If you were to ask me to put my head
in a noose professionally, I would probably do it by saying the church today
needs a corrective as to what it is proclaiming as the Gospel. We have truncated the Gospel that Jesus
himself and the early church proclaimed. That Gospel was the proclamation that
God has and is saving the entirety of his creation in, through, and as Jesus
Christ who was God the Son become human, lived, died, and was raised and
ascended to the Father as Lord of all creation. The Trinity has poured their self and their
power to reign upon us in and as the gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence and power
who is the bond of love that holds Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in union.
We have truncated this Good News of
God’s Creation-healing gift of himself into a gospel that is concerned simply
with me and my sin and my fears about
death. This truncated gospel follows
the basic format that God loves you and sent his Son to die for you because
your sin has cut you off from him and eternal life in heaven. You just need to believe that God did that,
confess you are a sinner, and invite Jesus into your heart and you won’t have
to fear dying, and…maybe…you’ll get to have a born again experience.
If you are a serious student of the
Bible and actually read the thing you will notice that the Gospel that’s in the
Bible, that Jesus himself and the early church proclaimed is quite different
from this truncation that we are accustomed to hearing. Luke here gives us a glimpse. The Gospel they
proclaimed was that the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God, has come upon us in,
through, with, and as Jesus Christ and is coming fully very soon. Basically, as it is in heaven so shall it be
on earth by the being and work Jesus.
The reality of this coming of the Reign of God was demonstrated with
works of power as Luke says: a word of peace and works of healing, and even the
expulsion of the demonic.
The content of Jesus’ Gospel augmented
a bit after his death, resurrection and ascension to include the proclamation that
Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil and that all things are being made new in
Christ Jesus by the gift of the Holy Spirit to us and will be finally put to
rights when Jesus returns and God makes all creation new, a new heaven and a
new earth where God’s reign is not hindered by sin, death, and evil. Add to this, we God has adopted us as his
beloved children sharing in the relationship that Jesus has with the Father due
to our union with Jesus in the Spirit. The
Kingdom, the Reign of God is everywhere that Jesus and his authority are
present; Jesus and the loving communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit given
to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
To us today this means that the
personal presence of Christ Jesus is here with us in our fellowship through the
Holy Spirit so that we share in his relationship with God the Father as his
brothers and sisters and co-inheritors of the Kingdom. The King and the Kingdom are with us. We have some really, really good news to
offer that is very historically “real” and that goes beyond saying “you’ve got
a problem called sin that you need to take care of so that you don’t die and go
to hell and here’s the magic formula.”
We, gathered right here right now,
have a real community of faith in which Jesus himself is present. Jesus is here; Jesus, the one whom God raised
from the dead, the one who sits at the right hand of God and rules the
cosmos. Like those seventy disciples
Jesus has granted to us the authority to extend his peace (the loving communion
in God) to this town and surrounding community, authority to bring real healing
to the difficult and indeed crippling situations of life, and even the
authority to dispel evil. By the gift of
his Holy Spirit and by his own Word Jesus Christ has given this authority to us
and the power to make evident the good news that his kingdom has come to this
town. People can listen and accept this
Good News or reject it. He has given us
the authority to bless with a word of peace, to bring healing, even to cast out
evil.
Having said all that I think there is
a deeper question we need to ask of ourselves and maybe even of God: “Are we
truly offering this community the Good News of the Kingdom of God with us now
and coming fully at the end of time through Christ and in the power of the Holy
Spirit…or…is it some other gospel or maybe even no gospel at all?” Before I left West Virginia at the last
Presbytery meeting I attended, I listened as the chair of the budget and
finance committee of the Presbytery announced that the money just wasn’t there
to carry out the current operations of the Presbytery. The provision that God promises along the way
for his disciples to live on while they proclaim the Good News wasn’t coming
in. They needed to scale back. That meant paid staff and the support of
certain outreach ministries in the Presbytery were going to have to go. The chair of the Budget and Finance Committee
offered the blunt observation that evangelism or rather the lack there of was
the true culprit. With the exception of
a few anomalous congregations the same observation holds true for the
Presbyterian Church in Canada. We are
losing more than we are taking in, death being the primary reason. It should certainly tell us something if
those coming to Christ can’t keep up with those going to be with Christ.
I would push the observation of my
friend down in WV a bit further. He is
correct to say that Evangelism or the lack there of is the true culprit, but we
have to ask why? Why are we so reluctant
about spreading the very real Good News of the Kingdom of God come and coming
in Christ Jesus? That’s the real
question. Maybe we’re afraid that God
won’t keep his end of the bargain. If
that is the case then lack of faith is the true issue. As faith is what arises when the faithfulness
of God meets human fidelity, our ability to trust and be faithful, and the
ultimate proof of God’s faithfulness to us is his presence with us. Maybe it is that our churches suffer from not
knowing that Jesus is really with us as he promised to be even unto the end of
the age. Creating faith is God’s
work. It is not something we can do on
our own. But we can certainly humble
ourselves and let God out of the box and pray “Lord I believe, help my
unbelief.” We can ask God to let us know
him more deeply.
We have a certain set eyeglasses
through which we see the church and I think those eyeglasses keep us from
having a vision of the Kingdom. Its time
we got a new prescription. We have our
idea, our idol of what church ought to be and we’re a bit reluctant to think
and to look outside of that box and catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God as it
is truly in our midst as the presence of Jesus Christ. We look at the church through our eyeglasses
and see Worship done according to this order, Sunday School, Youth Group, picnics,
fellowship hour after worship, Bible Study, Session and Committee meetings,
being there for each other, and occasionally doing something to help the poor. But, look at the New Testament and it says
the Kingdom is peace, real healing, the casting out of evil, and a fellowship
built on serving one another in love. I
hope you’re beginning to see the contrast.
We have our way of doing things and call it church. Jesus has his way of doing things and calls it
the Kingdom of God. We are very
committed to what we call church, and we feel secure in that familiarity. But shouldn’t we rather be committed to Jesus
and his Kingdom and accept the vulnerability of being lambs among wolves and
start living and proclaiming him and his kingdom?
Our task is to go forth and proclaim
the Kingdom, the Reign of God in Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, and as
Jesus Christ, the reign of God here on earth as it is in heaven; and to do this
until he comes. Jesus said to first ask
the Lord of the Harvest to send forth harvesters and then those whom the Lord
sends forth are to go. As we have all
been given the Holy Spirit and thus a share in Christ’s authority, we must all
go. But, we do not go forth saying, “Do
you know you’re a sinner and you’re going to hell if you do not accept
Christ?” No! We go forth with a word of peace. We go forth saying, “The peace of Christ be
with you.” I do not know of anyone who
does not need the peace that comes from knowing that in Christ it is on earth
as it is in heaven, that God is putting things to rights. The amazing thing is that when we give this
blessing of peace it is not an empty blessing.
The Kingdom of Christ’s peace is present in it.
Jesus next told his disciples to cure
the sick that are there. The New
Testament word for cure doesn’t mean just healing a sick person. It is restoring them to meaningful life. We have been entrusted the power message of Jesus
Christ that restores people to meaningful life.
Blessed are our eyes for we see the Kingdom coming. We have been given the amazing gift of Jesus’ own authority and power to speak the Word of peace and to do works of healing. If that doesn’t blow your mind I don’t know what will. But it is the truth. Let us go forth in it. Amen.
Blessed are our eyes for we see the Kingdom coming. We have been given the amazing gift of Jesus’ own authority and power to speak the Word of peace and to do works of healing. If that doesn’t blow your mind I don’t know what will. But it is the truth. Let us go forth in it. Amen.
