Is This Good News?
The Rev. Dr. Robert R. Hansel

Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:23

Today's Gospel in many ways has to be questioned. In what sense is it a gospel? The word "gospel" comes from two German words, "goot spiel," meaning good words, good news, good tidings. The word "gospel" suggests that we should all be cheering and feeling great about this. This is good news! And yet, look at the gospel, what it says. Watch out, because if you take up the cross and follow me, here are a few things you can count on. You will probably be arrested. You will be brought before counsels and forced to endure all kinds of questioning. You will be beaten. You will be imprisoned. Your sons and daughters will betray you to death.

This is good news? Jesus says, Go into the whole world and spread this good news, but pull up your bootstraps because, by golly, you're going to be in real trouble. This is, at best, mixed news, not good news, so where is the good news in this gospel? ...

The good news and bad news in this story depends on your station in life. The reason that the Christian religion spread like wildfire across the whole known world is that most of the known world was enslaved. The Roman government had simply run right over all of these countries. They had arrested people. They had taken away their language and culture. They had taken away all their freedom. They conscripted them into the Army. They were enslaved. They were imprisoned. They were burdened. And the gospel, the good news, is this: God promises that all forms of imprisonment, all forms of enslavement, are over. They are done with. You are free. That's the good news.

So for whom is that bad news? It's bad news for those who benefited from enslavement; who wanted a world in which people were imprisoned; who needed a world in which they could manipulate vast populations. And so when they heard this supposed good news, their reaction was to fight it tooth and nail and do everything possible to resist this new movement of freedom. The idea that people could be free was the ultimate threat to empire....

Think about the Christian message today. Why would the Christian message be resented or resisted when it is a message of love and compassion and freedom and justice? Why would it be resisted? The same reason it was resisted in the first century. For those who want to control, who want to manipulate, for those who want to imprison, it is not good news. The forms of imprisonment in our own time-- the imprisonment of poor education, poor housing, drug addiction, unemployment, family and child abuse--may be very different, but they're no less important. Those who practice these forms of imprisonment don't hear the freedom that Jesus promises as good news.

And so you are sent into the world like those first century disciples to carry the good news, knowing that it will not be heard everywhere as good news. It will be heard as meddling. It will be heard as taking the side of those who are nobody--persons who are powerless, persons who are oppressed. And yet, our message is still the same: Life, freedom, happiness, and security. It is a message that can be good news; it can be bad news--depending on how you hear it and what your agenda is. ...

The good news is that not even death can stand against the power of God--no form of oppression, no form of injustice, no form of imprisonment. We are freed, and that is the good news. That is the goot spiel, and Sarah may laugh, but it's still the good news.

As Paul has told us: People can resist, they can disbelieve and they can ridicule, but the truth stands: You are free. That is our great good news to all those who would hold us captive--to all those who would suppress and oppress and abuse, you are free. ...

Let us pray.

Good and gracious God, through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, you have thrown down the gates of death. You have opened to us the gate of freedom. Help us to carry that news into a world in which people are still exploited and imprisoned in so many ways. Give us the strength and courage to proclaim the gospel of freedom until all people have struck off all those chains, those shackles that burden them, and know the truth--the promise of freedom and life forever and ever. Amen.

Copyright 2002 Calvary Episcopal Church

Excerpted from a sermon delivered at Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee, June 16, 2002.

Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:23
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. 11Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." NRSV

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