Grace Episcopal Youth and Friends
Grace Episcopal Church
Paducah, Ky.
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Smile! God Loves You!
Now that's good news...
I thought about getting the sheet music to Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry and listen to Dawn, Barb, Elizabeth and Betty Fassel and company belt out the lyrics, while Judy laid down some funky yet elegant chords and special effects on that new organ of hers, but then thought better of it, and decided that I would just read the words to this hit song of the 80’s :
I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry
Well, I could've been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear, give us dirty laundry
Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em all around
We got the bubble-headed bleach-blonde, comes on at 5
She can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry
Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
You know the boys in the newsroom got a running bet
Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry
Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're downKick ‘em when they’re up, kick ‘em all around.
Ah, the news. We all want it. But the price our peace of mind pays is often steep. Just ask Donna how it affects me when I watch the NBC nightly drama – er, uh, NBC Nightly News. I always try and make sure to hold nothing heavier than a crumpled napkin in my hand lest the TV take a nasty spill, as I watch Brian Williams tell us what’s happening and why.
Watching, reading and listening to the news media fascinates me.
I am constantly trying to figure out just why some items are news.
As the word implies, news, good, bad or otherwise, is something out of the ordinary, beyond the norm. It is something new, even if it is just new to that day’s sequence of events.
Donna Groves, of Bristol Broadcasting and West Ky Star.com fame, and who is currently looking at me and deciding whether or not to continue in this relationship, shared with me one of the measuring rods that journalists use when determining a particular event’s newsworthiness:
Dog bites man is not news.
Man bites dog is news.
Simple as that may sound, that analogy helped to explain why some stories, dreary as they may be, are included in the daily news. People are not concerned with the dog biting the man; that is to be expected, that is the staus quo. That’s what some dogs do, at least under the right circumstances or when the right bicycle goes by.
But when man bites dog, the tables are turned, the unexpected must be explained or at least spotlighted, as we attempt to fit this news, this new information into our reality.
And sometimes it seems that this is the only game in town, the only new information we have to share is that of the morbidly unexpected, and sometimes it seems that in our reality dogs no longer bite, and the only changes in the day’s sequence of events revolve around tales of trusted elders becoming liars, respected leaders committing petty acts of self centeredness, and their victims are more and more often those who have the most to lose as such.
And even in our daily interaction with one another, we are too many times far more zealous in sharing a story of another’s fall than spreading the news of their ascent, although both would qualify as news. Perhaps in telling the story of another’s demise we get a validation of our own judgments and decisions; after all, we aren’t doing that. But in all truthfulness, those of us who aren’t spiritually bankrupt are at best living from payday to payday, and should preface our remarks of another’s misfortune, should we find ourselves in a position of having to speak of it with but for the grace of God, there go I.
Which brings us to the Good News that Jesus is speaking of in our Gospel Lesson today. Actually, speaking is not a very good translation of the text here. This Good News we read of today wasn’t simply said by Jesus as was recorded here – the verb used would be better translated to our word proclaimed. It was an announcement of great significance, eagerly and urgently shared with others. But what could be of such significance and urgency so as to be delivered by God himself who then gives us the responsibility of sharing this good news with others? What could cause average ordinary fishermen to, after a brief conversation with a stranger, put down the tools of their professions leaving not just their comfort zones as we like to boast about, but leaving their towns, their friends, and in some cases their families?
In researching this subject matter last week, I thought I would plug Good News into the almighty Google and see what ideas turned up. The top entry was a website called the Good News Network, featuring its top headlines of good news:
Julie Leven Brings classical music to homeless shelters in Boston.
Virginia GOP moves to scrap loyalty oath as requirement for primary voters.
And finally there was a headline about a transplant nurse giving one of her own kidneys to a patient.
All of these were indeed very good news. And so I clicked on the read more tab to learn the details of the good news for Boston’s homeless, Virgina’s Republicans, and a kid with a bum kidney, to which I could relate on a personal level, but it was then that I discovered that learning more about this good news was gonna cost me $24 a month, and I now had my first clue in helping us to define this Good News that Jesus proclaimed, namely that it is free.
I received some good news this week courtesy of the good people at Dr. Ransler’s office. For the first time in years, I have no visible stones in either kidney. Now I would like to have received even better news, that I would remain free of kidney stones, but statically speaking I know that to be not very likely, and so I took what I can get. But I now had yet another revelation about the Good News, the God-Spel proclaimed by Jesus: it is not temporal, but eternal. It is news that will last us a lifetime.
Nutshelled, the Good News is found in the life of Jesus himself. A cursory definition could be that it is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, in which lies the power of salvation for all, which is simply the power that comes from knowing that your life and purpose is grounded in the truth of God:
The truth of God as laid out in the example of Jesus’ life and teaching;
as demonstrated by his healing of both body and soul;
the truth of God as revealed through the discipline of prayer;
and the truth of God’s power in the art of forgiveness.
But such an awesome God who brings such wonderful news, this God must surely have some sort of plan, some sort of package, a contract to be signed, or at least a fee of $24 a month to benefit from this news, we seemed have reasoned over the years. And so defining this truth has tended to be centered around a series of steps, an understanding of specific theological principles, or the paying of a price, a waived initiation fee into the eternal salvation club.
And who am I to say that there is not some truth to all of these?
Like Rick Warren’s thoughts on the Good News:
...that when we trust God’s grace to save us through the work of Jesus, our sins are forgiven, we get a purpose for living, and we’re promised a future home in Heaven.
The “promise of the future home in heaven” makes it sounds a bit like a sweepstakes, but other than that I’m good with that.
Then there was the commentary on the Good News found in the opening sentences of an internet Bible Course:
…the Gospel” is the sum total of the saving truth as God has communicated it to lost humanity as it is revealed in the person of His Son and in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. If you aren’t sure whether or not you are God’s child, you might want to read God’s Plan of Salvation before you read on in this lesson.
Which sounds an awful lot like don’t waste your time or ours. Check and see if you are God’s child before proceeding to page two.
The truth is, we can attach all kinds of theological concepts and dogmas to the Good News, we can devise all types of plans and formulate all kinds of steps to be taken to obtain the Good News, we can conjure up all sorts of requirements and prerequisites, but it’s all so much simpler than that.
In today’s high school/adult CF offering, we are watching another episode of the animated series God, the Devil, and Bob. In this episode, God tells Bob that he wants him to put up a billboard on the side of a very busy highway in his town.
“So what do you want it to say? Something about the Apocalypse?” asks Bob.
“No. I just want it to say smile”, replies God.
That is the Good News we have been given, and the Good News that we are to share with others. That it’s OK to smile.
When you boil it all down, the Good News is that God loves us, and there is nothing that we can do about it.
And what better news could there be other than God of the universe loves you; that God is in love with you. Believing this, knowing this, is the best predictor of whether one will be happy, successful, loving, and wise is this life.
The Good News is that it’s gonna be OK. Put down the gun, put the pills back in the bottle, come in off the ledge, it’s gonna be OK. St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that if God is for us, who can be against us?
The Good News is that all of our good deeds, all of our nice ways, all of our fairness, though not without merit, are not going to be the thing that get us in with God. Conversely, the Good News is that none of our misdoings, none of our bad decisions, not one of the things we have done that we now regret will be enough to keep us from experiencing God’s grace.
Repent and believe the Good News, Jesus says. Change your mind, and accept the gift of God.
What could be better news in a nation in which almost 60 percent of people are unhappy with the means they have chosen to make a living; what could be better news for a nation in which the number of 5-13 year olds admitted to psychiatric hospitals has risen almost 80 percent and the number of older teens by 42 percent?
The Good News is that God’s grace does not require that we be perfect in keeping the law, but rather, God embraces our humanity and all the baggage that comes with it, and we are now free to do the same. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, feeling our sorrows, knowing our pain, dying our death.
God extends a hand containing the gift of right relationship with him, and the Good News is that because of Jesus all we need do is accept it.
Change your mind, and accept it. Life will go on, and it will be bigger and better than ever before, it will be abundant life.
Perhaps we can understand it even better this way:
In some of the strongest years of the Roman Empire, whenever agents of Caesar would conquer a new land, forcing its inhabitants at first by force, then by exerting political and economic power over them, there would go out a decree to all the people in the land announcing the decisive victory by the Roman Army, an implied warning of what might happen should the people attempt to throw off their new overlords. News of the Roman might and superiority would spread throughout the area, effectively discouraging future resistance should the Romans come knocking at the door of your town. This decree was known as a Euangelion. The words we know as Gospel or Good News in Greek is the word Euangelion. It was the God-Spel, the Good News, in this case the Good News of yet another brutal invasion of a foreign land by the Roman Caesar, and in celebration of this decree those who accepted the will of Caesar would greet one another with the phrase, Caesar is Lord.
But the early Christian community would soon take this concept of the Euangelion and it would be redefined as a decree of Good News not of the conquering military tactics of a Roman dictator, but that of a man who taught about love, forgiveness, and bearing one another’s burden’s and always seeking to esteem others as greater than yourself. The Euangelion of this man announced the invasion of a King and the ushering in of a Kingdom but it was one in which the poor were comforted rather than exploited, and people were influenced, conquered if you will, not by the flaming arrows of a Roman archer but by the gentle persuasive words of a homeless man saying come unto me all ye who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. The Euangelion, from which we get the word evangelical, despite the earlier Roman connotation, was spread throughout the land by people who spoke of a an invisible Kingdom in which there were no tenants and farmers, not even Jew and Greek for the same Lord was rich unto all. These people greeted one another with the phrase, Jesus is Lord, and inside the visible Kingdom, many of them sold all their possessions and pooled their resources so that not one was entirely dependent on the terribly unjust system of farmers and landowners and not much in between.
The same invitation is extended today. The Roman Empire is long gone, but we are invaded every day by forces seeking to devour our soul and spirit, and people are not happy and are so desperately crying out for some sense of meaning and purpose in their lives in which they cannot seem to find rest. You can see it in their faces on the street; you can see it in the sad eyes of the lady in the car next to you, on the way home from work at rush hour, you can read about it in the Facebook statuses of many of your friends who seem to have given up all hope than anything can go right anymore. You can feel the desperation as many seek to find the right car the right house the right college the right boyfriend the right girlfriend all with the expectation that this will be the thing that does it, this will be the living water after which they will thirst no more.
The Good News is that we can come to him, just as we are, and he will give us rest.
The Good News is that God came down incarnate in Jesus, came to re-connect with us God, and to reconnect us with ourselves and with one another. And what he has done for us, he calls us to share with others. Jesus has called us to go fishing for people!
The Good News is that God loves us. And, as one man has said, he loves us for who we are, and way too much to let us stay that way.
And this, we shall soon see, is only the beginning.
Peaceout.
Stefan
A President boldly lies to an entire nation about a sexual indiscretion.
A police officer is arrested for driving under the influence.
A physician kills patients under the guise of healing, in order to collect money from the wills of the elderly victims.
A priest molests a young child.
All examples of man bites dog.
