Good News AND Bad News

PROPERS:          PROPER 25, YEAR A  

TEXT:                MATTHEW 22:34-36

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The good news is that the expectations of God are quite generous; the bad news is that they are seldom met by anyone.    

 

            What do Episcopalians have to learn from Southern Baptists?

 

            In my case, a lot.

 

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            I recently heard a podcast featuring an interview with Dr. Russell Moore.  He is the recently resigned president of the Southern Baptist Church’s Ethic and Religious Liberty Commission.  He is 52 years old, lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a native of Biloxi, Mississippi, just down the coast.

 

            He is one of the most respected evangelicals on the modern scene. He has recently taken up the post of editor of Christianity Today.

 

            Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to a Baptist – a Southern evangelical.  But, considering his journey, I wanted to hear what he had to say.

 

            And it was well worth the time.

 

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            He had much to say, much more than I can cover here. But his basic approach to preaching cast some light on the art and practice of Christian proclamation.

 

            First, he said, you have to recognize that there is some good news and bad news.  The bad news is that everyone is sinful and is in need of God.  Everyone.  Not just a few of us, but everyone.

 

            The good news is the gospel.  Each and every one of us is free to receive the gift of God’s love that is present in the life, ministry, and message of Jesus Christ.

 

            I thought about that.  Two things occurred to me.

 

            First, I realized that most of the sermons I have heard from evangelical preachers in the past have fulfilled the good news/bad news components of Dr. Moore’s approach.  However, most have delivered the bad news with a sledgehammer.

 

            That doesn’t work. That approach reflects the philosophy my father once described to me: “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”

 

            The second thing I realized was that most of the sermons I have heard in the Episcopal Church, and the bulk of my own sermons, have emphasized the “good news” portion of Dr. Moore’s approach.  Unless we know we need the good news – by the pointing toward the bad news – we are unlikely to accept the gift. Few of us are motivated by an unwanted gift.

 

            The challenge is the balance between the two and how the need for the good news is presented.

 

            So, let us turn toward the gospel and see what it has to say.

 

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            In today’s case, it is good news-bad news-good news.

 

            The Pharisees have come to Jesus, after he had confounded the Sadducees about taxes being paid to Caesar. They had a question which was certain to confound the young rabbi.

 

            “Teacher, which commandment of the Law is the greatest?”

 

            This was a question grounded in thousands of years – and thousands of pages of the Law, as recorded in sacred writings.  How would Jesus choose?

 

            Jesus paused, and then he spoke: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 

            Rabbi Hillel, a noted Jewish sage and contemporary of Jesus answered essentially the same question with these words: “What is hateful to you, do not do to another.”

 

            So, there was the good news.  God’s expectations of us can be summarized quite easily.  We heard them in the Summary of the Law earlier today. As Jesus notes elsewhere, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

            So much for the good news. There it is. 

 

Now for the bad news. None of us can consistently meet that standard. That is the nature of the human condition. We fall short of even that low requirement. All of us are broken.  All of us fall short.  As Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans: “Wretched that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?”

 

            If the greatest Christian missionary expressed that angst, how could we expect to be different?  The fact is that the person that we love least or despise most – regardless of what that person has done – calls our standing before the Law into question.

 

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            Now for the real good news – the ultimate good news.  It is the good news that Russell Moore referred to. It answers the question Paul had posed: “Who will save me from this body of death?”

 

            As a gift of the gospel, each of us overcomes our human limitations, our human condition, our flawed and broken nature, by virtue of the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

            Nor matter our limitations… regardless of what we have done, thought, or said… we are recipients of the eternal gift which molds us into children of God.

 

            That truth is the good news which overcomes any bad news.