It’s Right There! Quick! Grab it!

So what is this gospel we say is so important?

We have this incredible gospel that we are called to proclaim to the world.  It is the greatest good news ever!  We have it, and we need to proclaim it.   The question for us is this: "How are we to speak of this news so the world will receive it?” 

Sometimes, it seems like people aren’t listening.   But we really are describing the best good news there could be.  So why don’t people get it?  Are we saying that people don’t care? 

Maybe.  Sometimes, though, it seems like we are afraid to really speak out—to really proclaim it like something that really matters.  We preach sermons to the faithful in our sanctuaries on Sunday all right, but when that approach has little impact in the world we generally don’t change our tactics.  We are not very bold, really.  So what’s the problem? 

Is it fear?  Are we, the bearers of the greatest good news ever, too afraid to really try?

Actually, there are reasons for fear.

Persecution against Christians is up across the whole world. Yesterday, NPR reported that the persecution against Christians is so strong in Syria that Christianity itself is dying out there.  Christians have been unwilling to face the persecution, and even death, that is so prevalent there.  Those who do not have a strong faith are leaving the faith.  And Syria is only one example.  Across the world fundamentalists of other faiths (Islam to a large degree, but be sure to look for headlines about Hindus in India, too) are punishing Christians just for being Christians.  I can understand the fear faced by our brothers and sisters of the faith.

At home, religion in general is under attack, including Christianity.  Fundamentalist Christians are sometimes so interested in standing for what is holy that they forget that God is love.  Their failure to proclaim the love of God has given Christianity a bad name, insinuating that we serve a hating vengeful God, rather than the God proclaimed in the Scriptures.  The Scriptures forthrightly tell us that God is love (1 John 4:8).  Those of us, who know God’s love and wish to stand out against those fundamentalists, find it very difficult.  We tend to be painted with the same brush.  Polls show that many unchurched people believe that Christians are full of judgment and teach judgmentalism and hate, and they even think that we believe in a vengeful God, full of wrath.  It is downright disheartening.

In fact it is so disheartening that many are leaving the church.  Many are leaving because they do not wish to be associated with a group that has the reputation of trading love for judgment and hate.  Others are leaving because their churches, not wanting to be hateful or judgmental, have toned down their proclamation of the gospel.  It is almost like the agents of Love—Who is God—have forgotten what is so important about the gospel of Jesus Christ that we would bother to proclaim it at all.

Is that what we are afraid of?  Maybe.

These people who are leaving our North American churches and bad-mouthing the ones, who remain are not some vague “other people” we have never heard of.  They are our friends, and all too often, they are our family.  It hurts when they leave.  And it hurts when they tell us how bad Christians are, because we are those Christians they have known.  When they bad-mouth “those Christians,” we are the ones feeling the sting of their arrows.  It hurts, and we don’t want to attack them back, because we really do wish to stand for the incredible, forgiving and healing love that is possible in the world.  (Indeed, this is one of the way we experience God in the world.) Even so, small human creatures that we are, it is tempting for some of us to just lick our wounds and go hide.  For others it is tempting to go on the attack and tell the world how terrible it is for hurting us and for turning their back on God.

But we can’t. We actually have the greatest good news ever, and it comes to us from God, Who is Love! 

The time has come for us to take Jesus at his word.  Remember that Jesus, time after time, greeted his disciples with these words: “Do not be afraid.”  We need to take courage and proclaim Jesus’ gospel without fear, because the gospel is that important and it is that powerful.  Just because we have failed to communicate it, or have failed to grasp it enough to live it very well in the past, doesn’t matter.  Right now it is time to stand up and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So what is this gospel that we say is so important?

The Gospel of Mark gives so many accounts of Jesus’ teachings and healings, and of his saving work on the cross.  But that same gospel begins with this one verse as a thumbnail summary of Jesus’ message.  Listen to Mark 1:15:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe

in the good news.”

First, Jesus proclaims it as good news. 
“The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has come near.”  Actually, what in the original language it is more graphic than English; what it really says is “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” which was meant to convey that the Kingdom of God is so close—so very close you can just grab it with your hand.  The time has come.  The Kingdom of God is right there, right now.  Grab it!  Quick!

The Kingdom of God is about life the way God desires it to be.  First and foremost, it means that we will be restored in our relationship with Love, who is God, who is also the Creator and also the One who empowers us and the true Lover of our soul.  God is not happy with all that is out of whack in us, and neither should we be.  But God is the true Lover of our Soul.  And that is reason enough for you, also to be a true lover of your soul.  The Kingdom of God is near.  Grab it!  Quick!

I think this is where we go wrong so often in our Christian witness.  When I listen to Christians, they often do not start with the good news.  Often they are concerned about something that they think is wrong,  so they naturally want to start by convicting people of their sin.  What it sounds like, right our wrong, is that they want to start by judging; and let’s face it, that just is not acceptable. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”  That’s what Jesus tells us (Mat. 7:1).

No God, the true Lover of our soul, starts by expressing love for us.  When Jesus speaks it, he starts by pointing us to the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is about all that makes life come alive—your life, my life, all of life! It’s about all that your soul would tell you it truly wants if it could speak to you.  It is about living in right relationships with God, with our human community, and within the whole dynamic community of God’s beloved creation. 

When we bear witness to the gospel, let’s start there.  Jesus did.  We should, too.  It is only in the light of this love that the rest of it makes sense.  God came in Jesus Christ to join with us, in the flesh.  I almost always say that God does not want us to miss the depth of God’s love for us.  Jesus shares even our DNA, because humans absolutely would doubt the depth of God’s desire to be with us if he came in any other way.  God wants communion with us and, incidentally, with all creation.

What about repentance?
It is in this light this love that Jesus then calls us to repent.  Repent, Jesus says—which means change directions.  The way you are going is not working.  It is not leading to the life that you long for down deep.  It is not leading to the fruits of the Spirit.  Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruits of the Spirit this way:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

And you can have these.  God has them for you and they are right there.  Quick!  Grab it!  Change course and let God lead you.  They are there for you, because God, Who loves you is ready to let you have them if you turn the corner and turn to God.

And it is not just about you.  Repent, because the way you are going is not leading to the kind of communities that glorify God.  God wants communities that bring justice and peace and security to the people.  Living in right relationship with God points us back to living in a way that lets all God’s people thrive.  And let’s face it individuals do not live well if they are not part of a living, caring community.  We need one another, and when our selfishness, or our judgmental attitudes, or our unwillingness to forgive block our ability to build community life together, everyone suffers. 

Indeed, our elders have always taught us that it even goes beyond our human communities.  We have to honor the whole web of life in creation if we are to live well.  Otherwise, God’s creation will either overwhelm us, or turn its back on us.  It won’t come as a catastrophic flood again—although that did happen once.  But check out Joel and Jonah, and many other places in the bible.  Indeed, Job 12:7-8 says this:

But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
⁸ ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.

God’s salvation is about being restored to God, and learning each day to live more and more in right relationships with everything.

True Repentance Confronts the Stubbornness of Our Own Heart

It is not the unclean spirits—it is not the demons that scare me when it comes to repentance.  Jesus is the power of God in the universe.  Demons and spirits have to go when commanded.  The disciples went out and cast out many spirits.

The hard part is our stubbornness of heart.  The hard part is our unwillingness to believe that the life Jesus has for us is good life, the true life that we, and that all creation longs for.  I am telling you right now that the Kingdom of God is right there…right there!  Grab it!  Quick!

When we don’t, we need to ask ourselves this:  what am I allowing to separate me from what God wants? Repentance is about change.  What needs to change?  What sacred cow in my life needs to be cast out?

This is so important.  We have become comfortable with the way things are, and we don’t want to become uncomfortable.  Sometimes we make what we are comfortable with so sacred that we would never consider changing it, and we don’t want anyone telling us we should question it.  But really…what are he things that separate us from God?  And what are the things that are getting in our the way of proclaiming the gospel with our whole being—with our words, and with our life, and buy taking a stand that this gospel is more important than anything—even that it is urgently important?

You see, the gospel of Jesus shows itself in changed lives.  It’s not just about saying some words.  It’s about allowing the light of Christ to help us begin showing us how to live different in the world.  We don’t learn it all at once.  The bible tells us that we must learn to be mature Christian people.  But it is about letting the light shine so we can see and learn.  The gospel of Jesus Christ shows itself in changed lives, and changed lives lead to a changed world!  It is that powerful.

But be ready: People won’t believe you when you tell them you found this gospel.

No one is good enough to proclaim this gospel and being believed right away.  Jesus couldn’t do it in his own hometown.  Paul started the church in Corinth, but they bad-mouthed him when he was away.  Both had to find a way to deal with this, and so do we.  How did Jesus and Paul handle it?

Bad mouthed by the church he started in Corinth, Paul recognized that nothing he did would be considered good enough.  So he wrote this amazingly heart-felt second letter to the Corinthians because of his love for them.  What does he say about his own inability to measure up? 

Basically, he tells them that if all they can see is weakness, then that is fine.  God has used even Paul, weak vessel though they believe he is, for the ministry of Jesus.  And this is a great sign that the power is from God, not from Paul.  Because even this weak person they believe Paul to be can proclaim the gospel. And if people find his ministry stirring the longing of their hearts, stirring them to seek real life and not just bare existence, a real desire for a change in their lives to live—then that longing clearly is from God. 

And so it is for us.  The people who have shared the gospel with us are just people.  They are not Saviors; they are not superhuman.  They are just sinners like you and me, who knew they needed salvation and found it in Jesus.

But Jesus was not accepted in his own hometown.  How did Jesus deal with that? 

Well, his disciples were from the same region, and he did not want them to experience the same roadblocks that he suffered.  So, when he sent them out, he sent them two-by-two.  The gospel needs to be shared in a way that makes it clear that you and I are not the Savior.  When it comes form two or more people, it changes the message.  And if the people really would not receive the message, then they were to go on. 

This is the reason, I am told, that the Anglicans in Canada have begun commissioning local pastors in many Canadian villages in twos or threes.  They believe this reflects what Jesus did, and it changes the dynamic so that local pastors work as teams, and are not as likely to be rejected for their individual work. 

In the end, it is people’s hunger for the gospel that makes our testimony effective.

The world hungers for the gospel.  Those folks working to build healthy communities in our villages are responding, sometimes very effectively, to the hunger for the gospel.  If we love people enough to care for them, that love is of God.  We need to know that and open ourselves so God can nurture that love.

Those folks daring to build up their churches are responding to the hunger for the gospel.  They are daring to say that Christian fellowship is important, that Christian learning and growth is important, and that God is important.  When our souls are filled with awe, and when we wish to focus our lives on what is important—and make no mistake-that is what worship is all about—it is God, Who is worthy of our worship, our awe, and the focus of our lives.

The world hungers for the gospel, and there are signs of that hunger all around—even in Anchorage.  People know that the world needs to change (to repent) or there will be real consequences. One sign I saw just last week.

I decided to go to a movie for a change of pace.  So I looked at what was playing at the nearest theater.  Do you know what was playing?

• Mad Max: Fury Road—about people struggling to existence after the world falls apart.
• San Andreas: about people trying to survive after the big earthquake strikes.
• Jurassic World: when our own technology brings back the dinosaurs, who then threaten the existence of our world.
• Terminator Genisys—where the machines we created attack the humans and threaten our very world.

Our society increasingly either fears, or hopes that the time has come for the old order to pass away and a new order to come.  There is a way forward at this very moment in our history.  There is a path that leads to fulfillment both for you personally and for the world.  That way is provided through Jesus Christ, for all who will follow it.

My question is this:  are we willing to proclaim it?  We are called, as disciples, to proclaim it.  This means we must put our faith forward by proclaiming it in our stance that this is important—even urgent.  And, we must proclaim it in our actions, building our own life as Christians, and building up our faith communities. 

All people hunger for the gospel, but more at some times than at others.  What about you?

1.     In your own life, do you hunger for the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace,
        patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

2.        In your own life, do you wish for fulfillment—a meaningfulness and purpose in life?  God

did not create you for an empty life. The gospel message is meant for you. 

Hear the good news!  The Kingdom of God is right there.  Quick!  Grab it!

Change course: trust the good news of the gospel.

How does that play itself out in life?  What is this life of meaning, and of learning that I have been talking about?  We will talk more about that next time.

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

12:2 I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.

12:3 And I know that such a person--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows--

12:4 was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.

12:5 On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.

12:6 But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me,

12:7 even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.

12:8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me,

12:9 but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

12:10 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 6:1-13

6:1 He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.

6:2 On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!

6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.

6:4 Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."

6:5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.

6:6 And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.

6:7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

6:8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;

6:9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

6:10 He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.

6:11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."

6:12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.

6:13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.