Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  Mark 1:15.

I did a little survey of what people think when they hear the word, repent. It almost always was described using negative ideas and concepts. I have done something wrong. I need to repent. I have failed in some way. I need to repent. I feel bad about something I did. I need to repent. I’d rather keep doing what I was doing, but I guess I shouldn’t, so I’ll reluctantly repent.

The first person people often think of when we talk about repentance is John the Baptist, who preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But in today’s gospel we find Jesus beginning his teaching ministry and calling his disciples, and it all begins with this very interesting sentence. “Jesus came proclaiming the Good News of God and saying,” – and here you have in a sense, the topic sentence if you will, the summarizing statement from Jesus’ early teaching as he began his ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Good News.” Those two ideas don’t seem to go together in our thinking: Good News and Repentance. Jesus came preaching the Good News of God saying, repent and believe in the Good News.”

So what is the Good News that Jesus came proclaiming? And how does it go with repentance? We usually think of repentance, as being about what changing the things we do. “I gossiped. So I repented, and stopped gossiping.” But the word repent, is not as concerned with what we do, as it is with the direction we are headed. Let me say that again. The word repent, is not as concerned with what we do, as it is, in the direction we are headed. And the question, “what direction are we headed?” is one of the most important questions we ask of life.

For example, how many students have asked the question over and over again, “Why are we learning this?” What value is there in learning grammar? Or the multiplication tables? … Or geography? What possible use will I have for these things? And the fact of the matter is that often, one can live their life just fine, not knowing what the capital of Missouri is. And if you need to know what 15 times 8 is, use a calculator. And if you read the communications of people on social media sites like Facebook, you can see that people are able to communicate their ideas without any sense of proper grammar. So why do we bother learning all the stuff we are asked to learn?

Because in our society, the direction we are headed in life is very closely tied to our commitment to learning. If my grammar is all wrong, there are some jobs I’ll never be considered for. If I can’t add, subtract, multiply or divide, there are some jobs I’ll never be qualified for, even if I know how to use a calculator. So we as a society put tremendous energy into setting our children on the direction of being competent learners, because that’s a direction in life we value. Learning the capitals of the states isn’t going to get you there, but it’s one piece of a very large puzzle that sets us on a course to learn and enjoy learning.

Individuals, businesses, organizations all ask the question often, “What direction are we going? Where are we headed, and will we get there if we keep doing what we are doing?” That’s the question that we as a nation will be giving special attention to with the elections. We will be asking over this next year: “What direction are we going as a nation, and what do we need to do to get to where we want to go?” And elections are about people trying to the right direction we should be going.

So, are we going in the right direction? That brings us to the concept of repentance, and let me repeat it again: The word repent, is not as concerned with what we do, as it is, in the direction we are headed.

Repentance is a word that suggests that we are headed in the wrong direction, and we need to change direction. Repentance is: a change in our course. I was going that direction, but it’s not taking me to where I want to go, so I’m going to change and go a different direction.

Being a normal male driver, I have been known to get lost when driving in unfamiliar areas, but I certainly am not going to stop and ask directions. The result is that I’ll just kind of wandered around for a bit, going in many wrong directions. Well, finally, I have, from time to time, given in, and stop and ask for directions. The asking for directions is not the repentance. Repentance is when I get new information and get back into my car and change directions, and start driving in a way that will get me to where I want to go.

And you know something: Repentance is Good News. Repentance means I give up the futility of going in the wrong direction, and I start going in a direction that will get me to where I want to go. When I give up some of my pride and ask for direction, again, that’s not yet repentance. Repentance is when I actually change my course, and start driving in the right direction. And when that happens, it feels good. It is good news. Now I feel good about where I’m going.

Continuing that example: If after church, you leave the church parking lot, and you want to go to Miracle Mile shopping center, but you leave the church parking lot, and turn south on Wooddale Avenue, you will not get to Miracle Mile shopping center. It’s the wrong direction. Your going the opposite direction from what will get you to Miracle Mile shopping center. But if, as you’re driving south on Wooddale, someone gives you the information that Miracle Mile shopping center is only a block away, but you’re going the wrong direction, in order to get to where you want to go, you have to “repent”, turn around, and go north. The good news is that then, it’s right there. You’ll arrive at your destination in no time at all. That my friends, would be Good News.

And that’s what Jesus ministry was all about. Jesus could see people going in all kinds of directions that were destroying their lives. He looked on the people, the Bible says, “with compassion” because “they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” If we are aimlessly going through life, with no direction, repentance is the good news of finding a direction in life. Good News is discovering a path that will get me to where I want to go.

Education is good news. Often it is also hard work, but always good news as well, in that it sets a path towards the goals we might have in life. And being a follower of Jesus sets us on a course to learn a path that is keeps my life on a positive course, to get me to where I want to go.

So, time and time again, following Jesus means, “I am going to turn from this, which is destructive and is leading my life nowhere, and maybe even getting me into trouble, and I am going to go in this other direction instead; the direction God wants me to go.”

That’s not always easy to do. That’s not necessarily easy to recognize. We may have to give up some of our pride in thinking we can do it all ourselves, but repentance brings us to the Gospel, to the “Good News” of God’s love, not to the bad news we too often associate with “repentance” and the Gospel.

Martin Luther talked of “daily repenting”, not as groveling in the dirt and feeling crummy, but as a joyful exercise of daily seeking to turn in the direction that God would have me go, doing those things that God would have me do, and saying those things that God would have me say.

So what direction is God inviting you, as an individual to go? What direction is God inviting us, as a congregation to go? Those are not always easy questions to answer. Knowing for certain, what the will of God is, is a challenging question to answer, but when we discover a direction to life, as individuals and as a community of faith, the result is always Good News.

Lord, thank you for the gracious gift of your power of healing.  We thank you for giving us the gift of life to live in the image of your Son, our Savior.  We thank you for accepting us no matter where we are in our journey and understanding our humanness.  Thank you for giving us the gift of prayer so that we can be reassured that you are no further away than a simple conversation, a time of quiet, or a song of praise. And in all things your will be done. Amen

Today is the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As indicated in the description of the day, Martin Luther King is one of the people identified in the calendar of the church year as a “Renewer of society”, the title given to individuals who have “contributed dramatically to the development and vitality of society.” So, as a “Renewer of Society”, Dr. King Jr., is described as “an American prophet of justice among races and nations, an eloquent preacher, a leader of the nonviolent resistance to a race-segregated society, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.”

For a number of years after January 15, became a legal holiday, not all the states embraced the idea, but today it is an accepted national holiday, and has become a time for Americans to remember and contemplate the dream that Martin Luther King so eloquently articulated, a dream of equality where all people are treated as the equals God created them to be. His dream was most dramatically articulated in a speech made on August 28, 1963, that has become a powerful statement of the American dream which I believe history will rank up there with words of the Gettysburg address, where Lincoln famously said, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” and the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all are created equal.”

To a crowd of 250,000 people in Washington D.C., King gave his “I have a dream” speech. And here’s how King articulated his dream.

“In spite of the difficulties and frustration of the moment I still have a dream. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream. … I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all are created equal.’ … I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the children of slaves and the children of slave owners will be able to sit down together as sisters and brothers. … I have a dream, that my 4 little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

We have not arrived yet, at realizing this dream, but I’m thankful for the part Dr. King played in bringing our nation closer to realizing this dream than we were when segregation was accepted as inevitable. Several questions that came to my mind on a day that commemorates a “Renewer of Society.” Most specifically, “Who will be the new ‘Renewer of Society’? How will they achieve that title? What does a ‘Renewer of Society’ look like today?

We are now in a political cycle where every candidate for president of the United States, whether the incumbent democrat or one of the Republicans now contending for their party’s endorsement, make every effort to lift themselves up as the best candidate to be a “Renewer of our society.” It’s a title that they would all love to wear. “Vote for me, and this is how I will renew our society,” is the promise. And I actually believe, that they believe that they can accomplish that. “All you have to do is vote for me, and I will renew the society. All you have to do is vote for me, and I’ll fix everything.”

But renewal comes, not from passive spectators enlisting someone else to do the work. Renewal comes when people join together to commit themselves to create something new. So when an African American woman, Rosa Parks, refused to move to the back of a bus and was arrested in Montgomery, Dr. King led a non-violent boycott of the bus company that lasted over a year before the policy was successfully changed by the bus company itself. And when the parsonage in which he lived was bombed, Dr. King stood on the splintered porch of his home and said to his gathered neighbors and followers:

“If you have weapons, take them home. If you do not have them please do not seek to get them. In our protest there will be no cross burnings. No white person will be taken from his home by a hooded Negro mob and brutally murdered. There will be no threats and intimidations. We will be guided by the highest principles of law and order.”

Renewal of society comes when the people embrace the highest of principles. And those high principles are beautifully articulated in one way or another in the lessons that were read this morning. So I’d like to look at those passages again in two ways. First of all, it’s interesting to recognize how these passages might apply to the non-violent protests of the civil rights movement. Certainly, I invite you to look for that as well.

But more importantly, what if all of us, what if everyone who identifies themselves as a follower of Jesus, began every day consciously contemplating the truths we find in Micah, Romans, and in Jesus’ teaching we heard this morning. What if we all started our day, spending 15 minutes meditating on these truths.

How would our society be renewed if we all committed ourselves to Micah’s call, where he says, “What the LORD desires of you is: to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” How might I, today, live “doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with God.”? That simple statement carries immense implication, not by asking others to do it, but if we embrace it ourselves.

And then in Paul’s reading from Romans. This is one of my favorite passages from Paul that lists what being a follower of Jesus will look like. What if every day, as a follower of Jesus, I challenged myself to: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil.” Racism is evil. So how do I “hate what is evil” and then, “hold fast to what is good?” How do we “love one another with mutual affection and outdo one another in showing honor?”

Paul then goes on to say, “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit.” The Good News Bible says simply, “Work Hard.” How might I make the sacrifices that need to be made to “serve the Lord.” Continuing on, how might I “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of others, extend hospitality to strangers.” How might I “Bless those who persecute me, bless and not curse them? Rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep.”

It’s not easy to “16Live in harmony with one another; to give ones selves to humble tasks; to do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble. And 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Peaceful living doesn’t always happen, but as far as it depends on me, can I foster peaceable relationships.

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink. … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

And then in the reading from Luke, we find Jesus’ teachings to be at least as challenging. What if every follower of Jesus started every day asking themselves, how might I “Love my enemies and do good to those who hate me,” How might I “bless those who curse me, and pray for those who abuse me.” And then, what we know of as The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

But if we wish to Renew our Society following Jesus, we “love our enemies.” We “do good, expecting nothing in return.” What does it look like to seek to “Be merciful, just as God is merciful.”?

Renewal of society is something that is never fully accomplished, because renewal is dependent on everyone discovering anew, again and again, how to make sacrifices for the good of all. It something that doesn’t come naturally to us. It must be renewed every day. I am thankful for the vision the Bible gives us that guides us to renewal, and I am thankful for all the people like Dr. Martin Luther King who lived out their faith.

I hope you keep your bulletin, and spend time tomorrow, the day of our national observance of “Martin Luther King Day” meditating on the wisdom, the art of being a true Renewer of Society through the teachings of Micah, Paul, and of course, Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John, the event that marks the beginning of his ministry. We have just come off the Christmas season, with stories we know so well. Those present at the birth of Jesus were: Mary and Joseph, (Jesus earthly parents,) Elizabeth and Zechariah, (who were John the Baptist’s parents), and then an unknown number of unnamed people: shepherds from the hill country around Bethlehem in Luke’s Gospel and wise men from the east in Matthew’s Gospel. So there’s quite a lot going on around the story of Jesus’ birth.

But then, given all these amazing events that surrounded the birth of Jesus, what was Jesus’ life like between his birth day, and the event of his baptism we look at today, about 30 years later? There is only one story in the whole New Testament about that period of time, and it takes place kind of in the middle of that 30 year period. It’s the story of Jesus and his parents on their annual pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover when he was 12 years old, a story that, we are told, reveals that, as a 12 year old, Jesus shows signs of deep understand and insight.

In one of my Bible studies this past week, this started an interesting series of questions, that I confess, I had never really thought about before.
1) Given the miraculous nature of Jesus’ birth, as Jesus was growing up, how much did people remember or know about his birth?
2) Did the people in Bethlehem talk about being visited by wise men from the east?
3) Did the rejoicing shepherds tell people about the angels and what they had heard and seen?
4) And if they did, would anyone believe them?
5) Jesus and his family lived in Nazareth.  How much were the people of Nazareth told by Mary and Joseph about Jesus’ birth?
6) And who keeping track of what happened.

And that led us to the question that most intrigued me: Who was present throughout the whole story of Jesus? Who was there at his birth, throughout Jesus’ ministry, and was also there at the cross? And of all the people in Jesus’ life, the only person who was there from the beginning of the story all the way to Holy Week, and the resurrection where God’s purpose and power became most apparent, was Mary. Joseph is present in the story of Jesus as a 12 year old, amazing the teachers in the Temple, and that’s the last we hear about Joseph. There is no reference to shepherds or wise men after the birth, no reference to Elizabeth and Zechariah after their son, John the Baptist was born.  And John the Baptist is killed somewhere in the middle of Jesus ministry before Holy Week.

So, that leaves us with: Mary. And there is an interesting phrase that describes Mary at Jesus’ birth, and again at the end of the story of Jesus as a 12 year old, visiting the temple in Jerusalem during Passover; a quality that I think Mary did throughout her life. After all the joyous amazement of the shepherds glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, Luke tells us,  “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”  And then, 12 years later, you can imagine the feelings of a frantic mother not being able to find her 12 years old boy. But after being reunited, the story ends with that same phrase: “Mary treasured all these things in her heart.”

Treasured and pondered. It’s hard to take time out of our lives to treasure the events and blessings we share and enjoy with those we love. And it’s even harder to take time to ponder. I’m afraid, the act of pondering is something we have ceased to value. To ponder means: to reflect or consider thoroughly, to think about carefully, to contemplate, to deliberate, to wonder about. “Mary treasured and pondered in her heart” as a mother would. But I also suspect that this was something Mary did often throughout her life: take time to ponder, to reflect thoroughly and carefully.

We rarely see experts and leaders taking time to ponder now days. Pondering seems to some, to be indecisive and unsure. Just once, I would love to listen to an interview where someone, respected as an expert in a difficult issue facing our country, would take time to ponder, and share their own deliberations about a difficult question. Everyone’s got quick and absolute answers. That’s what we expect. Quick and absolute answers.

As we enter another political election cycle, we will continue to hear debate after debate, and this will only intensify over the next year. Questions will be asked, questions that are deep, difficult questions, questions where the answer is not self evident, where caring, competent, loyal people disagree. But what we hear are absolute, quick, glib, canned, packaged answers that do not reflect the kind of pondering that Mary did throughout her life.

And so, when Jesus was baptized, when Jesus ministry began, I picture Mary watching Jesus’ journey unfolding, feeling a deep concern and anxiety as only a mother can feel for a child who may not be understood by the world as she understood him. I suspect that the only thing that got her through all this was that she took time to ponder, to weigh and consider the will of God as she witnessed the ups and downs of Jesus’ ministry. She no doubt would have liked to have rescued Jesus on more than one occasion,  but she had to let go. And ultimately, Mary was there to see Jesus hanging on a cross, crucified as though he were a common criminal. And just as she had done at his birth, and as he grew into manhood, she took time to ponder, to reflect, to carefully consider what this might mean and to treasure all she knew Jesus to be.

What kinds of questions did Jesus ponder, as he is baptized, as he hears God say to him, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”?  The way the Bible talks about Jesus pondering and reflecting on his ministry after his baptism is a story we will look at as Lent begins in about a month, the story we know of as, “the Temptations of Jesus.” As Jesus pondered his future, even he felt the weight of choices that were not of God.

And what are the kinds of questions that you might ponder as we contemplate the meaning of our baptism? Do you take time to treasure and ponder your life? Jesus felt the call of God at that moment of baptism. What does the baptismal call of God mean to you? How is my life different because of the promise God made to me in my baptism? How has my life changed because of the grace and love of God that has come to me through Jesus? How might I live my life differently, more thoughtfully, more joyfully because of the birth of a Savior, because I too have been baptized? How can I become more Christ-like in my approach to life? How might I be more like Mary, taking time to consider, to reflect, to ponder, to treasure the life God has given me?

Each of us has different questions, different struggles, different challenges in our lives. And so no two people will ponder their lives in exactly the same way. Yet a part of the pondering is that we are a community of believers: we are here to serve one another, share one another’s joys, bear one another’s burdens, ponder together what it means to wear the name of Jesus in our baptism.

What does it mean to us to ponder together what the future might hold for us as a community in Christ?  May you be richly blessed again this year because you too have been baptized. The future is unknowable. But the promise of God is sure.

I remember hearing, as a school aged child, the prediction that by the turn of the century, by the year 2000, the average worker would be putting in, maybe, 30 hours a week, vacation time would be 6 weeks on the average, and leisure time activities would be a major part of everyone’s lifestyle. We’ve never gotten there. Instead what I hear today is that people are working longer hours, for less pay, with fewer benefits, and are busier than ever, and aren’t enjoying it. Even when we’re on vacation, we fill our time with lots of activity and busy-ness. Americans see it as part of their unalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, and “pursuit” implies yet another task we are supposed to embrace.

“Pursuing Happiness” was the title of an interesting episode of the NPR radio show “On Being” that featured a conversation on happiness between the Dali Lama, and a Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy representative. Many interesting points were shared. One story I appreciated was told by the Jewish Rabbi to illustrate that often, happiness comes, not when we are pursuing it, but comes to us when we least expect it. Here’s the story he told.

An 18th century rabbi was watching people rushing to and fro across the town square, and wondered why they were all running so frenetically. He stopped one person and asked, “Why are you running?”

The man said, ‘I running to make a living.’”

The rabbi paused a moment and then asked him, “How come you’re so sure that the living is in front of you and you have to run to catch it. Maybe it’s behind you, and you need to stop and let it catch up to you.”

“When, in contemporary culture do we stop and let our blessings catch up with us?” That is called, the Sabbath. Sabbath is when we celebrate the things that are important, but not urgent. Sometimes we don’t need to pursue happiness, we just need to pause, and let happiness catch up with us.

I have no doubt that many of you will be very, very busy throughout 2012. Sunday is no longer honored by our society as a day of “Sabbath” rest. It’s very hard to slow down long enough to let the amazing blessings that we all enjoy catch up with us and or busy schedule, allowing us to stop and give thanks for the lives we share. But that is what we do on Sunday morning. A lot of effort goes into creating a worship life at Wooddale that allows you to stop pursuing life and let the blessings of God catch up with you. I have no doubt that you can always find other things to fill your time on Sunday morning, things that may even bring a benefit to your life. But it is so important to stop, and let God’s amazing grace catch us.

Peace,

Pastor Tim

Lord, thank you for the gift of your Son.  Help us to keep the name of Jesus imprinted on our hearts and a guide in our daily living.  Help us to refrain from slipping back into our lives as a routine where we lose sight of what we were put here on earth to do.  Remind us that it is in giving to and caring for others that we spread the meaning of Christ as our Savior and Lord.  Help us to keep the meaning of Christmas present all year long.  In your name we pray. Amen.