Good News

Read Mark 1:14-20

Here is an excerpt from my sermon - "Good News?" - preached on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at Community Presbyterian Church in Plainview, Minnesota:

“Jesus, according to Mark’s gospel, came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
            In these words, I hear an invitation to us. It is an invitation to follow…to follow Jesus Christ into a new life. It might be more dramatic than we can imagine to picture ourselves leaving everything we have to follow him (like the disciples in this story do), but I don’t hear that in the invitation to us. What I hear is the invitation to a new way of life, a way of life that is oriented towards God’s kingdom. Jesus invites us to repent (in other words to turn away from that which keeps us apart from God) and believe in the good news of Jesus Christ (turn towards the God we know in the person of Jesus Christ).

Jesus invites us into a way of life that is far richer and more abundant that a life we could create on our own. It’s not an easy life, a life without difficulty, but it is a life worth living. It’s a life in which we give the best of ourselves away, through service, through mission, through compassion, and find that love and mercy and grace are returned to us in abundance.

There was something compelling enough in Jesus’ invitation to the disciples that they dropped everything and followed him into a new way to live…”

For me, the compelling thing about Jesus message is that invited his disciples to be part of a new story, the unfolding of God's love made real and visible in the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Mark's gospel is pretty clear that the story being told is about the "good news of Jesus Christ (Mark 1:1).

The thing I think about a lot is that we also have a story to tell. And we need to work to make our story compelling enough that others hear in our story the invitation to follow and become disciples. 

I did a little experiment in worship this week. During the sermon, I asked the congregation to turn to one another and to share with others the story about when they made the decision to attend church on their own. When did you come to church because you wanted to, not because you were trying to please your parents (or your grandparents) and not because you were trying to impress someone? When did the church become a part of the story of who you are? I gave folks a minute, and it seemed well received. I don't know what exactly they talked about - but I do know that they weren't silent!

In order for us to tell a compelling story, we need to remind ourselves why the story is compelling to us. For me, I really don't remember a time in which I didn't enjoy going to church. As I recall (and my parents might disagree!) when my triplet sisters went to college and I became a freshman in high school (and somewhat like an only child!), my parents gave me the choice if I wanted to attend church or not. And for the most part I did attend. And I'm grateful for the First Presbyterian Church in Alliance, Nebraska and the community of saints there that kept me fed and nourished me as I grew. When I went to college, I didn't always attend church on Sunday morning...at least not until my future wife, Meg, needed a ride and I saw it as one more opportunity to spend time with her!

In other words, I have always been at home in church. And for me, I think that is important to be a part of a community of faith. Because there is something about struggling with things that matter together and being nourished and fed together that I think are important. 

Somewhere I have my favorite Kathleen Norris quote, which goes something like this. "I'd rather do something together with others and have it come out completely wrong, than do something alone and have it come out exactly right." I like this quote because I suspect that even if things go completely wrong in community, the experience of being and working together is a sacred and holy experience...and in most things holy and sacred, the precise definitions of "exactly right" and "completely wrong" are much harder for us to grasp. Doing things in community, together, matter. 

I guess you could say I believe that "Community Matters."

Pastor John