What does good news sound like?
An edited version of my words for Pentecost Sunday at S. Grand Lake Christian Church in Langley, OK. My thanks to their ministers, Rev. Gina and Rev. Chuck, as well as the elders for the trust of the pulpit. We pondered a portion of the Pentecost story, Acts 2:1-21.
We gather for worship today and remember that the spirit of God descends on all humanity and disciples no matter their station in life.
Pentecost, a day when we ask the spirit of the living God to fall afresh on:
- the 134 congregations that are the Christian Church In Oklahoma;
- fall afresh on the 31 Regions that are the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada;
- fall afresh on our cousins in faith who by profession or practice, wrestle with God and the way of Jesus;
- fall afresh on our neighbors practicing another faith, or no faith at all, who wrestle with the wisdom of the ages and act for the common good of the whole human family.
I bare the greetings, prayers, and gratitude of your siblings in faith all around the Region. Thank you for being a voice of gospel from this corner of Langley. Thank you for gifting your ministers time away. If you are visiting today, in person or in the digital sanctuary, or if you are returning from some time away from worship or religion, come back next week and hear Rev. Gina preach good news. Don’t just consume worship or religion, get involved in this congregation’s witness of the good news of God:
that the Lord’s mercies never cease;
that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning;
and the Lord’s faithfulness extends beyond our ability to see in a mirror dimly, or recognize the image of God in others as well as in our own face.
As you are willing and your spirit able, please join me in prayer:
Open our ears and our hearts, O God, that our meditations, words, and living are a reflection of our faith in You, who creates, who redeems, and who sustains creation and our lives. Amen
Buckle up church, here we go.
What can happen when people hear good news in their own language?
In Christian language we say that when people hear good news “ministry breaks out.” Centuries of history details how that ministry can be live giving; or it can be death dealing. Those who follow the way of Jesus are compelled to evaluate and reflect on what has happened, in the name of Jesus and in the name of God, so as individuals and as a community we can apply what we’ve learned for all of creation. I think that is why the parables that Jesus told are confounding, confronting, and everlasting. What can happen when people hear good news in their own language? The world is turned upside down, sometimes. The outcast, the prisoner, the orphan, and the poor experience hospitality, wholeness, personhood in society.
What does good news sound like?
If I bumped into Jesus today I think he would say that good news has more to do with, “love God and love your neighbor as yourself”( Matt. 22:37-40), rather than John 3:16, “For God so loved the world . . .” It’s pentecost. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us.
The 21st century is a multi-lingual culture in written, digital and spoken word. The idea of hearing about God in our native language is not hard to imagine. We hear a lot of languages in our time. Spin through the TV channels and depending on your cable package and time of day you can hear and see our multi-lingual world. The AM/FM and satellite airwaves are the same. Even the secular channels are proclaiming a gospel of some kind though it is often something purchased. Politicians and political parties too, but I don’t need to talk about that.
Have you ever traveled to a place where you did not know or speak the language? I have. Luckily, there have been persons who have translated for me so I could understand a speaker, the instructions given me, or a menu. Many years ago I went to Puerto Rico with a group of youth from Kentucky Disciples congregations. We were there for a week of summer camp with Puerto Rican disciples. Puerto Rico is a Spanish speaking culture, and only one of us could understand or speak the language. The youth and adults in our group blended into the small groups and camp culture. Some of the Puerto Rican campers and adults could understand and speak English. They helped us learn enough of the language to navigate with week. Asking where the bathroom is was a big accomplishment. Contextual clues helped associate places with words. All the total group gatherings were at big pavilion. We sang there, heard the day’s lesson, danced, and worshipped. Capilla (chapel). One of the lessons that week was the hospitality required to translate good news. When asked to speak there was always someone who translated our words. I chose my words more carefully as my new friend translated my story about my baptism. I had never heard it so eloquently told.
It was the experience of thinking about words and language, listening closely, asking for help and receiving help graciously that was as beautiful as the mountain side setting where the spirit of God echoed each night in the call of the Co-kee (coqui’) frog. At first that echo was disturbing. By the end of the week it was a lullaby, and then it just blended into our living. We were a kind of familia (family).
You don’t have to leave the country to experience this “out of place-ness.” Several years ago we took our niece, Karlee, to New York City to celebrate her graduation from high school. We checked in with the maitre d who asked if we were there for a special occasion. I pointed at Karlee and said, “Yes, it’s our niece’s high school graduation dinner.” At the end of the meal they brought a giant piece of New York cheesecake to the table. On the plate it said, “Congratulations Denise.”
Though English is the language of commerce, in most urban areas there are a multitude of languages spoken; and even in some rural areas as well. I learned it one day in Mi-am-ma when I asked a question about life in “Miami.” “You aren’t from around here are you?” Apparently, there was a little too much of my Texas dialect that day. I don’t think I have an accent, but I know that sometimes it sneaks out. But, there is more to “being from” somewhere than just the language. There are common stories, some historical myth and others historical fact, that bind people. I was reminded of this at the Greenwood Rising Museum in Tulsa. Lot’s of Oklahomans who grew up here didn’t know that significant, historically factual story which qualifies them for “not from around here” status. How will knowing that story change our choices?
In our context I think Pentecost is a day when we as individuals and as a community of faith, need to wonder if there is a common language to the sound of good news. We need to ask ourselves two questions:
- What does good news sound like?
- How am I, or are we, translators of good news?
What does good news sound like . . . in places where weapons fire, explosions, land mines, barrels bombs or suicide bombers are part of daily life? It might sound like dialogue. Conversation and compromise that is void of shouts or finger pointing or swearing revenge. I might sound like nationalism without Imperialism or Empire building. It sounds like children laughing instead of crying and that language doesn’t include the word war.
What does good news sound like . . . in places where the beauty of the earth has become lava flows, mud slides, frozen land, flooded land, tornado damaged, hurricane battered, or famine filled?
It sounds like opening boxes filled with blankets and clean up kits.
Rustling bags of flour or wheat and clanging bottles of drinking water.
It sounds like someone tearing a check from a checkbook or the clink of change dropped into a collection plate or kettle, or the click of a button on a smartphone.
It sounds like banging hammers and shoveled dirt. It is the beep beep of a truck backing up, the sizzle of electricity pulsing through lines, and the flip of a switch that powered heat and lights or cool air. It sounds like, “Are you ok?” “I’m here to help. What can I do?”
What does good news sound like . . .
You might hear good news in the bass thump of hip hop, in the two step tones of country, in a driving guitar riff of rock and roll, classical music, or a hymn. Bob Marley calls them, “redemption songs.”
You might catch a glimpse of good news on film.
“Bruce Almighty” encourages: “be the miracle.”
The Matrix trilogy challenges: “free your mind.”
“It’s a Wonderful Life” reframes what it means “to be the richest person in town.”
“Blazing Saddles” is an invitation to change as we laugh and are accosted by our stereotypes that haven’t been left behind in 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014, or even today.
What does good news sound like . . .
A doctor treating illness.
A nurse changing an IV.
Housekeeping staff cleaning.
Medical research that create vaccines and treatments that cure disease.
A therapist pushing a patient to take another step, squeeze one more time, teaching someone to speak or write, how to use a hearing device, or manage life without sight.
It’s a hospice nurse carefully bathing a client.
Insurance that covers medical costs and still allows you to live well.
It is food brought by neighbors when grief is overwhelming.
Good news might sound like . . .
Affordable housing,
quality education,
a living wage, or good public transportation.
It might sound like a door closing at the homeless shelter, food pantry, or the Salvation Army for the last time because poverty is no longer an issue here.
It might sound like voting districts that represent the people rather than the politicians wanting to keep power.
Good news might sound like . . .
A fellowship dinner.
Regulating my consumption so everyone can have a little bit more.
It might sound like regulating capitalism, regulating weapons, and regulating carbon so there is more laughter, fewer human made tears, “everyone had recourse to the law, and no one kills the children anymore.”(1)
In his book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News?, Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes reminds readers that, “Good news to some will almost inevitably be bad news to others. The gospel’s arena is the future, the time that is not yet and is to be, and thus everything short of that time is suspect, mortal, and inadequate.”(2)
And now, some hard words. Christianity has used “the good news,” that “Jesus died for you,” to build empires and to keep the oppressed and outcast in their place. Proclaiming that life will be better on the other side, if you confess Jesus as Christ, it helped ease present day fears and suffering, but it is an effective way of not dealing with societies issues and injustice. “In heaven the streets are paved with gold so don’t worry about the mud you are trudging in now.” Christianity has aided and has been used by the powerful, the ideological, and the greedy to ensure minority rule.
If I bumped into Jesus today I think he would say that good news has more to do with,
“love God and love your neighbor as yourself” Matt. 22: 37-40, rather than John 3:16,
“For God so loved the world that . . .”
Those who stood and spoke that first Pentecost probably didn’t wake up thinking they would be translators. They were waiting on Jesus, going about their lives and practicing those things that Jesus taught. Sometimes we hear people speak of seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Those first disciples were seeing God in the world through the eyes of Jesus. The story in Acts dramatizes what can happen when human beings get “fired up”. In Christian language you might have heard it called, “on fire for Jesus.”
The problem for Christians is this: in the centuries that have followed Jesus of Nazareth and Pentecost day, Christians have more often gotten “fired up” over the meaning of John 3:16, instead of Matthew 22:37-40. I wonder, is it because it is easer for human beings to believe in a miracle, rather than be a miracle?
Wha’t so good about the good news? In his book, Dr. Gomes reminds readers that:
“The good news that Jesus came to proclaim always calls us beyond the conventional wisdom and into dangerous, uncharted waters. The good news is not “back there somewhere,” but out front awaiting us, and there are godly examples of taking that good news as the charter against which we liberate ourselves from our fears. As we consider how we ought to manage in a less-than-friendly world, when we wonder on what we may rely, perhaps the answer is found in the exercise of compassion. We should take courage from these words: ‘The strength that God gives is available for those who care for others.’”
Peter Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News? Harper One (New York) 2007, p. 107-8.
Even in ordinary time and partisan political time, every day can be a Pentecost day.
Have you heard the good news of God?
What language do you use to translate it?
How are you translating the good news of God with your living?
It’s pentecost. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us all.
Notes
1. Pink Floyd, The Final Cut. “The Gunners Dream.” Harvest Records, 1983.
2. Peter Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News? Harper One (New York) 2007, p 31.