Our Good News: The Kingdom of God
Mark 1:14-15
Well, I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: Being a parish minister is
matter of sheer marketing. You can’t give your people that which comforts and
consoles them without also giving them that which challenges and charges them. The
key is knowing at which point you blow it …
The last two weeks have been challenging and full of difficult charges. At least
the scripture readings and sermon messages have been, but I hope that you have
found your lives challenged as well because of the scripture readings and sermon
messages. As you’ve listened closely to Matthew, chapter 4 and Psalm 62 and “sought
your own lakeshores,” trusting in “God alone, I hope you’ve felt challenged. But this
past week I picked up the “point at which I might blow it” on my radar. The point at
which the balance shifts from challenge to chore and you all “tune me out.”
Two weeks ago, you remember we spoke of lakeshores. I put together a bit of
historical information that set, not just the context or background for Jesus ministry, but
the “matrix,” the three-dimensional world, that Jesus grew up in and began his ministry
in. The reason that Jesus, in all four Gospels, leaves his home town of Nazareth to
“make his home in Capernaum by the Sea” Mt. 4:13 is that this is precisely where he
needed to be in the first third of the first century CE – with the poor, over taxed,
underpaid, exploited peasant fishermen and their families. After the history came the
questions for our time: Where are the lakeshores in our world? And why aren’t we
walking on them?
…
I visited Ted Merhoff the next day, Monday. He had just moved from the hospital
to Oaklawn rehab. Just before noon on Monday I stopped by to catch up and pray with
him. Ann was there, as well, and they mentioned that they were sorry to miss church
and looked forward to reading or hearing the sermon off the website. I told them that
both audio and transcript were up already and they should do that when they needed a
good nap later in the day. “That’s not what I heard,” Ann noted.
I asked her what she meant and she told me that Brad and Betsy, and the kids –
Andrew and Riley, had stopped by after church the day before and when Ann asked
how the service went and how the sermon was, Brad said, “He was mean this morning!”
(I laughed, too!) And I told Ann that I did ask the questions – Where are the
lakeshores in your world? And, why aren’t you walking on them? – four times in a few
short paragraphs at the end of the message. Perhaps I should have stopped at three.
Close to the point … !
Last week, then … do you remember last week? God alone, God alone, God
alone, God alone! Not the “war and violence, wealth and prosperity, isolationism, willful
ignorance, or deceit” gods of our headline news, but our God (capital “G”). Our “rock
and salvation, our fortress and our refuge.” The propensity for violence that “feels so
good” in Monday’s headlines, the desire for money that “can get us so much” in
Tuesday’s headlines, our elevation of individuality over community, the willful ignorance,
and the cheating in order to come out on top in Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday’s
headlines are the gods of a broken and fearful world, I suggested, not the living God
revealed in the life and love of our Christ. Our headline news so often contain the
“profound, persuasive and pervasive lies” that we so easily give our loyalties to.
After the service week, Matt told me he was going to get me a subscription to
another newspaper! Later that day, Ed emailed me a number of news items that
recorded the compassion, love, joy, and hope in the actions of men and women around
the world and in creation itself. So I was reminded again …
Close to the point … reproaches and rebukes, challenges and charges without
also comfort and affirmation … ??
So … this week, as I prepared not just for this sermon message, but for the
beginning of our historic Sunday morning study together (oh, if you missed it, come next
week, it’s not too late!), as I prepared for both I found the comfort that I use once again
to balance the scales of the parish minister. In the words of our gospel we are
reminded again of … Well, hear it for yourself. Listen for the word of God … Read Mark
1:14-15 … the Word of the Lord … Thanks be to God.
There you go. There we go. Our words of comfort. In two short verses found, in
one way or another, in all of our Gospel “according to’s.” Words of promise and hope
and comfort and joy. Good news this week! Verse fifteen in Mark’s first chapter (along
with verse seventeen in Matthew’s fourth chapter and verse twenty-one in Luke’s),
these verses are our Gospel-good news in a nutshell. They are our comfort and our
challenge, but our comfort first. Did you hear it?
A few weeks ago, we learned where and why he began his ministry by the sea,
on the lakeshores of Galilee. This morning we are reminded what he preached and
taught and modeled. We are reminded what the Good News of Jesus Christ was to the
people in first century Palestine and what it still is to people, to us, in the twenty-first
century. Anyone …?
The Kingdom of God has come near, or “is at hand!” Luke’s gospel announces,
“In fact, the Kingdom of God is among you.” That’s the good news of Jesus Christ. The
forgiveness of our “sin,” our reconciliation with creation and Creator – one another and
God, the salvation of our souls, the resurrection of our lives, are all part of this “Good
News,” the Kingdom of God that, Jesus proclaims, “Is here, at hand, among us.” That is
our comfort. On all the lakeshores of our world, behind all the headlines of our
newspapers, planted more deeply than all that is wrong, or evil, or sorrowful in our lives
and our world is the Good News of Jesus Christ: The Kingdom of God is here … on
earth, within us, among us, far beyond us, but in the world.
This teaching, this ministry of Jesus of Nazareth was different from any prophet’s
message or ministry that came before him, different even from his cousin John’s
message. (I dare say, that Jesus’ own message and ministry was different even than
that of the church that gathered in his very name by the fourth or fifth century and
remains different today. But that’s a history lesson and a sermon for another time.) IN
Jesus’ time, you see, in the words and warnings of the “apocalyptic prophets” of Jewish
expectations the Advent of God was always in the future. “Imminent,” John said,
“soon.” But still “not yet.” Not so for the one we call Christ.
Now I don’t want to be too hard on John or others who were surely fully convicted
of the very real need for the Empires of the world to do justice and live righteously, but
you can say “the Kingdom of God is coming” for as long as you want. In fact, the
Jewish prophets of old had been saying it for quite some time! In further fact, countless
Christian “prophets” have been prophestying the imminent Second Coming for the last
two-thousand years. But to say “the Kingdom of God is here?!” That’s something else
altogether. It’s a “paradigm shift within Jewish … expectation,” Dom Crossan writes.
From “an imminent arrival” to a “present reality.” That’s the good news of Jesus Christ:
God is here … with us … now. That is our comfort.
To be sure this good news is not a comfort for all. It wasn’t a comfort to the
Roman Empire or to the privileged elite of the first century, including the Jewish
aristocracy. If the Kingdom of God is here, then what does that mean about the
Kingdoms of this world? What implications, what allegations, does such a profession
place on anyone, anyone of us, who doesn’t live with compassion for all? Who doesn’t
turn the other cheek? Who doesn’t pray for those who persecute him? Who doesn’t
love her enemies?
Ah, but that’s back to a “challenge!” Time enough for that later. This morning,
we’re balancing – comfort and good news. The same newspapers and television news
shows I used last week include “Kingdom” news, too. They may not make the
headlines as often or in as big a print, but they are there:
Thirty-three percent of trash is recycled / 92%of U.S. drinking water is clean /
teenage pregnancy has been reduced by 44% since 1999 / U.S. unemployment
has dropped by 5.9% / smoking among high school students is 15.7 % – a record
low / since 1975 the survival rate of cancer patients has increased rom 50% to
68% / four states have voted to raise the minimum wage / every four minutes a
building in the United States begins using solar power / young people are more
likely to volunteer and give back more than at any other time in history / fifty
thousand flights take off and land safely every day / new drugs and cures for
illnesses are begin developed each day / and most importantly, seven billion
people continue to live in this world.
They may not make the headlines as often or in as big a print, but they are there.
And so is … the Kingdom of God. Here in our midst. The perfect reminder of
that is before us every month, and then some, in our Communion table. The perfect
reminder of who Jesus was, what he taught, how he lived, and how his Way continues
to live in us. We will gather around and share in the feast in a few moments, promising
once again to remember. For as often as we eat this bread and drink from his cup, we
too proclaim the Kingdom of God on earth … as it is in heaven.
Let us sing, profess our faith, offer our lives, and gather for the joyous feast of the
Kingdom of God.
Amen.
Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor
Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / February 1, 2015