“Whatever house you
enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in
peace, your peace will rest on that person.” St. Luke 10:5-6
Sally[1]
was our most effective evangelist at a parish where I once served. She would warn me ahead of time when she was
bringing another one with her. I’d walk
into the chancel Sunday morning and look back at her pew, on the aisle halfway
down the right side, and see a new face.
The newcomer might be slightly puzzled, a little uncertain; but also
glad to be right next to someone who obviously knew what she was doing. Most every time the bishop came, Sally would present
a candidate or two for confirmation, someone she’d walked alongside in the
journey to faith, another person who had found peace with God and the gift of
new life.
Sally had no advanced degrees in
theology. I couldn’t even get her to
come to Bible study. She was a humble
woman, without great wealth or social power.
She had what I secretly regarded as one of the most unpromising opening
lines in the history of evangelism. I
heard her use it at least twice, and winced a bit both times. She would look people right in the eye, sigh
a bit, and simply say, “you need to get your butt in church.” You should know that this phrase is not from
the New Testament, and I’m sure it’s not recommended by the Episcopal Church’s
canon for evangelism. But over and over
again, through the unseen work of the Holy Spirit, Sally said it and it
worked.
Sally had more than her share of
opportunities to use that line in her job.
For much of my time as her rector, she was a waitress at Frank’s,[2]
a diner much loved by locals, because it was about the only restaurant in our
tourist town that stayed open all year round.
When you suffer through an upstate New York winter, it’s not hard to
become very loyal to the one place that serves bacon cheeseburgers the second
week of February.
