Good News
Good news
When I was a Methodist pastor, all preachers, lay and ordained, had a preaching assessment. Usually about three or four people were involved, including a senior ordained minister, a warden or a leader, and a member of the congregation. The assessment had a number of sections to be filled in. One section asked: did the preacher offer Good News? Award 1 if yes and continue marking. Award 0 if not and stop marking. Nerve racking. What is the Good News? In one sentence what would you say is the kingdom of God?
The Gospel of Mark is “punchy”, pithy, to the point with little unnecessary detail. The good news is clearly stated: The kingdom of God is near. Repent. Believe.
Some were so captivated by the Good News of the kingdom that they let everything to answer the call to follow Jesus. The Gospel unit ends in verse 21 with John and James leaving their fathers business to follow Jesus. I wonder how he must have felt. What is so compelling, so enticing, so attractive about the Good News of the kingdom of God that one literally abandons everything: business, family, home, relationships, money, to follow it?
We have noted before that the word evangelion is a term that Mark colonised from Rome. After a successful war, Caesar would send out coins, evangelions, announcing the good news of his latest victory in war. Mark brazenly uses this term ‘good news’ (evangelion) to describe the message of Jesus and calls Christ’s kingdom good news – something good something new.
Jesus could have used the word family or community or collective or life group to describe God’s activity in the world. Instead, Jesus uses the word kingdom – a political term. Jesus deliberately used the word kingdom in describing the realm of Gods influence so at the heart of call to follow Jesus is political resistance. Our baptism into the kingdom of God cannot be reduced to spiritual niceties devoid of activism.
The audience of Jesus knew about kingdoms, especially the kingdom of Rome. Living under Roman occupation with the terror that that entails, Jesus’ listeners at first thought he would re-establish an earthily kingdom by force. Perhaps Jesus was tempted by this; when tempted in the wilderness the tempter takes Jesus to a high mountain shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, “all this I give you if you worship me” (Matthew 8.9). The sons of Zebedee want to sit at his right hand and left hand in his kingdom (Matthew 20.20). Jesus makes clear that his kingdom is not like that at all. When Jesus says that he will suffer and die for his kingdom, Peter says Lord this will never happen. Jesus says to him get behind we Satan your mind is not God’s wavelength (Mark 8.33).
Jesus is in direct disagreement of the kingdoms of his day and offers a different sort of kingdom, a unique way to structure human society. Jesus presents an alternative kingdom. Jesus offers an alternative social and political vision. In order for his kingdom to take shape, the other kingdoms have to be abandoned and dismantled. The way in which Jesus proposes to dismantle the kingdoms of the world is so threatening to those who benefit from exploitation that they put him to death.
Later we will learn about this kingdom of God, but it looks something like the traditions that informed Jesus. For example, his ancestor Moses describes how God’s people were fed with manna, bread from heaven, in the wilderness escape from Egypt. In Jesus alternative social vision, manna is shared with all, there is economic justice for all. Mercy is given to all, , there is no hierarchical system, no religious system of who is in and who is out – all are in – all are embraced, loved, and accepted. Jesus’ alternative kingdom would be a world of nonviolent peace.
The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is at hand. In other words, the kingdom is so close to you, you can reach out and touch it. The kingdom of God means God is everywhere. God is within us; God is among us. God is all around us. The kingdom of God is like breath, you breath it in and out, the breath is in you and outside you. It is around you; it is in every person you meet so that everyone who comes to you, is the face of God. You are a manifestation of God’s kingdom, as is the person you love the most and the person you like the least. This too is frightening, especially for the religious kingdoms of Jesus day. If the reality of God is accessible to all people, all the time, what then of religion? The kingdom of God challenges our security and the safety we have in our religious beliefs. The law and the temple are not absolute. All are invited into a higher relationship beyond law and temple, for those not open to growing in intimacy with God in this way, the kingdom is a threat and good news is bad news.
The Good news is the kingdom of God is at hand. How do you begin to see this way? The method is given – it is the word repent. Repent is not about confessing the manifold mistakes we all make. Repent is from metanoia. Metanoia does mean the radical change of mind, but its meaning lies deeper than that.
The Gospel is written in Greek and is deeply influences by Greek philosophy. According to Greek philosophy reality is seen on four levels.
· The first is the body or matter.
· The second is the individual soul.
· The third is the nous - the universal soul.
· The fourth is The One Reality or God.
Meta noia means go beyond the nous. The word meta means go beyond. Metta narrative is the story beyond . Metaphysics means beyond physics. Meta noia means go beyond the level of nous. Repent means that we go beyond our identification with the body, beyond our identification with the individual soul, beyond our identification with the nous or the universal soul – the nous – to find God or experience God who is everywhere.
So how actually do you repent, go beyond the nous? It is not action so much as non-action. You cannot come to God because you are already in God . You cannot come to the kingdom of God because the kingdom is near, it is already in you and around you. Repent is about the surrender to the reality of what is, surrender to the experience of God who is everywhere. Religion and sacraments have deep value in as much as they support our repentance, our metanoia, our going beyond the mind or nous. Denise Levertov in her poem “The Avowal” is a brilliant example of repentance as going beyond the level of Mind to experience the Kingdom of God that is at hand.
The Avowal
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.