Living the Good News
Michael Sherer
Berkey Avenue Mennonite Felowship, 11/19/00

Yesterday was bill paying day at the Sherer household. About twice a month I sit down with a stack of bills and the checkbook and pay the water bill, phone bill, gas and electric bill, Visa bill, the mortgage, etc. etc. etc. Now I don't know about your house, but I would hardly characterize this as a time of joy and thanksgiving, watching the balance in the checkbook dwindle away. But I do it anyway. Why? Well, paying your bills on time is a responsible thing to do and I am, or at least aspire to be, a responsible person. I also know that if I don't I will incur late fees, have my utilities cut off and ruin my credit rating. Joy and thanksgiving had very little to do with it. It was really about who I am and knowledge of the bad things that will happen if I don't do it.

At that same bill-paying session I also wrote out a check to Berkey Avenue. And I had to ask myself: Does this feel any different than paying NIPSCO? or the Visa bill? Is it really just about who I am--a responsible church member who gives X percent to the church--and the bad things that will happen if I don't do it, like missing the budget and cutting church program and staff? How about the offering we took earlier in the service? Was that a time of joy and thanksgiving?

I'm not going to answer these questions, yet. I want to begin exploring them through the sermon text, the Luke 17 passage about the ten lepers. It's a familiar story. Jesus is walking along the border of Jewish territory and as he enters a town, he's approached by ten lepers. They don't go near him because they have leprosy, but they recognize him and cry out Jesus, Master, have pity on us! Have mercy on us! It's not really clear from this what they were expecting from Jesus, likely they had heard about other healings, but the request is ambiguous. They could have been asking for comfort or money. Jesus response is equally ambiguous--he says 'go and show yourselves to the priests.

Then something amazing happens. What happens next? [You learned that in Sunday School, didn't you.]. All ten turned and headed off to show themselves to the priests! Folks, this doesn't make any sense. If I was one of these lepers I'd be pretty disappointed about now. This feels like the official brush off. Jesus didn't heal me, he just told me to go to the priests, and they won't want anything to do with me. I'm still sick! Still unclean! And so the truly amazing thing is that all ten had enough faith and were obedient enough to turn and head for the priests even though they hadn't yet experienced any obvious sign of healing. And for their faith, Jesus heals them. Hallelujah! What a miracle. Imagine the rejoicing among those ten lepers. They were healed, clean, ready to rejoin society! Jesus wasn't just brushing them off. They would go and tell the priests just as Jesus told them to do.

Now I will confess to you that when I first heard this story in my youth, I was pretty critical of nine lepers who didn't come back to give thanks. Such ungrateful wretches probably skipped going to the priests and headed straight for the bars and pool halls. Probably forgot all about Jesus. I even suspected that maybe for their wickedness Jesus un-healed them. Wouldn't they be sorry then! But I was reading a 12 year-old's sense of justice into the story.

If I had taken the time to read the story in context, I would have gotten what Luke really had in mind when he recounted this story. Immediately prior to the story of the ten lepers, Jesus tells the disciples an anecdote about a servant. Starting in verse 7:

Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink, after that you may eat and drink?' Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.'

This sounds a little harsh, but Jesus is simply making it clear that obedience is not enough. And in the story of the ten lepers he reinforces the point. I think it's safe to assume that the nine lepers went straight to the priests just as Jesus told them to do. They were obedient. They were probably even joyful as they went the priests. I'd even go so far as to say that if they saw Jesus on the road that afternoon, they would have thanked him profusely. But it wasn't their first instinct. Only the one, the Samaritan, the foreigner, responded with immediate thankfulness, fall at Jesus'feet giving praise to God and thanking Jesus. For this spontaneous act of joyous thanksgiving, the man receives the place of honor in this story.

The final irony. Does the man go and see the priests like Jesus asked originally? Presumably not. Jesus just says rise and go.

And so, here we are, left with this amazing message--it's good to be faithful and obedient--all ten lepers were healed. But it is oh so much better to be thankful.

Frankly, as a Mennonite, this story makes me nervous. After all, we're pretty good at obedience. In a most humble way, we pride ourselves on obedience. But thankfulness, that's so much harder. If this had been the story of the ten Mennonites, how many would have returned to give thanks? How many think all 10?--raise your hand. How about 5? 3? 1? Zero? I'm with the zeros--First, Jesus said go and show yourselves to the priest, and since Jesus said it, Mennonites are pretty much beholden to do it. Second, if you have ten Mennonites, that's a community, so they'd most likely reach consensus and go--probably have a potluck on the way.

There's an occupational hazard to being Mennonite, that living the Christian life becomes like paying the bills. I do it because that's who I am, because it's expected of me and I fear the consequences of doing otherwise. We quote Hans Denk, saying 'No one may truly know Christ, except by following him in life, forgetting the other half of the quote that says, 'and no one may truly follow Christ, except by knowing him. We risk equating things like discipleship and stewardship with the good news, instead of as a response to the Good News. To illustrate the point: [story of the Politics of Jesus]

Which brings us back to the Children's Story. The antidote to this Mennonite malady of Joyless Discipleship is the Good News. To know the Good News and to live the Good News.

This is ground I tread lightly on. I'm no Bible scholar and historically I'm no evangelist. But I have come to believe that all Christians, all Mennonites, should be able to articulate what the Good News is in their own words;to own the Good News;to live the Good News. There's a deliciious irony that I, Michael Sherer, left-leaning radical Christian, would stand before you espousing something perilously close to the four spiritual laws. But seriously, the Good News is simply too important and too foundational to be ceded to any one segment of Christianity. But that's exactly what a lot of us have done. Turned off by tracts and simplistic formulas, we've simply abdicated. But the Good News is important and not just for evangelistic reasons. If you don't understand the gift you've been given you have no basis for responding in gratitude. If you don't know the giver you have no one to give thanks to. And so we are left with the task of re-interpretting the Good News, making it fresh and making it our own.

The Bible is ambiguous enough about what the Good News is that I don't expect agreement, but the exploration is important. The journey is the reward. Our understanding of the Good News forms a foundation for discipleship and a whole-life stewardship that goes beyond writing checks to encompass our whole being. We must own it.

For the children, I distilled the Good News down to three things. God Loves You, God Forgives You, and God has a purpose for your life. Now I think we would all agree that the Good News is much richer than this, but these three ideas I believe are foundational. They form an invitation to explore that richness. I also believe they are implicit in other simple formulations of the Good News, like John 3:16 'For God So Loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Before going further, let's acknowledge that we understand the Good News through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and our relationship to Him as disciples. Next, let's go deeper on God's purpose for our lives. In general terms, God's purpose for our lives is that we be conduits for God's love, God's forgiveness or grace and God's blessing. God loves us, therefore we can love others, God forgives us therefore we can forgive others, God blesses us therefore we can bless others. By blessing here I am speaking of blessing in all its forms--material, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and experiential.

As we explore this invitation to live the Good News and to be a blessing to others, the Good News transcends the personal. It becomes Good News to the community, Good News to the nation and Good News to the world. This is the whole life stewardship that people like MMAs Lynn Miller are speaking so eloquently about in forums like last weekend's Stewardship University. I truly believe that MMA is doing important, ground-breaking work here, and that contained within this concept of whole-life stewardship are the seeds of spiritual renewal and greater vitality for the church.

Let's say for a moment that by the grace of God, each person here were able to articulate the Good News in their own words, in their own lives. There would still be one significant hurdle--having the conviction that this Good News has value outside the household of faith;that it solves real world, universal human problems. This is a big hurdle for Mennonites. Boldness is a recessive gene in the Mennonite community. But think about it--in a world where self loathing fuels an epidemic of suicide and hatred leads to murder and genocide, the Love of God affirms the worth of each person. In a world where sin corrodes our souls and litters society with broken lives and empty promises, God's grace and forgiveness clears the slate and makes new beginnings possible. In a world where the gods of relativism and randomness rob life of any sense of purpose, claiming God's plan for your life restores meaning. Through Christ's death and resurrection, God has conquered sin and death. By the Holy Spirit, God is able to redeem human suffering. We can live lives of hope and blessing without fear. Is this Good News? Yes! Does the world need this message? Desperately! Should we, like the Samaritan leper, praise God and thank Jesus for this Good News? Absolutely! Go forth and claim the Good News, share the Good News, live the Good News.