2021.01.24 | Good News for All People
The Good News for All People
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, CA
Nadia Tavera, Minister In Training
January 24, 2021
Today is the third Sunday after Epiphany, a season in which we read and reflect on the fulfillment of Elijah, John, and other prophets’ proclamations that the Messiah would come and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
Two weeks ago, Pastor Arlene preached about Jesus' participation in baptism as a demonstration of his humility.
In today's scripture, we read that Jesus’ ministry starts in Galilee, a region where he spent most of his earthly life, usually only going down to Judea (where the City of Jerusalem is located) for the appointed feasts.
Galilee was a large, populated area north of Judea, where Jews and Gentiles lived together, though usually in their own distinct cities.
The ancient Jewish historian Josephus describes Galilee as an area that was about 60 by 30 miles with more than 200 villages, none with less than 15,000 people each. This means more than 3 million people lived in that region. That’s a lot of people. That’s an amount equal to about one-half of the population living in the Bay Area in 2018.
Controversy exists among scholars today about “The Myth of a Gentile Galilee.” Earlier generations believed that the population of Galilee in Jesus’s time included a large number of Gentiles—perhaps even a majority of the population was composed of Gentiles. However, the preponderance of evidence available today from ancient literature and archaeological digs suggests just the opposite was true--that Galilee's population was predominantly Jewish, with Gentiles forming a small and relatively uninfluential minority.
Regardless of which view one takes, the facts remain: 1) Galilee (where Jesus carried out most of his earthly ministry) was an ethnically diverse region, and 2) Jesus was raised (a good Jew) and was taught not to mix with Gentiles.
Both, Jews and Gentiles had their own distinct cultures and beliefs, and their own sense of cultural pride--even superiority. For example, there is a Jewish prayer that says: “Blessed are you, eternal our God, who has not made me a Gentile.” In a sense, the Jews believed themselves superior to Gentiles.
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I understand this kind of parochialism that Jews and Gentiles exhibited in Jesus’ day. I was raised in an evangelical Christian tradition, and was taught the doctrine of predestination at a very young age.
As a result, I grew up believing that God destined some people to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all of their sins. I was also taught to believe that I was one of God’s chosen.
How wrong I was preaching that God chooses some and refuses others. I did not understand the immeasurable grace of God’s love for humanity at that time.
In today’s gospel reading, John the Baptist says, “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
The meaning of metanoia in the original Greek has to do with personal transformation--with a change of heart. I had a change of heart. I experienced metanoia.
I believe that this transformative change is a process that occurs throughout our Christian life, and that this word metanoia has to do with the humility that Pastor Arlene spoke about in her last sermon.
I have experienced metanoia as a result of coming out as a queer woman in my home country and by becoming more conscious of the affects of racism and colonialism on my life and my people as a result of living in the US these past two and one-half years. These realizations have led me to a change of heart. As a result, I have come to believe that the Good News is for everyone--not just for me and a few others.
As a queer woman I know the pain of being marginalized on both sides of the Mexican-US board, just for being who I am.
Since coming to the US, I have discovered that I have been both marginalized and privileged as a middle-class Latina and a newcomer to the US.
In the US, I have experienced racism because of my ethnicity, my Spanish accent, and my immigration status as a migrant with only temporary residency status. For first two years that I lived in the US, I was resistant to accept the impact of racism on my life. This is because I was afraid to feel vulnerable again. I didn’t want to be hurt again (like I was from homophobia and hetreosexism in my home country) for being different from the dominant culture. I tried to ignore the racist reality in which I have been immersed here, but that was futile.
Ultimately, by facing the racism that I experienced here in the US, I realized that I had experienced privileges in my home country that were the result of having lighter skin and a college education in a country where a majority of the natives have darker skin and only a high school education.
When I finally accepted my identity as a mestiza-immigrant with humility and acknowledged the suffering that has been caused on both sides of the boarder--and on me--by colonialism and capitalism, I received grace from God that transformed my fear and shame into spiritual courage and cultural pride. As a result, my hope and my emotional health have been restored, and I thank God for this experience of metanoia.
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I have been changed. Perhaps you have been changed, or you have seen others change. It’s possible. In the Gospel of Mark, we see that even Jesus experienced metanoia. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus seems content to accept the view that his mission is solely to the Jews. But in Mark 7, we learn that Jesus’ heart is changed when he meets the Syrophoenician woman, who begged him to heal her daughter.
When Jesus first encountered the woman and her daughter, he refused them ministry, claiming that he had been sent exclusively to the Jews, not the Gentiles. But after hearing the woman's argument, Jesus changed his mind and he healed the girl.
We know that the message of the Good News that Jesus proclaimed does not change. Every generation of Christians is called to proclaim justice, peace, and love in this broken world. So the message is the same, but the way we share the message and the words, images, metaphors, and examples--they change according to the context, the time, and the place in which we are sharing Christ’s message.
To be sure, we are currently living through times of significant change--times that are very dynamic--even crazy, some would say. So what does it mean to proclaim the Good News today, in our own context?
Jesus departed from the Jewish parochialism that he had been raised with, in order to fulfill his calling to show love and justice and mercy to this Gentile woman, whom he had been taught did not deserve this ministry because she was part of a different culture.
Since we are Christ’s disciples, surely we too are called to depart from the parochialism that we have been raised with, so that we are more effective messengers of the gospel and so that more of God’s people can experience the blessings that God intended.
I wonder, what parochialism (what prejudice) might God be calling us to break away from, so that we can more effectively proclaim the Good News to others whom we might have otherwise have kept our distance or refused to serve?
Our respective answers to this question likely vary depending on our social location. All of us, for example, have been shaped by colonial ideals, but not all in the same ways. Some of us have been shaped in ways that have caused us to be proud of our culture, race, social status, nationality, language, and condition, while others of us have been shaped in ways that have led us to feel ashamed of these things.
Regardless of our situation--being colonizers or the colonized--God calls us to experience metanoia (a change of heart) by finding our highest and greatest identity as disciples of Christ.
Closing Prayer: God, help us follow Jesus’ humble example, so that we can claim our identity as disciples of Christ, and follow Jesus’ example of how to build a community and a world in which everyone experiences the fullness of the Kingdom of God. Amen.