and come back.

With my Sojourn group (a forum for faith and doubt), there were plenty of times when I felt like I didn’t have the answers and had failed. I remember that for me the discussion about Hell went particularly bad, in my mind. And yet people kept coming back. I remember after one of the meetings one of the most outspoken skeptics (Ed the Gnostic—skeptical of both Christians and atheists) made a point of thanking me for leading the meeting!

Our sharing in weakness is redemptive. This often means God redeeming our mistakes and even sins against others. Yes, we should be close enough to unbelievers that we might sin against them. Close enough to them that they will care. Close enough that they see our need for Jesus.

One girl in my Missio Dei ministry also wrote for the daily student newspaper. She was a freshman and communications major.  In the spring, she did a story about the controversy surrounding the atheists having an office at the Spiritual Center.

The only problem was, there was no controversy! My atheist friends were (justifiably) angry and upset, and so was the Spiritual Center.  They complained, and the paper printed a retraction and suspended her. So she was out of a job—maybe a career?–and my atheist friends had one more complaint against those religious nutjobs.

What do I do? I’m friends with both of them. I counseled the journalist to look for God’s redemptive purpose in this. What if she were to ask them for forgiveness? So I brokered a meeting between her and Dan (the president of the atheist group) & Yasic. I really appreciated their willingness to meet and the trust they were putting in me.

During the meeting, she apologized. She said, “I made a bad mistake, please forgive me…I’m not perfect, this is why I need Jesus.” This apology seemed to help the situation. It was the right thing to do, and it seemed to defuse their anger and outrage. The right thing to do also turned a difficult situation into a redemptive one, an opportunity to share the Gospel. This only happened because she was willing to embrace loss, shame, and the hope of a greater future. She shared the Gospel in weakness.

People who are skeptical of Christianity can call us a lot of things. But if we go outside the camp and share the Gospel in weakness, they shouldn’t be able to call us arrogant or hypocritical. When we come in humility, we’ve accomplished something real. We’ve removed, or at least put a dent in, one of the main defeaters of belief.

The Gospel is not meant to culminate with us, but to compel us outward (2 Cor 5). We are not cul-de-sacs; we are conduits of God’s grace. The Living Water is meant to flow in a river, not end in a stagnant swamp—and God’s grace always wants to flow “outside the camp.” As we keep our eyes on Christ and the “city that is to come,” we can face reproach, knowing God will use it for his good, lasting purposes!

Why the Resurrection Matters

Christians have believed for two millennia that their faith rises and falls on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. If he was indeed raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, the belief goes, then this testifies to the truth of his life & message of Good News, his atoning death, and his identity as the Son of God.

The Apostle Paul emphasizes the importance of the resurrection in his fullest treatment of the issue in 1 Corinthians 15:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time… –1 Corinthians 15:3-6a

Paul can’t say it any clearer: this is of first importance. Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions that the one thing he wanted the Corinthians to know from him is “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Then, later in 1 Cor. 15, he stakes everything on the true, historical, bodily resurrection of Christ:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead…And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men…If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ “ –1 Corinthians 15:13-15, 17, 19, 32

Because of statements like this, the resurrection is the locus classicus for Christian vs. non-Christian debates on the truth of Christianity, at least as far back as Justin Martyr vs. Trypho in the 2nd century. Historically, this has been the case. And it does seem to follow logically.

But recently, in conversation with my atheist friends, I’ve learned that they’re not particularly concerned with the resurrection. The thinking seems to be, “You can’t prove it either way, but even if he did rise from the dead, it wouldn’t change my mind.” This has puzzled me. Still, there are lots of YouTube videos and blog posts on the issue for both sides. Perhaps the debate has shifted. Perhaps it’s just my particular friends. I don’t know.

But what I do know is this: The resurrection remains of first importance. The biblical Christian faith literally lives or dies with Christ. (I unfortunately need to say “biblical Christian” because there are those who would say that one can be a Christian without believing in a literal, bodily resurrection. This doesn’t work exegetically, theologically, logically, and I have to think, experientially).

And as Tim Keller argues in The Reason for God, even if you have a hard time believing the resurrection to be true, you should still want it to be true. Do you care about the plight of the poor, about injustice, about oppression, hunger, and disease? Do you want to see those ills alleviated? If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then what hope is there for the rest of us? What confidence do we have that there is life after death, and that therefore this life matters?

But if Jesus did rise from the dead, if he was, in fact, “the firstborn from among the dead” (Colossians 1:18), then this life does matter. We do have hope. This is the certain kind of hope, not the wishful thinking kind of hope. And this hope tells us that all the evils and ills of our world will one day be made right, and that therefore our efforts (indeed, our lives) are not in vain. Yes, we should want the resurrection to be true.

One caveat on this. N.T. Wright is correct in pointing out that, despite marshalling piles of evidence for the resurrection, Christians cannot ‘bully’ skeptics with it and ‘force’ them into acknowledging it. With apologies to Josh McDowell, evidence cannot demand a verdict. One will not accept the resurrection without a change of worldview, that is, a belief in a sovereign God who can and did raise someone from the dead.

The question then remains, which worldview makes best sense of the world and ourselves?

For more on this, check out N.T. Wright on the resurrection. 

Why do some Christians shock and offend to “preach” their message?

For years, one of the main shapers of the spiritual conversation at Penn State has been the Willard Preacher, an open-air fundamentalist preacher at the Willard Building–thus “The Willard Preacher.”  Gary Cattell has been doing it since I was a student (for at least 10 years). It’s interesting to see that over time he’s gained a measure of respect from students, and I hear he’s become more orthodox. (That wasn’t necessarily the case 10 years ago).

However, this year he was joined by his precedessor “Bro” Cope, who is decidedly less nuanced in his arguments, more contentious and threatening, and thus much less respected.

I’ve heard Bro Cope on a few occasions, and what I’ve heard is nothing less than heretical. And I don’t say that lightly. For example, in one diatribe, he claimed that he had not sinned in years, and that only people who were sinless like him would be admitted to Heaven. He then preached the worst kind of salvation-by-self-effort sermon I’ve ever heard.  I’m a Christian, and I’m not a Bro Cope fan. I’m sure he’d call me apostate.

Some of my atheist friends, who regularly come to the Sojourn faith-and-doubt discussion group I lead on Thursdays at Webster’s, have fun arguing with Bro Cope. They like to call his bluffs. That led to last Friday’s incident, in which someone called the cops because Bro Cope allegedly threatened Nat Jackson with a knife. For his part, Nat (who is the president of the Atheists and Agnostics Association) didn’t press charges, and said:

“I was never feeling that there was a physical threat nor did he ever directly say that he would physically attack me,” Jackson said.

But the fact that the cops were called in response to a sermon tells you that Bro Cope lost this argument. Nat made his point, and I agree with him. He’s right to point out that the message being preached is hardly Christian if people are threatened.

I’m thankful that at Sojourn we’ve been able to have civil, respectful discussions in keeping with Peter’s command to talk about the faith “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). But as an orthodox Christian, I wonder what the proper response should be: ignore Bro Cope, or join the crowd shouting him down? What do you think?

Here’s a link to the story over at the Daily Collegian, along with spectator video of the incident. (I love new media!).