Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
Annual Meeting Sunday
February 1, 2009
CHRIST AT THE CENTER: THE FAMILY OF
FAITH
IS THERE ANY GOOD NEWS?
Scripture:
Romans 8:28-39
INTRODUCTION
As the steady stream of bad news
continues to come at us from almost every direction, I decided to save some of
the headlines printed on the front pages of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
this past week. Most of you have seen
them too:
Sunday, January 25 –
“Obama’s First Week” – “Republicans:
Obama Plan Bad Medicine” (Stimulus Package) – “Bleak Time in
Monday, January 26 –
“Peanut Scare Rattles Town’s
Way of Life” (Salmonella outbreak traced to Blakely, Georgia) – “Illinois Governor
Won’t Be at Impeachment Trial” – “With No Rain Down, Food Prices Go Up”
(Drought in California)
Tuesday, January 27 –
“Home Depot to Pull Plug on
Expo Stores” – “
Wednesday, January 28 –
“Atlanta Area’s Homes Lost
11.2% Last Year” – “Recession Sacks Falcons’ Premium Seat Sales” – “Grady
Hospital’s Message: We Need Help” – “Best Selling Author John Updike Dies”
Thursday, January 29 –
“Stimulus Bill Passes in
House Without GOP” (Without a single Republican vote) – “Thrashers, Hawks
Losers…of Money” – “A Really Bad Time to Sell a Condo” – “U.S. Post Office Says
Drop Sixth Delivery Day”
Friday, January 30 –
“Jobless Rate Hits 7.6% in
Saturday, January 31 –
“Federal Criminal Probe
Targets Peanut Plant” – “Economy Shrinks at Rapid Pace – Dow Jones Drops 148
Points” – “Georgia House OKs Relief for Now, Leaves it Unlikely for Later”
I
If you add to those negative
newspaper headlines all of the bad news coming through on television, radio,
the internet and even some doomsday predictions that I overheard last week at
Tommy’s Barbershop in Buckhead, then the question “Is there any good news?” is
at least worthy of a sermon. And at the
outset, here are some mixed reviews from the internet, entitled “Good News and
Bad News for a Pastor:
·
The good news is
that the Session accepted your job description the way you wrote it. The bad news is they were so inspired by it,
they formed a search committee to find somebody capable of filling the
position.
·
The good news is
the Women’s Board voted to send you a get well card in the hospital. The bad news is the vote passed by a margin
of 11-10.
·
The good news is
you finally found a choir director who approaches things exactly the same way
you do. The bad news is that the choir
has mutinied.
·
The good news is
that Mrs. Jones is wild about your sermons.
The bad news is she’s also wild about the Weather Channel, Fear Factor
and the Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
·
The good news is
that the Trustees finally voted to add more church parking. The bad news is they are going to blacktop
the front lawn of your manse.
·
The good news is
that church attendance rose dramatically over the past month. The bad news is you were away on vacation.
·
The good news is
that your women’s softball team finally won a game. The bad news is they beat your men’s softball
team.
·
The good news is
that the Personnel Committee wants to send you to the
Now the truth is, as most of
us know, we are caught in the midst of a battle where the stakes are high and
our comfort level is low. This financial
crisis has shaken our nation to the core, and considering the related issues of
health care, the environment, hunger, AIDS and poverty, in addition to wars
being fought in other parts of the world, we realize there is no simple or
painless solution to get us through the storm.
So, in the midst of all the
bad news, is there any good news to encourage us to go on instead of giving
up? And for those in this congregation
who are struggling to make ends meet, or to keep their marriages and families
together, or who have lost their jobs and are looking for work, is there any
good news we can declare in this church today?
According to the gospel of
Jesus Christ, thank God the resounding answer is “Yes”! In fact, that is what the word “gospel”
actually means. In the Greek,
“euangelion” translates “good news,” and those were the very words which Jesus
used in His first sermon, preaching to the hometown congregation where He grew
up in
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release
to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go
free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19;
Isaiah 61:1-2)
Those same words – “good
news” – appear 18 times in the New Testament, and the word “gospel” is found
almost 100 times more from Matthew to the Book of Revelation. I tell you that, not just to keep score, but
rather to remind us that Jesus came here to tell us that God is good, that
God’s grace is good, that God’s love is good, and that what God wants and wills
for all of us is good.
The Apostle Paul discovered
that truth during the difficult and painful times of his life, and he said it
was so in the letter he wrote to the Romans long ago, words which we need to
hear, especially now:
We know that in all things, God works
together for good for those who love God and are called according to His
purpose. (Romans 8:28)
The question, my friends, is
this: “Do we still believe that is true today?”
II
If your theology is based on
a judgmental God, then the answer might be “No.” You see, some people think of God that way,
like Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, pointing His finger and blaming us for the
things we have done or left undone.
Some of you have seen the
movie “Frost/Nixon” about the Watergate scandal that rocked this nation back in
the early 1970’s. As the books were
written by some of the people who were involved, Time Magazine quoted James
Neal, one of the government’s chief prosecutors, who said “Everybody blames
someone else. They all blame John Dean,
but Mitchell also blames Colson. Ehrlichman
blames the President. Mardian blames the
White House. And Mr. Haldeman really
can’t recall enough to blame anybody.”
(From “Pulpit Resource,” January – March, 1979, page 12)
Well, sad to say, I know some
people who think of God that way - when bad things happen, they say that God is
punishing them, so they have a hard time believing that In everything, God works together for good for those who love Him and
are called according to His purpose.
Instead, they think that when the bad news comes, a judgmental God is
releasing His wrath on them.
At the other end of the
theological spectrum are those who say that God is really not involved in our
day to day lives, that God is distant and indifferent and isn’t going to
intervene in any way, for good or for bad.
That’s what the philosophes
thought, a group of 18th century French philosophers whom I have mentioned
to you before. They were generally
anti-Christian and claimed that faith was based on unreasonable expectations
and filled with superstition. Among them
were Denis Diderot, Claude Helvetius, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Francois Marie
Arouet, who wrote with the pen name Voltaire.
One day, a religious leader
in
Still today, there are people
who view God that way – that He, or She or something out there might exist, but
has little or nothing to do with us here on this earth. So they, like their theological counterparts
on the opposite side of the fence, do not believe that In everything, God works together for good for those who love Him and
are called according to His purpose.
The question is: “Do you
believe that this promise is true? Do
you trust in the good news of the gospel?”
III
As Christians, and as
Presbyterians who belong to the Reformed Tradition, our answer can best be
given with two words: one is grace, and
the other is gratitude.
David Watermulder, who
preached when I was installed here in May of 1990, who taught me how to be a
pastor, and who is my spiritual father in the faith – he gave one final sermon
about grace just before he retired from the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in
suburban Philadelphia. In part, this is
what he shared from the depths of his heart:
“If I were asked what has been the
most important discovery in over forty years of ministry, I would say that it
is the slow, painful discovery of God’s grace…
Grace releases tensions, it enables us
to face terrible situations with reasonable calm. It gives us poise so that we can gain
perspective. It means that when we have
done our best, we can leave the rest with God…
If you meet up with a sudden reversal
and find the bottom knocked out from under you; if you find yourself alone with
your closest companion snatched from you; if you are constantly driven because
you innately think that everything depends on you; or if you become a meddling
fool or a nervous wreck because you think you must be in charge of
everything…then grace can become the most important word in your life…
In a dream, I found myself on an
elevator with another person who carried a Bible. He looked at me and smiled. I nodded, but remained occupied with all my
worries. As he stepped off the elevator,
he turned to me and said ‘Ephesians 2:8.’
And then he was gone…
When I woke up, I went into my study,
turned on the light and opened my Bible to Ephesians 2:8. This is what I found: For by
grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is
the gift of God…
I found myself trembling, but also
saying with more meaning than I had ever known before: ‘You do your best and
leave God the rest. Why don’t you have
sense enough to let go and let your faith go to work for you?’” (From a sermon by Dr. David B. Watermulder
entitled “The Two Most Important Words in Your Life,” preached at the Bryn Mawr
Presbyterian Church, December 1, 1985)
To tell you the truth, I have read and re-read
that sermon over and over again, especially during the past several months as
we in this church are facing tough financial times and some difficult decisions
for 2009.
And when you combine
Ephesians 2:8, trusting that we are saved
by grace through faith, with Romans 8:28, knowing that in everything, God works together for good for those who love Him and
are called according to His purpose, then the good news of the gospel of Jesus
Christ comes through to us like the Halleluiah Chorus on Easter Day!
CONCLUSION
And that leads to the final
word, which sends us on our way, and it is gratitude. If we believe that grace is God’s gift to us,
and we do, then gratitude is the gift we offer back to Him – gratitude for the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus, our Lord and Savior…gratitude for all of
God’s blessings, beyond anything we can measure…gratitude for the family
members and friends who are the treasures of our lives…gratitude for our
ministry and mission here at the corner of 16th and
Peachtree…gratitude for the hope we share and the future that is yet to
be…gratitude for the joy and unity that binds us together as the family of
faith…gratitude for the opportunities which the Lord calls all of us to embrace
in this city, across our nation and around the world in mission.
Our dear friend John
Claypool, rest his soul, described it this way: “(In) gratitude…we begin to
believe that the One who gave us the good old days can be trusted to give us
good new days as well.” (From “Mending
the Heart” by Dr. John Claypool, Cowley Publications, 1999, page 66)
That is what we have believed
here in this church for 161 years, and that is the hope which leads us into the
future. As Dr. King said, none of us
knows for certain what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future,
and he was right.
And that, my dear friends, is
the Good News of the Gospel! We know that in everything, God works
together for good for those who love God and are called according to His
purpose. Good News!
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.