3 Epiphany, Year B

“DEFINITIONS: GOD TIME & GOD’S KINGDOM”
A sermon by: The Rev. Gene TuckerGiven at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, January 25, 2009
Jeremiah 3: 21 – 4: 2; Psalm 130; I Corinthians 7: 17 – 23; Mark 1: 14 – 20

One of the greatest joys I had last week when I visited the family back east was the honor of helping our seven year old granddaughter, Mira, with her homework. This highly intelligent (yes, I know that all grandfathers think their granddaughters are “highly intelligent”, but in this case, it’s really true!), very motivated young lady gets some hard work to do for her first grade class….In the course of the week, we worked on math, and then also on her spelling and on an English assignment that was connected to her spelling words.

Mira had to choose three words from her spelling list and find definitions for them in the dictionary. (I don’t think I ever had to do that when I was in first grade!). So, Mira chose three words, and we went to work. She was very good at figuring out where to find the words, first of all….For example, she had no trouble knowing that “crust” came before “cry”.

As we went through the dictionary, [1] I directed her to the definitions, skipping the part that tells you where the words came from, that is, what language they were derived from), and directed her right to the definitions themselves. She caught on right away.

As I reflected on this collaborative effort with my granddaughter, I thought also of today’s Gospel, in which Mark records Jesus’ first words, as His public ministry now gets underway.

“These words are so familiar,” I thought to myself, “perhaps many of us could repeat or paraphrase them.” They roll off our backs, spiritually, don’t they, because they are so familiar.

But then, I put the two events together: the work with the dictionary, and our gospel text for today, and thought to myself, “How about going back to the basic meanings of the key words in our Gospel for today?”

What a neat idea!

We need to do that from time-to-time, get back to the basic definitions of the terms we use so frequently.

We now turn our attention to these basic words, found in today’s Gospel text, applying what might be the best meaning of these words to today’s text as they are defined in Webster’s: [2]

Time: Not only the duration of a period as it relates to the movement of planet earth, but also to “the point of period appropriate to the beginning, performance, or ending of a course of action, as in “It is time we went.”
Kingdom: Not only the political area governed by a male monarch, but the “realm in which God’s will is done.”

Repent: Not only to “grieve for one’s sins,” but to “change one’s mind” about something.

Believe: “To accept as true something that is known partially by faith.”

Gospel: A contraction of an Old English word God (good) + spell (tale).

Now, putting all of these together, let’s look at Jesus’ first words as Mark records them, drawing inferences for our walk with the Lord.

The first thing we might say is that our Lord’s words indicate an already, and a not yet aspect of the Kingdom of God. (More on that in a moment, but I wanted to plant the seed of this overall structure of Jesus’ words at the outset.)

Now, we turn to the first statement Jesus makes, when He says, “The time is fulfilled.” In some translations, we read, “The time has come.” This statement marks the already nature of the Kingdom of God…..The “time” in this case seems to be in the sense of “this is the right time for God to act.”

Next, we hear Jesus say, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Again, in some translations, we read, “The Kingdom of God is near.” This aspect of the coming of the kingdom is the not yet aspect of its coming. It is in the process of coming, but hasn’t fully come. As a sidelight, let’s remind ourselves that Mark is clear to point out the secretive nature of Jesus’ unfolding identity and ministry. Our Lord’s ministry begins quietly, mysteriously. In Mark’s gospel account, Jesus identity, ministry and purpose in coming to earth explodes into the open at Mark 8: 31. Scholars have come to nickname this phenomenon in Mark’s gospel as the “Messianic Secret”. And so here, we hear Jesus say, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Having outlined God’s action, Jesus now turns to our response, saying, “Repent.” In this case, the word might well carry the sense of “turn from your wicked and sinful ways”, just as the word carried that connotation in John the Baptist’s baptismal rite in the River Jordan. But I think it also carries the sense of “change your minds” about the nature of the kingdom. Surely Jesus’ contemporary listeners needed that action, for many of those first century Jews believed the kingdom would come with the advent of a Messiah who would be like King David, a great, military conqueror who would throw off the yoke of Roman occupation and restore Israel to its greatness of 1,000 years earlier when David united the 12 tribes of Israel into a solid nation.

Next, Jesus says, “Believe the good news!”. What a difficult demand to make of His original hearers….After all, they’d probably only heard Him this once. (They did not have the advantage we have of the deposit of faith that comes from thousands of years of reflecting on Holy Scripture, on the witness of the original Apostles and the faith community – the Church – all of which assist us in coming to faith in the true-ness of the good news. What a leap of faith!

What application might we make for our own lives, as modern-day Christians, of Jesus’ words, which fall on our ears (thanks to Mark’s recording of them), just as they did on the ears of those first hearers 2,000 years ago?

Just the following, by way of suggestion:

Time: It’s God’s time, not our time. Whenever God confronts us with His acting and asks for a response, it’s the “right time”. Today!

The Kingdom of God is at hand: It is coming. It is coming today. It comes to our hearts, to our minds. For there is the seat of God’s acting, in human hearts and minds. We – all of us who believe – are called to become small “castles” for the monarch to take up residence. To do so changes us forever, for we ally ourselves to the power of God to change our lives, and in turn, the entire world, in the process.

Repent: “Change your minds,” we are called to do. “Come to a new and fuller understanding” of who God is, what God wants of us, and how that affects our lives.

Believe in the good news: Use whatever measure of faith God has gifted us with in order to open the doors to fuller understanding and closer living and walking with God through Jesus Christ. (“I believe in order to know, and I know in order to believe,” is the axiom which governs this process.)

By God’s grace and mercy, may we come to know that the time is here, that the Kingdom of God is approaching, and may we be enabled to repent and to believe the good news.

AMEN.
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[1] Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate
[2] Here I use Webster’s New Lexicon of the English Language, as well as Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.