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"Jesus said, ‘Believe The Good News" Meditation Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – January 22, 2012 Centenary United Psalm 62:5-12; Mark 1:14-20
Our passage today
from Mark’s Gospel sets the time when Jesus began his preaching
ministry. John the Baptist
had been arrested and imprisoned for his constant verbal attacks on King
Herod for taking his sister-in-law, Philip’s wife, to become his own.
John remained in prison until he was senselessly beheaded.
Mark reports that
Jesus went to If I went around the
sanctuary this morning and ask you individually what this Good News means to you, very few of you would have the same answer.
Right now, think about what you
might say. What is
fascinating is that no author in the New Testament has a consistent idea
of what Jesus was talking about.
For example, in
Galatians Paul told his readers that the Good News had to do with
Truth. (Galatians 2:5)
In Colossians the Good News
was Hope. (Colossians 1:5, 23)
In Ephesians, Paul described the
Good News with several
different definitions: as
finding Salvation (Ephesians
1:13), as understanding God’s
Promise (Ephesians 3:6), and as finding
Peace. (Ephesians 6:15) In his
second letter to Timothy, Paul described the
Good News as the gift to
believers of Immortality. (2
Timothy 1:10). There is no concise
definition of the Good News
that can be found anywhere in the New Testament.
However, if we observe the verbal imagery of Jesus’ ministry, we
learn that his personality and spirit defined the
Good News. Through his
attitudes and behavior his message becomes crystal clear.
The first inkling readers of Mark get of
how Jesus defined the
Good News
is when he began to invite uneducated, illiterate people to be his inner
circle of disciples.
Jesus called two fishermen Simon and
Andrew who had been the disciples of John the Baptist.
Next he called two of his cousins, James and John who were also
fishermen. Josephus, the great
historian of the Jews and the one time Governor of Galilee, once wrote
that there were 330 fishing boats in During Jesus’ day,
average citizens looked to their priests, the Scribes, the teachers of
the Law and Pharisees as having the authority to provide religious
instruction. These were the
people put up on pedestals
because many of them had mastered the oral and written traditions of
their Jewish heritage. These were the people who could offer guidance
for celebrating their Holy Days. Only a few
from this elite group could enter
The Holy of Holies, the sacred place in the Throughout my life,
I have honestly been mystified when some people cannot call me, “Dick.”
People have said, “I just can’t call you by your name.
I was raised differently.
I would never call my family doctor, ‘Jim or Carol.’”
Where in the Gospels do we find anyone calling James or John,
“Mr. Zebedee”? No one on
earth even knows the last name of the Apostle Peter. Today, we put a
similar aura of authority around our pastors.
This happens for the most part because we have four years of
university education and three more years at an
accredited theological
seminary. Finally, we United
Methodist candidates for ministry have to appear before a group of 45 to
60 people that make up the Board of Ordained Ministry.
This group places our theology, our life-style, our spirits, our
attitudes and our beliefs under their microscope. Most
of us feel extremely vulnerable while being in front of these people.
They are the judge and jury as to whether we can become ordained. The Good News Jesus brought had nothing to do with theological training,
or knowing how to read and write or how well any of them had mastered
their understanding of the existing Scriptures.
Some of these fishermen may have
never attended services at their local synagogue. It was as if Jesus
said, “Give me 12 ordinary people.
If they will give their lives to my teaching, I will eventually
change the world.” Jesus did not say,
“I have a unique theological system that I want you to learn that
departs substantially from the religion of our heritage.”
He did not teach, “I have certain theories of atonement that I
want you to investigate.” He
did not say, “I have an ethical system of beliefs and attitudes that I
want to teach you concerning your personal salvation.”
What Jesus said was, “Follow me.” Can we imagine the
significance of Jesus’ teaching to “Follow me?”
The
Good News has been in front of us all the time.
Countless people have been engaged academically in studying
the Scriptures, even devoting their lives to uncovering
the Bible’s
secrets. Scholars still
debate who actually wrote the Gospels and whether or not all the letters
attributed to the Apostle Paul are actually his?
Does it matter? To
some people, it really does matter because the Bible is “the
Word of God.” To Jesus,
it did not matter because none of it had been written.
Even if the Bible had been in circulation, who among Jesus’
followers would have had the skill to read it?
Before the books of
the Bible were assembled and declared to be the Word of God by delegates
attending the Council of Trent in 1545, John’s Gospel told readers that
“The Word” became flesh and dwelt among us.
All
the Truth that humanity needed
was available to people centuries before the New Testament evolved into
its current form. We have learned so
far that the Good News
appeared to uneducated people who had no training other than how to
catch fish. We have also learned that the
Good News required no
religious background to understand the message.
Jesus made this understanding even more clear when he said: Come to me, all of
you that are tired from carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke and put it on you and learn from me because I am
gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest.
For the yoke I will give you is easy and the load I will
put on you is light.
(Matthew 11:28f) Human beings are not
uninformed, ignorant or stupid when it comes to knowing what is true for
them. Take the
Golden Rule for example, “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
This rule can be found in every major religion practiced by
people all over the world. Jesus was teaching that what leads to a
joyful and happy life both here and beyond this life is governed by
the invisible world of spirit
that is within us. For Jesus, there was no specific
path to salvation based on particular beliefs. Differences in
beliefs have been dividing Christians for centuries.
Jesus’
path to salvation
for the present and beyond this life is based on the quality of our
attitudes toward each other.
If we cannot love people just as we find them, we will never
understand God’s love. (I
John 4:19) The Good News is that we do not have to have superior knowledge,
substantial and substantive training or a remarkable intellect to
understand how to love one another. If we cannot experience
living the truth of those
three words, all our training, beliefs and superior reasoning will not
accomplish that for us. There is an
interesting story that unfolded in Investors decided
that they must either renovate or lower their prices to remain
competitive. They decided to
renovate. Their first step
was to build an elevator.
Architects and building engineers were assembled to look over the
possibilities. After months
of intense study and possible designs, the group came to the owners with
a proposal to put the elevator in the center of the building.
For safety reasons, their plan called for the closure of the
hotel for at least seven months.
The owners,
architects and engineers engaged in an intense debate in the lobby.
The owners said they could not close the hotel that long.
The lost revenue would force them into bankruptcy.
The owners demanded a scheme that
would allow the hotel to remain open.
It just so happened
that a custodian was in the lobby overhearing this heated-exchange as he was
mopping the floor. He said, “I can tell you how to build an elevator
without closing our hotel.”
No one paid any attention.
He muttered this comment three more times.
Finally, one of the younger architects turned toward him and with
a very condescending attitude said, “Okay, old man, how would you
build it?” The older gentleman
walked to the front door with his mop in hand. All eyes were on him.
No one spoke. Some of them
were even smirking that such a sophisticated group was taking the time
to hear his solution. The present group represented
the best minds in the
business. The custodian said,
“If I were a building engineer, I would design an elevator that would be
attached to the outside of the building right here.
I would make the carriage out of glass from the middle of it to
the ceiling so that people would see the Bay as they are ascending to
the higher floors.” There
was total silence as the understanding of such a possibility flooded the
minds of each of them. What is more interesting is that they built that elevator just as the custodian had suggested down to the design of the coach. That project was the first external elevator in the world. That custodian had no formal education. His mind had not been cluttered by information. It does not take
academics to understand the Good
News. Jesus brought a
message that could be understood by men and women that could not read or
write. We must never
forget that when we hear preachers extolling the virtues of what each of
them needs to believe and do in order to be saved.
If Jesus were here, he
would tell us to be at peace and to let our personal salvation up to God
who gave us the privilege to experience life in these physical forms. The Good News is that we do not have to be so refined in our religious
beliefs as the Scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the Law and the priests
before we experience loving
attitudes of being – to care for one another in as many creative
ways as we can imagine.
Perhaps this is why Jesus began his
Sermon on the Mount with the
Beatitudes. In a day when the
stage of the human drama is clogged with class warfare, religious
conflicts, bitter rhetoric between politicians, struggles between unions
and management, law suits between patients and the medical community,
how easily people have adapted to the ways of the world. Many of us have forgotten the
Good News embodied in Jesus’
life and teachings. Jesus was teaching
his listeners that each of them had the ability to form a community
where they could learn to love without counting the cost.
In case such a reality has escaped some of us, this is exactly
the loving environment that we have at Centenary.
It is a joy to be a part of this
congregation. |