We don’t talk much about faith-sharing in the Presbyterian Church. In fact, we as Presbyterians so downplay our role for telling the story that we claim shapes our lives together. The other aspects of our church life get much greater attention. We are avid students of our faith, known for biblical scholarship and theological depth. We educate our children fairly well and have great Youth Summit type events. We are strong in mission and have one of the best ongoing financial investment portfolios of any denomination out there. But when it comes to evangelism, we treat it as an afterthought. Sadly, in a day of scandalous evangelism, we seem to have an unintentional pride in our weakness in that part of our ministry.

But at the very same time, we wonder, as the Presbyterian Church USA – why aren’t we growing? They are obviously wondering the same thing in Canada. In coming across an article in the “Presbyterian Record” which is the “Presbyterians Today” of the Canadian church, I came across an article by John-Peter Smit, a congregational development consultant north of our borders. His writing sounded an awful lot like what I read in the books and magazines that come across my desk. It was called “Taking Pains to Grow.” In his opening he said that he consistently comes across the same three statements as he works with the churches in his Synod. The congregants are saying to him both, “I am sure God has a plan for my church.” And, “I'm pretty sure what we're doing isn't it.” The third line that he calls the punch-line is what he hears people over and over again saying to him in one-on-one sessions. Even from small membership churches where everybody knows everybody, they tell him, “And I’m the only one who feels that way.”

It was in that same article that he said, “If you’re gonna be selling soap, you’ve got to take a bath.” When we as members of the church of Jesus Christ are “hush hush” about what Jesus has done in our lives but still want people to join us in the Christian endeavor, it’s as though we’re selling soap with a week’s worth of dirt under our fingernails and grease in our hair. Who will take us seriously – even if we can do other great things like education, and mission, and financial investing – when we are not saying so much as a word about what any of it has to do with following Jesus? Smit claims that our passion, our being “awake” as a church has to do with the vitality that comes with telling the story, our stories, and connecting them with God’s story.

Diana Butler-Bass has also found a connection between “alive” churches and their ability to testify – to tell the greater stories of their faith. It can be transforming to a church to hear, not only from the pastor, but from people “just like me” who have a story to tell about their encounter with the living Christ. It can help us go deeper than the superficial realities that close us off from any real risk in getting to know and love our neighbors. On the one hand, in so many places we are told not to get involved. We keep a fair amount of distance between the rungs of the corporate ladder. We don’t want to hear the cashier’s life story when we’re getting our groceries. But in other contexts we fuse to other people through emotional manipulation to get what we want. What I truly believe is that we are hungry for authentic, two-way relationships and we don’t always know how to negotiate that kind of honesty and vulnerability, not even at church.

The account of the “Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” in John’s gospel is a story that connects us to this truth that our faith stories must be told. This version lines up a bit differently from the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke which are the texts most frequently read on Palm Sunday. John has the crowd waving palms and shouting Hosannas just like the others, but he goes to the next step in making his connections. All of the writers are writing after Jesus’ death, Jesus’ glorification, as John puts it – but it is the gospel writer John who acknowledges the “aha” moment. It is after they know, I mean really know, that Jesus has triumphed over the grave that they can say with clarity and certainty that this is the one and only spiritual leader to follow. It is in that recognition that they see that the one who rode in on the donkey is the one preordained to ride into Jerusalem on that donkey. He is not only the one who raised Lazarus from the dead, but also the one who triumphed over death for all eternity. They raise their Hosannas at the moment, but it’s in the telling and re-telling of the story that the true praise begins. This Jesus becomes so attractive that his critics can only say, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

If we choose to be a spiritually vibrant congregation even in the midst of a declining denomination, we perhaps will “wake up to the Word,” as Lillian Daniel describes it happening at Redeemer Lutheran Church where she is the pastor. She says, “Over and over again, people told me that testimony was opening up our church, not only creating excitement in worship, but in the coffee hour discussions as well. We were making new friends, hearing new stories of faith, being woken up by the Word.” (Alban Institute, “Speak the Vision” by Lillian Daniel) One of her parishioners likens it to the palms of welcome being placed before Jesus. The words of openness and trust in that community led to him being able to share his faith in ways he didn’t believe possible in other churches.

We have a fantastic opportunity to wake up to the Word as we follow our Belize mission team. They will be writing home on the church website, and they will be eager to share their stories upon their return. We can learn from that. It doesn’t take a trip outside the country for us to talk about what Jesus is doing in our lives, because the Spirit of God is alive and working in us now. God has a purpose for our church. We can begin to explore what that means together in trust and in love. Instead of assuming that everyone else is satisfied with the status quo, we can begin to nudge at just what it is that God is doing with each of us and with all of us.

I encourage you to listen deeply to the fellow pilgrims you find along the way, the ones who have traveled far and the ones who have journeyed not far from home, the one who tell a similar story and the ones whose stories are remarkably different, the ones who sit next to you in church and the ones you may not find in church. Our stories are what take Jesus into the whole wide world. Those who experienced him told and retold what had happened and no longer could the holy be contained. Let it loose. Wake up. Be alive and on fire with the good news. I know that you’ve been told it’s not who we are. It is who we can become. Remember, “If you’re gonna sell soap, you’ve got to take a bath.” If we are Jesus’ followers, the story we tell is the story of Jesus working in our lives.

Amen.