Faith with Feet
a sermon based on Luke 3:7-18
by Rev. Thomas Hall

What a week of unexpected news! For instance, I was lying down for an afternoon nap yesterday when I first heard it. "This just in. Prime Minister Ehud Barak has suddenly resigned as Prime Minister of Israel." Shock! The tough part of that announcement is, according to the speaker for the Palestinian parliament, "there is no possibility to reach a peace agreement before the new election in Israel;" that’s over sixty days away.

Over in Moscow about the same time, President Vladimir Putin agreed to free Edmond Pope, the former US naval intelligence officer, who had been sentenced to 20 years for alleged. Quite unexpectedly, Pope was acquitted. He’s free. And he’ll be home for Christmas.

And of course, down in Florida, momentum has flip-flopped from Bush to Gore and Gore to Bush so that we’re getting dizzy from all of the appeals and Supreme Court rulings. David Letterman suggests that we find some guy named George W. Gore and make him President. My friend, Ed Miller, chaplain at Granite Farms Estates, told me that on his flight to Florida last week, the pilot’s voice came over the intercom: "There are 135 passengers aboard this plane," he said, "and that’s without any recount." Even the press got in on the act. Ed opened one of the Florida daily newspapers and splashed across the front page it read, "Bush Wins Florida Election." He turned the paper and it read, "Gore Wins Florida Election." So much news coming all at once can make anyone dizzy.

So that’s why this is a good place to come this morning. In church it’s like we freeze time for just a moment and catch our breath. We have news too, but its not exactly breaking news. That’s what’s comforting about the good news. It’s good news, not new news. Not going to change in the next twenty seconds, thank God. No Supreme Court or resignation or presidential pardon commission is going to change our good news.

Over the years we’ve come to own this good news like an old sweater. Fits, feels comfortable. We open our hymnals and sing the good news. Our orchestra plays the good news, we offer thanksgiving for the good news, we give money to spread the good news.

I bet some of us can even recite the history of the word. Good News comes from the English word, Godspell, 7th century. God=Good and Spell=Tale. Or "the spinning of a good yarn," or "the telling of a reliable story." If you’re a word sleuth, you probably know that the Good News originally came from euangelion which referred to a herald who bore cheerful tidings to the king. And by the time of the Christian era, Good News came to mean exactly the way we heard it this morning. "So with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people."

But don’t we value the gospel for more than just its timeless quality? Haven’t we discovered that this news has transformative power in it? That once the message is believed and affirmed, it leads to an encounter with God?

Meet Jim, a graphics art designer who shared his story with our senior high students this morning. You’ve got to like the guy. Talented, skilled, successful. Promising. Award-winning work. And deeply addicted to alcohol, drugs, and pornography. Had gone to church for years. Knew the right words, could read the same prayers we read. Knew all about the good-old-news. But he had never let it penetrate behind his mask, deep inside his life. And so when things starting spinning too fast, he got dizzy. Went out with high-powered clients to the best restaurants in Philadelphia, but ended up out on the street, so intoxicated that one night that he totaled three cars and injured himself. Put himself in detox.

So easy to write people off like that. Then one day, the guy decides to go back to church. That’s his real wakeup call. Because once in the church, Jim heard the Good News as if he heard it for the very first time. And this time the Good News led him to a Good Person. He knew that God had forgiven him and given him the power to begin life again. Today, Jim is in recovery; that’s where I met him-speaking at a men’s gathering. After I had finished, Jim came up grabbed my hand and said, "Tom, I just wanted to tell you, that your words meant a lot to me; the gospel is what saved my life." I’ve been sober for nine years. Back in business, have a wife and family. Thank God."

He got that right! Thank God. That’s where the good news will lead you every time, to an encounter with God. Jim now is beginning a Christian 12-step to help other people who need to hear the Good News.

Got a call from Greg Donnelly three weeks ago. Who’s he?-that’s what I asked. This Greg, from Minneapolis had called a pastor to ask if she knew of my family. He wanted to locate me. When we finally connected he told me that I had been a classmate of his in 3rd grade. "Okay, I said, trying to sound polite, "third grade, huh?"

"So what have you been doing?" I asked. Greg said that he pastors a church in Minneapolis.

"So how did you get into the ministry," I asked. He told me that he stayed in that little Minnesota town and went off to better things-better things turned out to be getting a good college education and living on the wild side.

"I was in New Orleans for Marti Gras one year and knew that I had strayed from my faith and God. I was confirmed and all, but I was running on empty-and I finally got courage enough to admit it. It was raining buckets; I was drenched, but I sat on the curb. I happened to see a piece of paper floating along the gutter so I picked it up and began to read it. It said that I had sinned and fallen short of God’s great plans for my life. So I read the piece of paper and right there on the curb in the rain during Marti Gras, I asked God to take over my life."

Several months later he was enrolled in seminary and today Greg Donnelly pastors a flourishing church in Minneapolis. Call it psychological crisis, guilt, or desperation. But Greg calls it the power of the gospel that led to a changed life.

But Luke’s Good News is more than crisis conversion. Luke moves beyond conversion to response. Puts some legs to our faith. When people came to John the Baptist and asked what they had to do to avoid the axe, it’s interesting what he says. Actually, it’s interesting what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t tell these seekers to "pray the sinner’s prayer." That’s what I would have done, just led them down the Roman road to Romans 3:23 ("all have sinned . . .") on to Romans 6:23 ("for the wages of sin is death . . .") and then ending at Romans 10:8-9 ("if you will confess . . . you shall be saved").

But listen to what Luke says is an appropriate response to the word of the gospel:

Hey, how many coats you got, man? Okay, here’s what you do. Give one of ‘em-not that one, the other one-to the shivering guy sitting on the grate by Macy’s. How many McDonald’s gift certificates you got? Good. Give one of them five dollar packs to Mary over here; she hasn’t had a good meal in a week.

You see where Luke is going? He wants to make sure the good-old news-doesn’t just keep us to comfortable in our personal salvation stories. Socially sensitive Luke reminds us that people are not souls to be redeemed but human beings to be saved-from sin, hunger, addictions, and loneliness.

See the good news!

See the Good News on the face of a black Baptist pastor in Indianapolis who, when asked by a reporter, "What do you preach," says "I preach the gospel-and I pass out 2,000 turkey dinners."

See the Good News-the Brothers of Taize. Wherever the worse ghettos are in the world, a small community of Taize brothers will be right in the middle, praying and living in the world’s worse neighborhoods. Their philosophy is simple: "We can’t make much of a difference in the areas of the world where poverty and violence exist, but we can live there." And so they do.

See the Good News-its John and Jane getting married at St. Peter’s Episcopal church in New Jersey. A string quartet plays the reception as the doors are flung open and over one-hundred senior citizens, unemployed folks and a few throwaway kids are invited to come in and join in the wedding celebration. Jane says, "These people never get invited to weddings; so I thought, ‘I’ll invite them to mine.’" These folks can’t shake hands long enough or smile broad enough. But the greatest action is happening at the far end of the long food line. There she stands, the bride in full wedding attire dishing out a piece of cake to go with their soup.

Have you met the Good News Luke speaks of? Has the Good News led you to the Good Person? Then be creative in your response. Get married and share the cake with uninvited friends. Open your doors, open your hearts, find your tongue and let God’s glorious-old, but good-news find a place of ministry. Amen.