Word Count: Low; Impact: Life Changing

Mark 1: 9-15

John D. Thornburg

March 5, 2006/ Kessler Park United Methodist Church

At the height of his career, the great American novelist, Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a story in six words. He wrote, “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” It got me thinking what some prominent personalities in the news might do with their six words. How about Anna Nicole Smith? “Hubby died. Need money. Go Supremes.”

Brevity can really be poignant, and when it comes to brevity, we see two real pros in action in this morning’s gospel lesson. The first is the evangelist, Mark, and the second is the one about whom he writes, Jesus of Nazareth.

Mark is a time-is-money kind of writer. No messing around with a birth story in Mark’s gospel; no time to waste talking about Jesus arguing with the elders in the temple. Nope, it’s splish-splash, right into the Jordan River so Jesus can get baptized and on his way.

Look at the way the gospel begins; “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” None of that “In the beginning was the word” poetic nonsense for Mark. We’re off to the races. There’s a brief word about who John the Baptist is, and then it’s into the river Jordan to baptize Jesus.

That’s accomplished in three sentences, even including what God says when Jesus comes out of the water. And then, before Jesus even has time to towel dry his hair, we hear that “the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.” There’s none of that stuff that we find in the other gospels about what happened in the wilderness and what Satan tempted him with. There’s no time to waste, because for Mark, everything that comes before Jesus’ suffering and death is there to help explain why he suffered and died. For Mark, it’s all about getting to Jerusalem to tell the story of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.

So, Jesus has been in the wilderness, and then we hear, “Now after John was arrested..” What? We don’t even know what John was doing to get arrested. But never mind, because we’re on our way to Jerusalem. It’s reminiscent of the truncated story lines in an E.M. Forster novel... “And they laid Leonard, who was dead, on the ground...”

Now we’re ready for the second entrepreneur of brevity, Jesus himself. The story says that after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee and proclaimed the good news. Here is what he said:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

It’s a two point sermon. The first point is about the present, and the second is about the future. The first is the indicative; it’s about what God has already done (namely, shown up in the flesh). The second is the imperative; it’s about what’s possible, what can and must be done because of what is true.

Let’s work on the second point: Repent, and believe in the good news. It’s not six words, but it’s close. It’s seven of the most powerful words ever spoken. Now, ‘repent’ is one of the bogey words of the Bible. It’s right up there with ‘judgment’ and ‘hell’ and ‘brimstone.’ That’s probably true because of pictures we have of street corner evangelists warning us that our miserable lives will soon end if we don’t repent. And the tone of voice adopted by many of those evangelists was so grave that you get the impression that the only thing that would constitute true repentance is pretty much ripping out your eyes so you couldn’t look lustfully on anyone, and ripping out your tongue so you couldn’t gossip, etc.

At some point in a story like this, you simply have to take a step back and ask, “Well, if I was scared or offended by those street corner guys who tried to yell me into heaven, how do I actually envision the way in which Jesus said these words? What tone of voice did he use? What does ‘repent’ mean? What is the good news? And what does it mean to believe the good news?”

I hope in the quiet of your own homes today, you’ll spend time with your own answers to those questions. I want to share mine with you right now.

To repent means to change my mind. It means that I used to believe one thing or do one thing, but now I believe something different or I’m resolved to do something completely different. I think most people confuse repentance with regret. I know I often have. They think that to repent means to feel miserable about something you did, and to spend tons of time trying to figure out how to atone for the mistake; a kind of wallowing in sorrow and shame. I’m persuaded that the writer Frederick Buechner is right when he says, “True repentance spends less time thinking about the past and saying, “I’m sorry,” than to the future and saying, “Wow.”

Here’s what I believe most of the time, and I hope I’m not the only one in the room who does. I believe in the Trinity of the status quo. It’s three things I say in one form or another every day of my life:

-I know it

-I need it

-I deserve it

Let’s take them one at a time.

I know it.

This is the part of me that doesn’t need to be bothered with facts. I know what I like. I know what I don’t like. I know when I’m right. I know when you’re wrong. Because if I’m not right, my whole world falls apart. Or it’s just more work. More bother. I know which politicians to believe. I know who the real Christians are. No one who disagrees with me has anything to teach me. Period.

I need it.

This is the part of me that is glad that Ross Perot lives in Dallas, because he is rich, and I’m not. I can justify almost any purchase because, after all, I’m not decadent and showy like the people in the Park Cities. I get things because I need them. They get things because they want them.

I deserve it

This is the part of me that plays senseless, insipid mathematical games. I gave three ratty old shirts that I never wear to Goodwill this week, and so, because of my extraordinary generosity, I deserve to go buy three new ones.

Friends, this is a Trinity, but it is a quite unholy Trinity, and it is precisely this orientation to the world that Jesus is talking about when he says, “Repent.” He says, “Change your mind about that.”

It’s not about what we know. It’s about how we love. It’s not about what we need or deserve. It’s about what we’ve already been given. The table of life has been set by God with a meal beyond our wildest imaginings, and we’re worried about whether the napkin rings are the right color and whether our dish of ice cream has as much chocolate sauce as the person next to us. And Jesus says, “Change your mind.”

Then he says, “Believe the good news.” So what is that? Being right, or being greedy, or selfish is an unimaginably heavy burden. If I’m gossiping, I’m basically lying, and I’ve got to keep straight which lie I’ve told to which person. If I’m propping up my ego by pretending that I’m better than you, or smarter, or funnier, or better looking, or harder working, the pole propping up my pride is going to break some day, and I’ll be sprawled on the floor with no one to help me up.

Oh, wait a minute. I do have someone helping me up. Didn’t I hear Jesus say, “Believe the good news.” Didn’t I feel Jesus’ hand pulling me off the floor? Didn’t I feel Jesus’ arm on the small of my back, leading me out of the church today so I could see the world as a gift rather than a burden? Believing the good news means receiving the freedom to be a new person; one who doesn’t have to prop myself up with lies and rationalizations.

So Jesus says, “Change your mind” and for a wonderful millisecond I see the world as it is when it’s not covered waist deep in my own lies and the lies of governments and church leaders and corporate raiders. And the air is just a little easier to breathe. And it’s easier to look people in the face.

Here’s my six word assessment of Jesus’ preaching: “Word count, low; impact, life changing.”

Believe this, my brothers and sisters, true repentance spends less time looking backward and saying, “I’m sorry,” than looking forward and saying, “Wow.”