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Sermon
Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – January 24, 2021
Centenary United Methodist Church Psalm
62:5-12; Mark 1:14-20 Mark's Gospel lesson today opens with these words:
Jesus went to Galilee to preach the good news
from God. Jesus said, 'The right time has come.
The Kingdom of God is near. Turn away from your sins and believe
the good news.' This morning, we are going to explore what was
intended by referring to the good news. We have heard these words
forever, "Preach the good news" to this group and that group
without really knowing specifically what the good news was.
Each preacher believes that he or she knows, but do they? The New Testament has no clear definition of what
those words represent. For instance, 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:
finding salvation, (Ephesians
1:13) understanding God’s
promise, (Ephesians 3:6) and 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) Of course, we could wrap all of these themes
together and say that they fall under the umbrella of being
good news. But none of these themes are anything new.
Perhaps we can gain some insight by considering those people that
Jesus invited to become his disciples. Josephus, the great historian of the Jews and the
one-time Governor of Galilee, once wrote that there were 330 fishing
boats in the Sea of Galilee.
Among Jesus' first disciples were men that worked in this popular
profession. Jesus began
inviting uneducated, illiterate men to be is disciples. During Jesus' day, people looked to their priests,
the teachers of the Law, and Pharisees for their religious instruction.
These were the people that society had placed on a pedestal.
None of them had the good news. For all the centuries that followed, societies put
an aura of authority around their pastors, priests, and rabbis because
they were being trained to become professional representatives of
God. Today, mainline denominations insist on four years of university
education and three years of theological training from an
accredited theological
seminary. After all this education, are pastors any closer to knowing
what the good news is? The good
news that Jesus taught had nothing to do with men who were
theologically trained. The
men he chose were illiterate.
Some of these fishermen were too busy earning a living for their
families, that if they attended a synagogue at all, it was only during
the holiest of days. Can we imagine the significance of Jesus using just
two words to describe the training he wanted for his disciples?
He said, "Follow me."
The definition of the
good news begins to show
itself in Jesus' choice of average men to be his disciples. Just think
of this. Today,
countless men and women have been engaged academically in studying
the Scriptures.
Scholars still debate who actually wrote the Gospels and whether
or not all the letters attributed to the Apostle Paul are actually his?
Does any of this matter?
To some people, such knowledge really does matter because the
Bible is the Word of God.
To Jesus, none of it mattered!
The reason that we can say that with absolute certainty is that
the Bible had not yet been written. For
Jesus, there was no specific path
to salvation based on particular beliefs and practices.
The good news had nothing to do with anything in the Bible.
Differing
beliefs are the culprit of what has been dividing Christians for
centuries. Jesus said,
"Follow me." During his
ministry, everything Jesus taught had teachings that were rooted in
The Golden Rule. If
we cannot love people just as we find them, we will never understand
God's love and forgiveness of us.
(I John 4:19) People do not need to have superior knowledge,
training, or a remarkable intellect to understand how to love someone.
The good news has to be simple and applicable to everyone on
earth. If we cannot experience living
the truth found in those
three words, all the academic accomplishments, beliefs, and practices
that the clergy have engaged in will not accomplish that for them.
(Philippians 34b-8) One of the problems of Christianity is that faith
has become so complicated, that fewer and fewer people want to explore
it with any depth. People appear
to want to know what they must do to be saved.
People actually worry about this.
Jesus 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) People are not uninformed and ignorant when it
comes to knowing what loving energy does to them when they receive it or
when they compassionately let go of the hurtful responses from others.
God created us to be a self-contained individual filled with
potential that allows everyone to blossom and produce marvelous fruit
even if they had no formal training. Jesus taught that everything people need to become
a beautiful person was given to them at birth. The source of what
enables a person to live a joyful, happy, and creative life is governed
by the invisible world of spirit
that is within them. One of my favorite stories happened in San Diego,
California. It had to do
with the El Cortez, one of the earliest hotels built to cater to the
needs of the tourist trade that was just beginning. As new hotels were
being built, they were equipped with elevators. The El Cortez began
losing business to the newcomers because it did not have one.
The owners had to engage in major renovations in order to compete
with the arrival of the new competition. The owners assembled a team of expert architects
and building engineers. No
one could find a solution that would allow the hotel to stay open during
the months of construction. The management of the hotel gathered the
team together in the hotel's lobby demanding solutions that would work.
They engaged in loud and aggressive conflict as their proposed remedies
clashed. It just so happened that a custodian of the hotel
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. Afterall, what could he possibly know?
He spoke his words three more times getting louder and louder.
Finally, one of the younger architects turned toward him and with
a very condescending attitude said, "Okay, old man, what can you
possibly offer to a group of architects and master builders?" There was
dead silence. The older gentleman walked to the front door with
his mop in hand. All eyes
were on him. Everyone
remained silent and listened to what he had to say.
Some of them were even smirking that such a sophisticated group
of geniuses was taking the time to listen to his possible solution.
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 design the
carriage with safety-glass from the middle of the carriage to the
ceiling so that people would see the Bay as they are ascending to the
higher floors. There was total silence as understanding of such a
possibility flooded the minds of each of them.
What is interesting about this story is that they built that
elevator just as the custodian had suggested down to the design of the
carriage. The project at
the El Cortez was the first external elevator in the world. That
custodian had no formal education.
He had common sense and an eye for possibilities that differed
from the logic of the trained engineers. Jesus brought a message that could be understood
and practiced by men and women that could not read or write.
Jesus was teaching them
how to live in this world and to be at peace.
The good news that Jesus
taught is that each person's salvation is guaranteed by God from the
moment of their birth.
(John 14:1-3) God would never allow any of us to be the custodian of
whether or not we exist beyond these extremely temporary moments in our
physical forms. We should
not follow a path of performing remarkable, selfless deeds in order to
please God. The one who is
evaluating our qualities is us, not God.
No one else is in on this. Some things in life are free.
God's universal love is one of
these. (Mathew 5:45b) When we
build our confidence on this understanding, this is clearly the good
news to everyone who has ever experienced living in our cocooned,
temporary physical forms. THIS is how Jesus defined THE GOOD
NEWS. We
are all eternal, spirit-beings, that are on a vacation from
heaven.
We came here to see what we can
do with only the Golden Rule as our guide.
This Rule is in every religion by design.
Our purpose for coming here is to see
what
surfaces within us when responding to a physical world that is filled
with symbols and paths that are illusionary.
They do not exist. Because we are already spirit-beings clothed in
physical forms, we have absolutely nothing of which to be afraid,
including the time when our class is over and we
transition from here to the realm of our origin. This is
the good news. This is
not a teaching that needs to be believed.
It is an experience that happens automatically even when some
people have no beliefs at all.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Merciful God, how
grateful we are that you created us to serve.
Our lives thrive when we learn to let our inner world glow.
Our confidence in you is revealed when our fears no longer hold
our attention. Our courage
increases when we no longer are shaken by the unexpected.
We have learned that approval from others no longer defines our
identity. Teach us how to remain sensitive to the movements of your
spirit. Help us to learn
that extending love automatically is a remarkable skill.
We trust you to plant us in the gardens where we are most needed.
Teach us to remember that where we are is where we need to be.
Amen. PASTORAL
PRAYER
Loving God, how
grateful we are that we can share moments of quiet and peace as we
direct our thoughts toward you. You know our thoughts long before
we create them. In spite of
your infinite, all knowing nature, we still enjoy talking to you about
our questions and needs.
As the drama of life
continues, there is no way of stopping the chain of experiences that
come up for us. Sometimes
that means surgery. Sometimes that means watching those we love face
challenging experiences while we feel helpless in lessening their load.
Sometimes living the way Jesus taught, means dealing with the
routines that come with our jobs, our relationships, our family
experiences, or while being retired.
Sometimes that means being preoccupied by the material world, the
prices of everything we need, the volatility of our investments, and the
articles in our news publications that reflect the tensions between
nations. Loving God, if there is one request all of us
would make this morning, it would come from our desire that people
everywhere learn to love one another as you love us.
Please lead our world's diverse communities beside the still waters
so that each of us would have this one attitude in common.
Values only clash when self-interest appears to override the
creative power of love. We pray these thoughts through the spirit of
Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . . |