“The preacher slowly surveyed the Brethren, his face wearing an expression of the most profound loathing and contempt, mingled with a divine sorrow and pity. At last he spoke. His voice jarred the silence like a broken bell. ‘Ye’re all damned!’

The preacher then described in gruesome detail the terrors of hell. And then, to bring home the realities of the fiery pit, he said, ‘Ye know, don’t ye, what it feels like when ye burn yer hand in takin’ a cake out of the oven, or w’ a match when ye’re lighting one of they godless cigarettes? Aye. It stings wi’ a fearful pain, doan’t it? An’ ye run away to clap a bit o’ butter on it to take away the pain. Ah, but there’ll be NO BUTTER in HELL!”

That scene from the novel, Cold Comfort Farm, recalls all too vividly a style of preaching, and a strategy of communicating the gospel that, by and large – and thank God! – has gone out of favor. Amos Starkaddder’s strategy of informing his congregation that there will be no relief from the fires of hell just wouldn’t fly today in this congregation.

And so preachers and other communuicators are constantly asking themselves, what are the best, most effective and meaningful ways to commicate the gospel? If we are not scaring people into faith, how do we get them there?

The question of how to communicate the gospel is a question worthy of each generation’s serious attention. It was a question faced by those simple Galilean fishermen whose souls burned within them to tell the story that had changed their lives. The story of good news they heard and saw and experienced in their interactions with Jesus, turned their lives upside down and inside out. It took them from fishing to preaching, from mending nets to tending souls. It was a story about which they could not stop talking, preaching, and praying.

This same story and good news claimed the soul of a Roman citizen, a student of the Torah, a man called Paul of Tarsus. Paul was so taken by the good news that he proclaimed it in every way he could imagine: in letters, in street preaching, in testimonials to the guards who imprisoned him, in journeys and in exhortations.

Paul wrote, “I become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some.” “To the Jews, I become as a Jew, in order to win Jews … to those under the law, I become as one under the law … to those outside the law, I become as one outside the law …to the weak I become weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” (I Cor. 9.20-22) Paul imagines himself as a kind of chameleon, literally changing himself to blend in with different cultures and audiences in order to communicate the gospel in ways that would work for them.

Paul and the early Christian evangelists stopped at nothing to share the good news. They employed every media available to them – and created new ones – in an attempt to reach all people, so that by all means, they might succeed in reaching and persuading some.

For instance, biblical scholars generally agree that when the evangelist Mark, set out to write his Gospel – the Gospel According to Mark – he not only authored the first and earliest gospel, but also invented a new literary genre.

It was imaginative and daring for Mark to have even thought about writing his story. After all, he lived in a world in which oral tradition was the predominant mode of communication. Even in educated circles, the spoken word was standard.

Prior to Mark’s invention, the stories of Jesus had circulated orally for over thirty years. They were passed on from person to person. Obviously, the world of antiquity knew nothing of the paper culture – not to mention the electronic culture – in which we are daily enveloped.

Mark, therefore, might have chosen to cast his story in the form of a psalm or, perhaps, an oral epic … something easily memorized and recited. But he didn’t.

So, why does Mark write his story down? Why does he commit the story of Jesus to parchment? Well, to the Jewish mind – to Mark who was Jewish, and to his contemporaries – the written text was nearly synonymous with sacred scripture. And that is precisely what Mark wants to convey to his audience. Mark is at pains to present his story in continuity with, and on the same level as, the Hebrew scriptures.

Mark startles his contemporaries with this opening sentence: “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” With these opening words, Mark echoes the Genesis story: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Mark is warning us that the story he is about to tell, the story his readers are about to encounter, is a story about nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth. (See Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, by Ched Myers, p. 91f)

For Mark who invented the gospel genre; for Paul who became all things to all people so that by all means he might save some; for fishermen who left their nets to fish for human souls, the story of Jesus was so alive, so pungent, so dramatic, so surprising and wondrous that it found its own voice, a new voice in a joyous effort to reach any and all who would listen.

Since those earliest days of Mark’s gospel, and Paul’s letters, and Peter’s preaching the story of Jesus has been cast and recast, again and again, through generation after generation of Christians; it has been cast in songs and hymns, in poetry and prose, in sermons and supplications, in art and architecture, in dance, and in repose. We have revised wording, refreshed images, translated the Bible into every language, and employed contemporary cultural expressions in order to reach new generations. Across two millennia, Christians have employed all media available – and invented new genres – to reach all people, so that by all means, we might save some.

This morning we baptized a child who will grow up in a world vastly different from the world most of us grew up in. This baptism and the baptism of every child in this church begs the question: How will we communicate the story of Jesus in a compelling way to Nicholas and to the generation he represents? How will we cast the story for him?

Well, speaking of cast: you are probably aware that for some years now Old South Church has published the sermons preached from this pulpit. They are printed and reproduced and available to the public. More recently they were placed as text on our Website. Today Old South sermons are also available via Podcast. You can visit our Website and down load sermons onto your IPod.

Through podcasting and increasingly greater attention to our Web site, Old South is attempting to make use of the opportunities presented by electronic media to reach a new generation.

Our new, experimental worship service, NewJazz@OldSouth on Thursdays evenings employs yet another media and a different strategy to reach out. If you have not been to NewJazz@OldSouth I invite you and encourage you to come. The setting is the gothic Gordon Chapel, but the service is in-the-round. The experience is invitational, participatory and gentle, with flickering candles, the sound of running water and lots of space for contemplation … and, of course, the strains of alto sax, jazz piano and bass. It is designed to reach a new generation of Christians, to cast the story of Jesus for a post-modern audience.

We have literature available in the back of the church in several languages: in French, German and Japanese. We are in the process of adding Portuguese. And, most recently, we are experimenting with an Asian Ministry in an attempt to reach out to the many Asians and Asian Americans who come through these doors.

As we podcast sermons and experiment with NewJazz@OldSouth, as we imagine how to cast our story to a new generation of tourists and visitors, of seekers and the curious, we are improvising along the way. We find ourselves communicating in media and in languages in which we are not entirely at ease. But that’s okay.

When Mark set out to write the first gospel, he was convinced that he had to write in Greek to reach the audience he was aiming for. Yet, Mark, whose first and second languages were Aramaic and Hebrew, had not mastered Greek. He was struggling to write his Gospel in a language he had not entirely mastered. This is great news for those of us who for whom liquid crystal displays, IPods, and streaming Web casts are not our first language.

How will we communicate the story of Jesus in a compelling way to the visitors who walk in our doors? How will we communicate the Good News to Nicholas and to the generation he represents? How will we cast the good news in a language and media he and his peers will find compelling?

How indeed?

Well, we can take our cues from the early evangelists: they struggled with unfamiliar languages and unfamiliar media. They practiced becoming all things to all people so that by all means they might speak of Christ and to point to him, for generations who do not yet know him.

So, Old South, what do you think? What are your ideas? I invite you to think and pray on these things. It is one matter to communicate that there will be no butter in hell … but quite another to woo the next generation by finding the languages, the media and the images that will warm their souls with the love and grace of God.

Are you willing and ready to join us as we seek to imitate Paul … becoming all things to to all people so that by all means we might reach some?
 

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