“He first found his brother, Simon. . And he brought him to Jesus.”

(John 1:41,42)

Most of us Presbyterians have an uneasy conscience about our failure to witness effectively to our Christian faith. We know Christ’s “Great Commission” — his last command to his disciples: “Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all people in all nations.” But we Presbyterians — ministers, missionaries, rank and file church members — all of us are overwhelmed by a depressing sense of shame because of our failure to win others to Christ.

Many years ago I attended a meeting of the Presbyterian World Alliance in San Paulo, Brazil. I sailed out of New Orleans on an ocean liner bound for the port of Rio de Janeiro. Ours was a pleasant cruise of nine days during which we enjoyed meeting interesting people and engaging in stimulating conversation with many passengers: some, like our family were headed for the worldwide Presbyterian convention, others on business trips to South American countries, and some were just taking a leisurely ocean cruise.

One morning I passed in front of the deck chairs where two fellow passengers I had gotten to know were engaged in earnest conversation: one a Presbyterian elder from California and the other, a retired Jewish lawyer from Miami. The Jewish lawyer spoke to me as I passed: “I want to have a talk with you. When can we get together?” “Anytime,” I replied: “I have been eager to visit with you.”

Whereupon the Presbyterian elder from California put in: “Now who’s going to convert who?” There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Both the Jewish lawyer and I immediately protested our non-propagandizing intentions on each other, and I went onto the sun deck, leaving the Jewish lawyer and the Presbyterian elder to their discussions.

But as I lay in the sun the words kept ringing in my ears: “Who’s going to convert who?” Of course, it was just a remark made in jest, but should it not stir up serious thought? All sorts of disturbing questions rose rapidly in my mind: “Are not all of us Christians chosen by Christ and commissioned by Him to be His witnesses to the world? And unless we bear our testimony of faith to the individuals in the circle of our acquaintance, how can His Kingdom come? And yet, how far can one go and not run the risk of making a nuisance of himself and a cheap thing of his faith in his witnessing? Where does lethargy leave off and becoming a busy-body begin?”

Yes, that Presbyterian elder from California raised a question for me which is really the question par excellence for all of us Presbyterians: “Who’s converting who?” The question not only sets squarely before us the first and last duty of every disciple to be a witness to Christ, but it also reminds us that if we are not a positive power for converting a lost world, the world may be converting us. When two storage batteries are connected — one fully charged and the other dead, the flow of current will be from the charged battery into the exhausted one, until the current is equalized. If the salt has lost its savor, where will it get its flavor and its preserving power to prevent decay? If the Christian is not converting the world, there is a strong possibility that the world is converting the Christian.

Dr. Louis Evans, a Presbyterian pastor, reminded us in his book on Life’s Hidden Power that: “the Japanese are able to stunt a tree so that it can be kept in a pot in the parlor, simply by tying off the tap root and forcing the plant to live on the surface nourishment from the surface roots.” How many of us now are allowing the values and the allurements of a lost world so to convert the manner of our daily life^ that the tap root of our spiritual life is cut, and we subsist on the surface nourishment of a superficial existence on material things and the perverted values of these decadent times, and hence develop into mere dwarfs in comparison with the spiritual giants God intends us to be?

A little boy from Montgomery, Alabama, was visiting his grandmother in the nearby small town of Pine Hill, Alabama. He complained to her that his older sister had slapped him. “Well, what had you done to your sister?” “Nothing, she just slapped me.” “Well, don’t you know that God says that when we get slapped instead of getting mad, we should just turn the other cheek?” “Did God say that?” asked the surprised little boy? “Yes, he did,” replied the grandmother. “Well,” came the calculated response from the grandson: “God may have said that in Pine Hill, but he didn’t say that in Montgomery.”

The Presbyterian church today is not doing its part in converting the world largely because we ministers and laymen and laywomen act as if we really believe that though God has spoken his word of truth in the Bible and in the church, he hasn’t said the same thing in the business world, and in the political arena, and in the social sphere, and in race relations, and in college class rooms, and on the dance floor.  And our mouths have been stopped and our actions are not in line with that same clear word in the world as it is spoken in the church and in the Bible.

So it is that you and I have the crucial role in making religion real, or in short-circuiting the whole business.  “Who’s converting who?”

After raising the questions: “Who’s converting who?” I’d like to suggest that we focus our attention on one of Jesus’ disciples mentioned in our scripture lesson this morning: Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. We don’t know much about Andrew.  There is very little in the gospels about him, but every time the scriptures draw the curtains of obscurity and give us a peep at him, we see Andrew doing the same thing — bringing people to Jesus.

The first time we see Andrew he was just being introduced to Jesus, and the gospel writer records that Andrew “first finds his own brother, Simon — and brings him to Jesus.” The next time we are given a glimpse of Andrew, he is bringing a small lad who had a meager lunch to Jesus. Finally, the record says that when the delegation of Greeks came saying: “Sirs, we would see Jesus,” it was Andrew who ushered them into his presence.

No wonder Andrew has been chosen the patron saint of the Scottish church! We should make him the patron saint of all our Presbyterian congregations. He was always bringing men and women, boys and girls, kinfolk and strangers to Jesus.

Arthur John Gossip says that Andrew possibly was a very mediocre personality. Jesus did not select him to be one of the inner circle of three whom he took with him on special occasions — Peter, James and John.  The gospels do not picture Andrew prominently in the Galilean or the Judean ministry. Just these three times is he mentioned at all, and he is always doing the same routine thing, bringing others to Christ. And yet, through them, Andrew is at second hand effecting mighty things for Christ, which but for Andrew might not have been done at all. “Peter was our Lord’s closest friend, and it was Andrew who gave Christ that signal gift. And it was to Andrew that the lad shyly brought his poor little package of food; and Andrew who, somewhat shyly, too, brought him and his inadequate offering to Christ (and made possible the feeding of the great multitude of five thousand people). And when the Greeks, wishing to see Jesus, came to Philip, the latter felt that this was Andrew’s job, and the man who would most wisely deal with the situation. (So Andrew brought the first of the millions upon millions of the gentile nations who were later to crowd to Christ.) So simple folk with no particular gifts of their own can do wonderful things for Christ through those they influence. It was a certain black friar who first turned the face of John Knox to the light; and in the books of God all the achievements of that indomitable soul are credited to a man not one in a million now remembers. There was a dispirited minister in a tiny country parish where the population and the church attendance had dwindled to nothingness, and the Bible class was no class at all; yet, it was in it one night that a little lad gave himself to Christ’s service; an August service, for he was Chalmers of New Guinea.”  (Interpreters’ Bible – Arthur John Gossip on Text)

Now of course, this does not mean that Andrew was devoid of imagination, or that he had no struggle with himself and others, or that there was no testing of his skill and wisdom in doing the same old thing by rote — bringing people to Christ. Oh, no!

Simon Peter was a complex character. It might well have taken keen insight and consummate tact to hook the Big Fisherman into giving Christ his first hearing. And besides, there was the extra difficulty — Peter was Andrew’s brother, of his family and household. Here is where most of us fail most terribly. The whole point of Matthew Arnold’s poem, Rugby Chapel, is that the glory of his father was that he could not be content with his own personal salvation while others around him were perishing in the storm, but took his life in his hand and spent it unreckoningly in an eager effort to bring others (his own family, and the boys in his school where he was headmaster) along with him to God.  (A. G. Gossip — Ibid.)

And who knows but that Andrew may have found some difficulty in overcoming a spite of selfishness in that lad with the loaves and fishes. After all, the boy was hungry (aren’t all boys always hungry?) and it was the lad’s lunch. But Andrew found out how to overcome that.

But the Greeks were eager seekers, already headed for Jesus. Surely this was a soft touch. But again, Andrew’s task was not inconsequential. He could have been inhospitable. He might have said to those strangers, “Go away. Can’t you see he’s busy now? Besides, you are Greeks and not Jews as we are. Your racial lineage and cultural patterns are not compatible with us and our convictions of who should receive the good news and salvation of this gospel.”

What did Andrew, the average disciple, have above everything else that made him effective in bringing others to Christ? Someone has suggested that it was his indomitable mood of expectancy. He persevered in keeping an optimistic attitude toward the infinite possibilities of what Christ could do with anyone, everyone, brought to him, if only he, Andrew, did what he could. Isn’t our lack of that optimistic expectancy what most chills our efforts in bringing people to Christ?

“Oh, what hope is there for old so and so — such a temper! And, Bill, why he’s so case hardened in his attitude about the church that nothing can break that crust. And, then there’s Sarah, why she has lived so in the routine of her social whirl that she would laugh to scorn an invitation to a life that would change any of that.” Isn’t it our little faith, our lack of hopeful expectancy of the possible wonders Christ can work in human lives today, which dampens our enthusiasm about bringing others to him?

Well, I dare you to a contest this week. I dare you first to make an honest survey of your own life using as your yard stick of investigation this one question: “Who’s converting who?” and truthfully record in your own conscience what you find — whether you are slipping more and more toward the pagan values of a lost world or are being drawn closer and closer to the righteousness and love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ.

Second, I dare you to try in whatever way is natural and reasonable to you, to follow the simple example of Andrew, and bring with you someone to Christ. I say this week because a letter from our Rosemark Church Session has just been mailed to newcomers in and around this church’s location inviting newcomers in our area to worship with us. I challenge you to be here next Sunday, and to urge members of our congregation who are not present here today to come with you next Sunday, bringing an attitude of expectancy to greet cordially any who respond to our session’s written word of welcome. Next Sunday could be a red-letter day for all of us in developing an Andrew attitude for bringing others to Christ.