Today we remember in the Common of Lesser Feasts and Fasts Ephrem of Edessa (died 373).
Ephrem was a deacon of the church who was instrumental in the spread of the Gospel in Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) in the 4th Century. Ephrem was a man of letters. He wrote commentaries, poetry, homilies and hymns. He was fluent in the language of the people, make no mistake. He was also fluent in the language of God, namely that of the heart.
Ephrem had a great clarity about the nature and power of the Gospel and was able to communicate effectively to folks from many different segments of his society.
Despite dressing in a ‘cloak of patches sewn together’ his eccentric appearance was coupled with an engaging personality that encountered the people where they were. His efforts to set the story of God in Christ to music was effective in helping folks ‘sing their way to faith’ as Sam Portaro puts it in Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
Perhaps it is simplistic, but it seems to me that Ephrem’s ‘Mission strategy’ for evangelization was to go around, get along, listen and learn about God’s people. Too often today it seems that the goal of Outreach, Mission and Evanglism is to get people to ‘come around’ to our way of thinking, doing things and behaving.
Ephrem’s life and witness was about taking the world as it comes and trusting in the power of the Gospel and the Grace of God to be about the work of transformation. It seems to me that we’d do well to imitate that sort of posture.
If we enter whatever mssionary endeavors we undertake from a posture of relative superiority we sell the Gospel and Grace short. When I’ve been on ‘Mission’ trips and encountered the other with a beginner’s mind I find myself receiving at least as much as I imagined giving. The power of the Gospel is transformational to the teller as well as the hearer.
In the spirit of Ephrem of Edessa, may we and all of God’s people be willing to listen as much as we speak, to be changed as much as we seek to change others and to be fed as much as we seek to feed others, in spirit and mind as well as our bodies.
