A new evangelization

Romans 15:13-21

          When Paul went out to convert the gentiles, he was converting a group of people that heretofore were considered unworthy.  Jesus came to save only the Jews it was thought. Jesus did not renounce his Judaism but his actions spoke much louder than words, a concept I wrote a bit about yesterday.  But Jesus after all was a Jew and the Pharisees made it almost impossible for even many Jews to be acceptable in God's eyes. Surprises of surprises, Jesus embraced all of God's creations, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, Roman and Greek. Paul carried out this invitation to the Gentiles. 

      In this letter of St. Paul to the Romans,  he starts by expressing a fundamental welcome and acceptance of the non-Jewish community. He welcomes all, free and clear, right up front. No litmus test so to speak. Paul goes further still, noting their goodness and that they are sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  How amazing is this? What can we make of it today? 

       For one thing, today we remember John Eliot (1604-1690). He felt called  ( moved by the Holy Spirit ) to spread the message to another seemingly unworthy group of people, Native Americans (Algonquins ). It would not be for many hundreds of years before the Roman Catholic church acknowledged that native Americans ( both north and south ) even had souls. What use would it be to evangelize them? But John Eliot not only saw fit to recognize their dignity, he lived with them, respected them enough to learn their language, translate prayers and Holy scripture into their language and set up whole towns that would respect them and their lives so they could continue their way of life. A relatively modern version of Paul?

          Today we are on the cusp of a new evangelization, the gay community.  Looked at as deviants and "intrinsically disordered" and supposedly not worthy of salvation. Yet the Spirit is moving wholesale groups of people, religions and individuals to see the dignity of everyone in the LGBTQ community. The tide is turning and many religions have taken a fresh look at scripture that was once used to justify mistreatment, marginalization and judgement of gays. The "clobber" passages it turns out are misrepresented by many religions, they are misquoted, mistranslated and often taken out of context.  These passages do not say what some seemed to think they say. When we realize the intrinsic dignity and self worth of gay people and come to know that we are just as God intended us to be as part of his vast, diverse universe, we find a new respect . More than respect too, we find a calling to be closer to God and a mission to love on a personal level. This is the new frontier of a new evangelization with roots in Jesus, Paul and John Eliot.

          

¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

14 I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters,^* that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. ¹⁵Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God ¹⁶to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁷In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. ¹⁸For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished^* through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, ¹⁹by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God,^* so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news^* of Christ. ²⁰Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news,^* not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, ²¹but as it is written,
‘Those who have never been told of him shall see,
   and those who have never heard of him shall understand.’