I (Orin) was music directing “Newsies” at Chaminade College Prep, a Catholic boys middle and high school in suburban St. Louis this past weekend. During sound checks before the show one night, the student playing Finch told the following joke to fill the needed time:
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see who’s best at their job. So each one goes into the woods, finds a bear, and attempts to convert it. Later, they all get together. The priest begins: “When I found the bear, I read to him from the catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his first Communion.”
“I found a bear by the stream,” says the minister, “and preached God’s holy Word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him.”
They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. “Looking back, he says, “maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision.
It’s a pretty good joke, I think, but it also has a relevant point to make for those of us who evangelize in different times and places. From the very beginning, our missionary efforts recognized that step one was always to enter into a human relationship with the people and culture being visited, and to make sure that first their human needs were being met. If those with whom we hope to share the Good News don’t know us and trust us as friends, any words we share will be hollow and distrusted. If those with whom we hope to share the Good News are hungry, poorly clothed, or need shelter, these basic human needs will preclude them from hearing any other message.
In the joke, I wouldn’t say that the priest or the minister start from a place of relationship and trust, but the rabbi (in this case) seems to have just jumped in with the rituals of the Church. If you, say, run a youth ministry effort at your Church, how much time is spent meeting needs and building relationship, and how much time is spent on catechesis, bible study, worship, and the like? It’s likely that the “needs” of those many of us meet are not needs relating to hunger or housing insecurity, but rather needs of relationship: belonging, being understood, sensing one’s own belonging. Said another way, people won’t care what you know until the know you care. This remains true for any of us in the Church – the most missionary, evangelistic this we can do as Church is to let others know we care. Tertullian, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, wrote that the early Christians’ lives of love were so pronounced that others would declare, “See how they love one another.” So may it be for us today.