Community Church Sermons
Third Sunday After Epiphany – January 26, 2003
“A Faith Worth Finding:
GOOD News For A Change!”
Mark 1:14-20
I’m holding in my hands here one of the most powerful devices known to man. And I do mean, MAN. Not manKIND or humankind as a generic form of the word intended to include both men and women. I mean MAN…..MEN, MALES, creatures of the MASCULINE persuasion.
And this most powerful device is…a remote control!
And wouldn’t you agree it’s kind of a guy thing? Why, with the buttons on this keypad, we can control a part of our world! We can turn things off. And we can turn things on. We can make things louder when we want to. And similarly, we can make things softer. We can even mute the minister when he’s talking. Which is why I control the remote and you don’t!
And most importantly, we can change channels!
You know, a well-trained man can watch 14 television shows at once with one of these devices! We can watch football and basketball and hockey and golf. And if we time things just right, we can switch from one game to another, never missing the next play!
And the same goes for news. I don’t know about you, but I love to watch the news, especially now that its on 24-hours a day. I spend a lot of time flipping between CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN International, HEADLINE NEWS, and the FOX News Channel where the reporting is fair and balanced. News twenty-four hours a day! What a world!
But there is a danger, you know. After watching all the news on TV about possible war with Iraq, the slumping economy, the Laci Peterson disappearance, the Beltway sniper, terror alerts, violence on the streets, hunger in the world, political bickering in Washington, and suicide bombers in the Middle East….it’s easy to get depressed! This remote control can open the door to a world that seems overflowing with bad news. Not only do we see and hear video reports about all the darkness out there, but we can even watch the crawl at the bottom of the screen and watch our retirement funds slipping away before our very eyes.
There’s an awful lot of bad news around. And its not just what we see on television. We experience it every time we open our eyes in the morning and wake up to our lives as they are. Loneliness. Loss. Illness. Guilt. Broken friendships. Broken marriages. Broken hearts. There’s a lot of bad news that comes our way every day.
A few years ago, I was stunned to read in the newspaper that children who attend the elementary school I went to as a child now have to pass through a metal detector on their way into school. And on either side of the front door are signs that say in big bold letters, “No Weapons Allowed!” Imagine that? For kindergarten kids through sixth grade! No wonder parents are worried about their children today.
And not only at school, but at church! There are sexual predators among the clergy who prey upon innocent children. And what does the church do? It discards the children and their families, and protects the perpetrators! No wonder so many people have given up on Christianity!
And in the business world – Enron, Global Crossing, Arthur Anderson. Is there any integrity out there? A few days ago, one of our church members was bragging about a son of his who has landed a big job with a major company. But after a few moments of justified boasting, he said – and I think out of personal experience – “Of course, he won’t be with them for long because he knows how stupid it would be to be loyal to an employer who has no loyalty to you.” That kind of cynicism is prevalent in a world where human beings are treated as nothing more than a means to a bottom line. No wonder there are so many consultants today!
All around us today are people who have been beaten up by life – women, children and men. And the bad news they’ve experienced has bruised them to the point where they can’t trust other people. Can’t love other people. Can’t even believe in themselves anymore.
Oh, there’s lots of bad news out there!
Which brings us to our Scripture reading from the Gospel of Mark. Did you hear it? Listen to the opening line:
Isn’t that a remarkable statement? First of all, Jesus went into Galilee – and Galilee means more than just a province in Israel. Galilee is where the people live. Galilee is the world as you and I know it. Galilee is the place where the BAD NEWS touches the lives of real people like you and me every day.
And notice what Jesus brings into this world that is overflowing with BAD NEWS.
And here’s what this Good News is, according to Jesus.
Someone once asked me what I thought the Kingdom of Heaven looks like. And I told them that the Bible gives us a very clear picture all the way from Genesis to Revelation. For Adam and Eve, the Kingdom of Heaven looked like a love great enough to forgive them for their terrible choices, and powerful enough to give them and their children the chance at a future. For childless Abraham and Sara, wandering like refugees through the world, the Kingdom of Heaven was to have a family and a home of their own. For Moses and the Hebrew people held in bitter slavery in Egypt for so many years, the Kingdom of Heaven was to be set free! In the Gospels, the Kingdom of Heaven for lepers and outcasts was to be cleansed and accepted. For the hungry, it was to have food! For the blind, it was to see! For the oppressed, it was to have justice!
And at the Cross, in the face of death itself, the Kingdom of Heaven was the hope of RESURRECTION!
That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like! It is the world as it will be when God’s rule extends everywhere. It is the world of a Love so immense that the bad news cannot prevail, and where the GOOD NEWS wins the day! It is the world of realized dreams. It is the life you dream of for you and your children, and that God dreams for you! It is the light you and God seek in the darkness, the answer you and God seek in your prayer, the healing you and God seek in your illness, the power you and God seek for facing your problem.
And this is why this Christian Faith is so worth finding! Because into a world that confronts us at every corner with BAD NEWS, Jesus steps with an awesome love that promises GOOD NEWS!
Somewhere in close proximity to your problem, is God’s solution. Somewhere in the vicinity of your weakness, there is God’s strength. Somewhere in the neighborhood of your brokenness, there is God’s healing. Somewhere in the midst of your question, is God’s answer!
My experience as a Christian is that God is never far away from my present circumstance even though I sometimes become so overwhelmed with what’s going on in my life that I forget to look. But even then, God sends little signs.
Yesterday, I spoke for a while with one of our church families. For seven-and-half years they have been loving and caring for a grandchild who was born without some of his internal organs. Finally, just a year ago, Nicholas received a multiple organ transplant – a small intestine, liver and pancreas. It was a miracle! For the first time in his life, Nicholas tasted food!
But a few months later, a terribly destructive form of lymphoma appeared. It was not related to the transplants. But it was very serious. The most powerful drugs were used to try to stop it. But to no avail. Little Nicholas died last Friday.
But listen to this. A week or so ago, before he was sedated, Nicholas began seeing things in his hospital room. It was a man – first in one corner, then in another. The man was up at ceiling level, and he was calling Nicholas to come and play. Nicholas asked his parents who the man was, but they couldn’t answer because they could not see him.
In the meantime, one of Nicholas’ aunts was flying to where he was. She fell asleep aboard the plane, and as she slept, she dreamed. And in her dream there was a man on a rope swing calling Nicholas to come and play with other children on the other side – children who were laughing and filled with joy.
As I heard this touching story, I was reminded of Jesus words about little children and their angels who watch over them.
Even though we may not see them sometimes, they are closer than we think!
You see, this God who created you and me loves us so immensely that, in every situation – even when the news is very, very bad – He finds a way to draw near to give us what we need to make it through, and to assure us that all things will be made beautiful in God’s time.
And what do we have to do to connect our lives to that future?
Jesus said, “Turn around, and
believe the Good News!”
Will you notice that Jesus did not say, “Turn around and believe in Reformed theology?” Jesus didn’t say, “Turn around and believe in premillenial, mid-tribulation, dispensational eschatology!” Jesus didn’t even say, “Believe in miracles, or believe in the Bible, or believe in Marty.” Darn it!
Nope. Jesus said, “Turn around and believe the GOOD NEWS!”
Believe the GOOD NEWS that you are loved with an everlasting love! Believe the GOOD NEWS that your life counts for something! Believe the GOOD NEWS that your pain will not be forever, your loss will not be permanent, your failure will not be ultimate, and that your enemies will not triumph over you!
Come and believe the best about yourself! Come and believe good things for your family! Come and dream beautiful dreams for your church, and community and world!
I hope you took some time this week to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. Through the miracle of technology – and a little program called Kazaa – I downloaded a copy of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. And I listened to it.
What an incredible speech!
In the midst of a time when the nation was immersed in a culture of racism expressed through evil policies like “separate but equal”, Dr. King caught a higher vision.
A vision of a changed society. A dream of a society in which little black children one day would sit down at table with little white children, and where men and women would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
And that dream – though not fully realized yet – had a dramatic impact upon American society. And while we are not all the way there, to the place where we are all free at last – free at last – we have come down the road a ways.
Because one man, living in a world of bad news, dared to believe the GOOD NEWS of the Kingdom of God!
What do you believe?
I want to invite you today to come over to God’s side. To leave behind your allegiance to believing the worst about yourself – about others – about the world around us. I want to invite you to come over to the side of Nicholas, and Dr. King, and Abraham and Sara, and Moses, and Ruth, and Mary, and Jesus.
Regardless of what you are going through right now, God is making a promise to you.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”
Come and believe the Good News!
That’s what makes this Christian
journey a faith worth finding!