“Good News”: A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday After Epiphany

January 24, 2021

If someone called or texted you right now and said “I have some good news!” what do you imagine that news would be?  Your guess would depend on who the person is, I realize.  If it’s a high school senior, you’d be ready to hear about a college acceptance letter or a unique work opportunity following graduation.  If it’s a dear friend who’s been dealing with a serious illness, you would hope for news that the treatment seems to be working, the tumor is shrinking, the numbers are improving.  If it’s your kid, maybe you will find out about a math test that went far better than expected.

Or maybe it’s something much less momentous but still exciting – a colleague saying a deadline has been extended, a friend letting you know that your favorite pandemic jogging pants are on sale, a sister telling you that your favorite television show has made its way to Netflix.

There’s a pretty broad range of what we put into the category of “good news,” but whatever it might be, good news is fun to share and fun to hear.

We’re back in the gospel of Mark this morning, the gospel that will be our primary focus during this church year.  Do you know how the gospel of Mark begins?  It says: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  It’s like the author of Mark’s gospel is texting us to say, “Guess what!  I have some good news!”

We jump ahead a few verses to today’s portion of the gospel, and we hear that Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

The good news of God.  It sounds – well, good.  But what does it actually mean?

At first the circumstances don’t sound like good news.  Jesus begins his preaching life after John was arrested.  That’s John the Baptist, the one who had baptized Jesus in the Jordan River.  I won’t go into the entire soap opera of it all, but John has angered one of the many petty kings named Herod, who had John thrown in prison.  So Mark rather bluntly reminds us that good news sometimes emerges in circumstances that are both dangerous and unpredictable.  But, Mark also reminds us, we tell the good news anyway.

“Good news” is a term that we throw around a lot in church.  But what exactly is the good news that Jesus is talking about here?  Jesus says: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Those words “good news” in Mark come from the Greek word euaggelion, from which we get our fancy church word evangelism.  Too often we think of evangelism as a marketing campaign to get people to come to our specific church.  But evangelism is really about telling a story, a story of what God has done and continues to do in our lives.

Jesus tells us that this good news means that God’s kingdom has come near.  God’s reign – the scope of God’s power and promise – is not far away and disconnected from our lives. Jesus himself embodies that nearness of God.  God is here in the midst of us.  God is with us and among us always.

Repent and believe in the good news, Jesus says.  Repent.  Turn in a new direction.  Leave your old ways behind, the ways that do harm to yourself and to others.  Repent, and believe.  Believe – not in a head sense, but in a heart sense.  Believe as in trust.  Trust that God cares what happens to you.  Trust that God is there to guide you.

Jesus invites all of us to experience that closeness of God and to follow the pathways that God opens in our lives.  In the next part of today’s gospel, he specifically invites four fishermen – Simon, Andrew, James, and John – to leave their nets behind and follow him.  They do so with an immediacy that I always find remarkable.  They’re willing to share a good news that they don’t yet fully understand.

I don’t know about you, but more often than not, when I feel God nudging me to do something, I take my time.  I weigh the options.  I worry about the potential consequences.  I wonder what others will think.

When it comes to sharing the good news of what God has done and is doing, we let all kinds of things get in the way.  We don’t want to offend people. We feel reluctant to bring up matters of faith, knowing how personal those can be.  We don’t want to be seen as one of those crazy, over-the-top Christians.  We hear Jesus say, “I will make you fish for people,” and we think “No thanks.  That sounds weird.”

But here’s the thing.  Jesus uses the language of fishing to speak to fishermen.  He knows his audience, knows how to put things in terms that people understand.

Jesus probably wouldn’t tell you to fish for people.  Jesus would describe ways of connecting with people and sharing the story that fit your particular talents and experiences.  Quilting.  Video games.  Baseball.  Baking.  And, as one of my colleagues likes to say, it’s never been easier to share the good news.  Right now all you have to do is share a link and invite people to click on it!  And we have so many ways that we can communicate how our faith matters to us – in pictures and posts and prayers, in music and memories.

One of those ways is not just in what we say, but how we live.  How do we embody that inclusive love that God has for all people?

I learned this week about a woman named Georgia Gilmore.[i]  Georgia had a crucial role in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and 56, one of the first large-scale protests against segregation.  Her own personal boycott had started a couple of months earlier when a white bus driver had taken her fare and then berated her for using the front door.  He made her get off the bus and then drove away, leaving her stranded.  She decided right then that she was done with riding the bus.

As the plans for the larger boycott emerged following Rosa Parks’ arrest, Georgia Gilmore became a chief fundraiser for the effort.  She organized an underground network of black women who sold pound cakes, sweet potato pies, plates of fried fish, and greens door-to-door.  Many of these women worked for white families and couldn’t risk being seen as leaders in the movement.  But they could cook.  And their food brought in incredible amounts of money, enough to help pay for 381 days of cars, trucks, and wagons, along with the necessary gas, insurance, and repairs to carry protestors to and from their destinations without ever having to step on a bus.

This group of home cooks was called the Club from Nowhere.  That way if the boycott organizers were ever asked where their money came from, they could truthfully answer: “Nowhere.”

Georgia Gilmore eventually transformed her home into an unofficial restaurant.  Leaders of the civil rights movement, including Dr. King and the Rev. Al Dixon, gathered in her kitchen to strategize.  She was outspoken and full of sass.  No matter who you were, she might call you a whore or a heifer.  But no matter who you were, you were welcome at her table.

What I love about Georgia Gilmore’s story is that she shared the good news of God’s love and justice in dangerous circumstances.  What I love even more is that she did it in exactly the way that fit who she was.  She was a funny, quick-witted, smart, stubborn, outspoken woman who could make fried chicken better than anybody.  And she used all of those things to be a part of God’s kingdom coming near.

There’s someone in your life right now who needs to hear some good news, someone who is longing for a word of hope.  You can provide that hope in a way that no one else can.  So share some good news this week, and be ready to be surprised at what God will do.  Amen.

S.D.G. – The Rev. Dr. Christa M. Compton, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Chatham, NJ

---

[i] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-funded-civil-rights-movement