Find and Tell - New Evangelizers

Evangelization is simple, yet mysterious. Today’s Gospel (John 1:45-51) for the Feast of Saint Bartholomew (aka Nathanael) captures this dynamic in a nutshell.

Often we can overthink evangelization. Don’t understand the word. Worry about “doing it wrong” or perceptions about what evangelization is and isn’t. This is where simplicity is key. This Gospel passage starts off very simply–Philip found Nathanel and told him.

This is the heart of initial proclamation. Find someone. Tell them.

It might be a family member or friend. Maybe a co-worker, or even someone you fall into conversation with through a providential encounter. Sharing Jesus and creating the space for response begins with an actual person. It’s not abstract theology.

How to know who? There are two complementary approaches here: first, listen to God in prayer to see if he’s deliberately leading you to share the truth of Jesus with someone specific in your life. At the same time, be ready to notice those seemingly chance encounters–and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the words.

Many Catholic Christians feel inadequate when it comes to figuring out what about Jesus to share. Again, simplicity is key. We need not be experts. Philip hasn’t written books on Jesus. He’s only been a disciple for a short period of time. When are you ready to share Jesus? As soon as you know that you are his disciple, you’re ready to share how you came to know and respond to him and what Jesus has done in your life. And this is how it is for Philip–he doesn’t explain the mystery of God made flesh–he simply explains what compelled him.

Nathanel responds with a doubtful question, Can anything good come from Nazareth?

Here we begin to see the mystery of evangelization. To share the Gospel, to make the initial proclamation of God’s saving power is to let go of our own ability to influence and control. The Holy Spirit is the agent of evangelization. We do not know how any person will respond. Yet rather than allowing this to make us cautious or timid, lean in on it. It doesn’t matter that Philip has no intellectual or catechetical answer for Nathanel’s question. Philip continues to share what he does have–experience. Life-change. He invites Nathanel to come and see.

The closer we come to Jesus the more divine mystery comes alive for us. As we hear in this Gospel passage, Jesus already knows Nathanel. What does this mean? In what ways does Jesus know us before we know him? These are gloriously mysterious questions. But there’s also simplicity–Jesus knows you. Jesus recognizes the existence and worth of every person in the world, and wants to share the fullness of life eternal, the “greater” things we can’t even imagine, starting now, with each of them.

For Nathanel, it all began with Philip’s actions–Philip found him and told him. He invited, come and see. How this moment of evangelization happened was both mysterious and simple. But, the mystery should not intimidate us. The mystery of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of evangelization is what makes so much more beyond what we can fathom possible. Yet, it requires our simple participation.

Who can you find and tell?

 Copyright 2015, Colleen Vermeulen

 

 

 

Colleen Vermeulen

Colleen Reiss Vermeulen, M.Div., M.N.A., blogs, ministers in parish life and lay/deacon formation, and serves as a U.S. Army Reserve officer. She and her husband, Luke, have been married since 2011 and live in Ypsilanti, MI with their two young sons.