Preach Good News to the Poor

December 16, 2007

St. Mary of the Snows Anglican Church

Father Jim Fosdick

Lord of light - shine upon us. God of love fill our hearts with your wisdom. Holy Spirit, bring yourself closer to us in my words and how we hear them, in our thoughts and how we think them. Use this time - and use us to accomplish your good will. Amen.

Today I’m going to share with you some thoughts from our Gospel lesson about preaching. Jesus makes it clear that preaching good news to the poor is an important thing for us to be doing.

I spent the week as I usually do reading our lessons for today. The more I read them and prayed about them the more intrigued I became. I’m personally convinced that unlike any other written word, scripture is like that. The more you read it the more you see…the more the Holy Spirit reveals to you. An image that comes to mind is putting two mirrors opposite each other. If you do it just right and stand in the right place the mirrors reflect each other to infinity. Mirror in mirror in mirror. Scripture is like that. If we read it all our lives we can never ultimately plumb its depth.

Our gospel begins with John the Baptist in prison sending two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you ‘’the one who is to come or shall we wait for another.” Remember that John baptized Jesus and recognized that Jesus should be baptizing him. He also was the prophet of whom the scriptures spoke the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.” And he was there when the heavens opened up and the spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove and God spoke saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.”

So didn’t you find it curious that this prophet was asking if Jesus was the one? Some have written that John was sending his disciples to ask this question for their benefit. Some have interpreted the passage to mean that John was impatient. He recognized Jesus at Jesus’ baptism as the Messiah and he wanted him to get on with it and conquer the Romans and bring about God’s Kingdom. Another interpretation is that he was discouraged and afraid and asking for reassurance before his execution. We could take off on this last point and talk about how we all can lose faith when we’re suffering.

Let’s look at Jesus’ response. He could have said, "You call yourself a prophet?" Or he could have questioned John’s faith. Remember how he chided Peter when he said O ye of little faith? He could have done any of these things, but what he did do was tell John’s disciples to tell John what they saw. “…the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up.” I want us all to notice that when John’s disciples ask if Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus’ initial response is to tell them to tell John what is being done. Jesus didn’t just preach; He did things. When we relate to the poor we need to act, not just talk. The things Jesus was doing, the miracles He was performing would seem to be all the answer that John would need. Nobody but God could do these things so He must be the Messiah.

But then He adds, “And the poor have good news preached to them.” This is what really intrigued me. Why add, “And the poor have good news preached to them?” I mean does this really add to his reassurance that He is in fact the One who is to come. By the way, in the Bible Old Testament and New, “the one who is to come,” is another expression for the Messiah.

Let’s see what else the passage says and then come back to this idea of preaching the good news to the poor.

The last sentence in Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples is, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” This is a gentle reminder to John and to us. To John I think Jesus was saying… If your question really was if you are the messiah then why aren’t you conquering our enemies and ushering in your kingdom? If that was your question Jesus says in effect my ways are not your ways. As William Barclay put it, “Jesus says to John, Maybe I am not doing the things you expected me to do. But the powers of evil are being defeated not by irresistible power, but by unanswerable love.”

John knew only half the story. He knew Jesus was God. He knew about divine holiness and divine destruction. Remember when he called the pharisees a brood of vipers and said who warned you of the wrath to come? What he did not know was the cross. And the cross is everything.   

There’s a word for us here too. Because of my pastoral care responsibilities I have spent a lot of time with people who are suffering. When tragedy strikes whether it’s suddenly or after a prolonged illness a common response is questioning God and often anger with God. If you are a loving God why are you letting this happen? Jesus’ response is, I am a loving God and blessed is he who is not offended by me. In some cases he may be saying. I know you think I allowed a life to be cut short. But you like John just see it from your side of eternity. From my side I loved the person and ended their suffering. I lengthened their life with Me. Sometimes we are offended at Jesus because he violates our ideas of what a savior should be. What we would do if we were God.

Now Jesus turns back to preaching to the people. Referring to John he says “what did you go out to see, a reed that blows whichever way the wind blows?” That wasn’t John the Baptist. He was unafraid to speak the truth and in fact was in prison for condemning Herod’s licentious behavior. Next he asks if they went to see one in fine clothing… a courtier. Again, this wasn’t John; he dressed in animal skins and knew nothing of the flattery of the court. Jesus acknowledges that John was a prophet and indeed more than a prophet. He builds him up as the greatest among men. Then he pulls the rug out and says, “Yet, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Why? Why is the least in heaven greater than he? Why? Because the least in heaven knows the good news that John didn’t know. Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. This answers our question posed earlier. Why did Jesus list the poor have good news preached to them along with the miracles. Because the good news is the greatest among miracles. Telling someone about Jesus and having them receive eternal life when they follow Him is a greater miracle than healing the blind or the paralyzed. In many of the accounts of Jesus healing miracles He first says your sins are forgiven because this was a bigger deal. We can forgive when people sin against us, and we can tell people about the one who can forgive all their sins.

So let’s get back to this idea of preaching good news to the poor. There is an awful lot in this short half a sentence. Where to begin?

Let’s start with this idea of the poor. How many poor are here today hearing this good news? Now whenever the subject of the poor comes up particularly in Eagle River or St. Germaine or anywhere up here where housing is pretty expensive so most people are reasonably comfortable, in comfortable communities like ours people are quick to respond that there are poor in our midst. The poor in spirit, those who don’t know Christ, those who are suffering, out of work etc. These statements are all true of course. We need to reach out to all of these with the good news. But I think we also need to recognize that when Jesus talked about the poor sometimes he was actually talking about the poor. Sunday after Sunday here at St. Mary’s or up the street at the Lutheran church or over at the UCC church  we preach to ourselves not the poor. I’ve seen the poor. Most of us have. To be honest we’re all too well off to be numbered among the poor. If you drove here you’re too well off to be really poor. Frankly since none of you are Native American or black or Hispanic then there are a lot of poor we’re not preaching the good news to. Because a disproportionate number of this country’s poor are Native American black and Hispanic.

It would seem then if we are to take up this challenge the first thing we have to do is get in front of the poor. We either need to get them in here or we need to go where they are. Either as a church or individually. Recently a good number of people from St. Mary’s worked to cook and serve and clean up after the meal for the poor and the elderly at the Food Pantry. This was truly sharing the love of Christ, but I have to point out it was just one meal…just  one week. We need to figure out how to keep this going 52 weeks a year because the poor are in need 52 weeks a year.

Secondly we need to look closely at what it means to say the poor have good news preached to them. There is a lot going on in this country that is called preaching but is not good news. Most modern translations of this phrase rely on Tyndale’s translation which read the poor have good news preached to them. Our forefather in the church Thomas Cranmer and his contemporary Jean Calvin translated this phrase the poor are evangelized. Commentaries of the period make it clear this was intended to mean they were influenced by it; they received it and were changed by it. They received the good news and were changed by it. If we will allow Jesus to be the arbiter of which translation he intended I think we can look at what happened when he preached. First of all he preached to the poor not to the rich. He preached in the country to the crowds not in the courts to the wealthy. Second he preached in a clear manner using stories and language the people understood. The bottom line is people were changed by what he said. He spoke and they believed. Our preaching is supposed to bring results.

What Jesus did in his ministry, the African church is doing today. 17 million Nigerians have been evangelized in Cranmer’s sense of the word. Numbers are equally incredible in Rwanda and Uganda and all over the global south. Meanwhile in the US in the decade of evangelism the Episcopal Church USA lost 1/3 of its membership. It’s lost another 1/3 in the last 5 years. Why? In too many churches the message has become inclusion, diversity, and social justice. These things are to be the RESULT of lives transformed by the good news NOT the good news itself.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “The gospel (or good news) lies in three things, the Word of God only, the blood of Christ only, and the Holy Spirit only. These three things make up the gospel. The Bible, the Bible alone the religion of protestants; the blood of Christ the only salvation from sin, the only means of pardon of our guilt; and the Holy Spirit the only regenerator, the only converting power that alone will work in us to will and to do His good pleasure. Without these three things there is no gospel. Let us take heed then for it is a serious matter, that when the people listen to us it is the gospel that we preach.” 

My brothers and sisters I want to tell you today it is a serious matter. As a church and as individuals we need to get outside these walls and reach out to the poor and the unchurched. We need to take them the good news. We need to take it in a way they can receive. For too long we have been quiet. A lot of the sickness in the Episcopal Church is on our heads. Clergy and laity alike. For too long we were silent. We are still too silent.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the faith. We give in too much. Now I don’t mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our Christian colours, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away.” If I may correct my esteemed brother, make a nuisance of yourself. When their life is saved they’ll thank you.

Jesus changed my life. He changed many of yours too. We should be anxious to tell others. I was talking to a priest friend recently and we were discussing the importance of evangelism in the community. My friend made the point that we really don’t want to evangelize. Clergy and laity alike we’re uncomfortable talking to perfect strangers about our faith. We’re afraid of being ridiculed. We’re embarrassed. His words made me sad. I really do want to evangelize. I’ve gotten over being embarrassed. I’m no longer uncomfortable. He was describing where he and his parishioners still are. I’ve thought about it quite a bit since we had that conversation. I’d like to suggest a refinement to his idea. I think most of us would actually like to evangelize…to tell people about the good news that Christ died to save sinners. The problem comes in the action. Some are uncomfortable acting on this desire. From my work teaching financial planning I learned a phrase, “Competence breeds confidence.” In other words the more we know the subject matter the more confident we are telling others about it. So what competence do we need here? First of all we need to be certain that we have heard the good news and we have accepted Christ as our savior and asked Him to be the Lord of our lives. We can’t evangelize anyone if we are not believers ourselves. Someone last week heard me say this and on Wednesday they accepted Christ as their Lord. Maybe you’re thinking you should. Come see me and we’ll pray together. Secondly a competence we need is to be comfortable talking about our faith, the reliability of God’s Word and how Jesus calls us to live. This is why discipleship is so important. We all need to be lifelong students learning about Jesus and how He would have us live. Everybody should be attending adult Sunday school on Sundays and then going along to the food pantry or the Mission or wherever there is ministry going on out in the world. We need to be out there sharing the good news.

Third, the competence required isn’t complicated and you don’t have to be an eloquent speaker or a Bible expert to do it. The good news is as simple as telling someone who doesn’t know Jesus how Jesus has changed your life. The Good News we need to be able to talk about is how Jesus has transformed our lives. This is good news we should know very well and be ready to share. This is the gospel according to Jim or Cissie or Kim or Ernie. This past Thursday Ernie prayed with people who came forward for prayer at the mission. All he did was listen to their requests and then ask Jesus to respond to them. We don’t save people, Jesus does. We don’t heal people, Jesus does. When you’re sharing the good news or praying for someone, you can count on the Holy Spirit to give you the words. You don’t need any Christian education program to teach you this most important good news.

We also need to recognize that we really don’t evangelize anybody. The Holy Spirit does all the heavy lifting. Maybe we can take some of the pressure off if we understand that we start the conversation and God finishes it. Again C.S. Lewis has a comment that is on point. Lewis wrote, “I’ve given talks to the Royal Air Force already and so far as I can judge they were a complete failure…One must take comfort in remembering that God used the jawbone of an ass to convert the prophet; perhaps if we do our poor best we shall be allowed a stall near it in the celestial stable.” If we’ll just have the courage to make an attempt God will take our weak, imperfect effort and save a soul with it.”

We could double the size of St. Mary’s if we each brought one person here in the next year. I say that not because this is a numbers game, but to give you an idea of all the lives the Holy Spirit could transform with our help. The good news still has the power to work miracles just as real as the miracles that Jesus performed. The powerful miracles that Jesus did in Galilee He still does. Those who are blind to the truth about themselves and about God can be made to see. Those whose feet are too weak to walk the right way can receive Jesus’ strength. Those who are covered with the afflicting scales of sin can be clean. Those who are deaf to the voice of their own conscience can be made to hear. Finally those who are dead in their sins can be raised from the dead and made new creations in Christ. I know because Jesus did this for me.  

We cannot ask like John, Is Jesus the one? We know about the cross.  Jesus is the one! The good news is Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. To save you and me. Go out this week and tell someone.  

Amen.