Good News, Bad News

Have you ever noticed how we're so much more likely—and so much more eager to hear bad news than good news? At least as far as the media is concerned—bad news is good, and good news is bad. The truth is, good news doesn't get ratings or sell papers. Disasters sell papers. As we've all learned ad nauseum, scandals get ratings. Awful things catch our attention. Tragedies, misfortunes, accidents, rapes, murders, riots, the economy, the unemployment rate, flood the media.

If something good does manage to get our attention, it’s invariably something terribly dramatic, or almost cloying sweet, or at least something that provides a positive ending to a story that had previously been filed with threat or malice. The finding of a child who was lost, the saving of a familly from a burning building, the end of a war, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, that airliner that crash landed in a river with no one lost, the chicken restaurant that fed stranded motorists on the Interstate —all good news, but all basically one time stories.

We just seem to love bad news. We may gripe about the seemingly interminable coverage of the current mess in Springfield or Washington, but we don't stop buying papers. We don't stop watching TV or patronizing its advertisers. Don't blame the media. They're just giving us what we want. Reporters tend to turn up when things go wrong. It’s the nature of the beast. And the more wrong things get, the more attention gets paid to them.

That's true in our personal lives as well. We love to hear about scandals. We thrive on gossip. If we're not interested in talking about ideas, and too petty or lazy to talk about things, we'll talk about people. People are easier, and much more fun to talk

about.

Good news isn't as much fun to talk about as bad, so we're usually not above poking and prying and speculating, and jumping to conclusions about people in order to make the good news bad.

In her later years, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice had a pillow on her couch, hand embroidered with the words: "If you can't say anything good about someone, come sit next to me." The only real news is bad news as far as we're concerned.

Remember that line in the beauty shop from Steel Magnolias?

"What’s botherin’ you darlin’?"

“It’s mah marriage.”

“What’s wrong?”

"Oh, ah cain't talk about it."

And everybody in the place says in unison..

"Sure you can!" That's when we start paying attention.

It's even true in mundane, minor ways. If you get a phone call with terrible news, the easiest thing in the world is to find yourself an audience of listeners. They'll hang on every word until they've sucked the juice out of your tale of woe. And then they'll immediately run away to tell your story to somebody else who may not even know you! And as soon as they run, and as they tell, the terrible nature of your story, the drama of the situation gets multiplied and multiplied.

On the other hand, suppose you get a long distance phone call to tell you that all's well. Nothing particularly good happened, but everything is rolling along Okay. What's your response likely to be?

"Did you call me just to tell me that?" Who wants to know that nothing exciting is happening, that things are all right? Your mother maybe, but nobody else.

Even in the working world this is true. A businesswoman goes to a meeting. She's treated well and the person she deals with is polite and cordial, helpful and considerate. She returns to the office.

"Any news?" asks her secretary.

"No, it went well," is the reply.

But, imagine the same woman goes to a meeting and has to deal with a pedantic, retentive, male-chauvinist type, who blocks and blusters and obstructs her efforts. Imagine they get into a shouting match. Now what's she going to say to her secretary when she gets back to her office and that same secretary innocently inquires,

"Any news?" Won't he get an earful!

It was the same way in Jesus' time. Read the Gospels. The word literally means "Good News". But listen to what Jesus preached.

The king is an immoral man. The tax collectors and administrators are cheats and sinners. The scribes and lawyers are hopeless and the men are adulterers and exploiters of their wives. Remember what happened when he invited those who were without sin to cast the first stone? Everybody left!

His cousin John was in jail. The shepherds were unfaithful hirelings.

Housewives were losing their egg money. Children were neglected and scandalized, sick or dead. The occupying Roman army was slaughtering people in the Temple. The priests were hypocrites. They allowed merchants to profane the house of prayer.

The Disciples were dim and without understanding. Judas was a traitor. Peter was a stumbling block and just as likely to serve Satan with that loud mouth of his. Towers fell. Sons were lost. Sheep went astray.

Jesus' own brothers and sisters were convinced he was crazy, and wanted to haul him back home in order to lock him up in the attic so they wouldn’t be disgraced. His neighbors, the people he grew up with tried to push him off a cliff the first time he preached. And ultimatelly, He himself ended up denied, betrayed, arrested, framed and killed.

It's in that context that we read how Jesus climbed up onto a hill in order to get a better view of the crowd he’d drawn. Then, before He stood up and preached, Jesus sat down with the Twelve, and the women, and all the others who had made life commitments to Him. He gathered his community of followers around, and surrounded by the crowd, began to teach his disciples what it would be like under God's Realm.

Jesus was talking about people. But he spoke about the good news—the good in people-- not the bad. He spoke about the blessing and the love within the midst of God's people. Not their sins and shortcomings. Jesus blesses the poor, the dispossessed, those the world curses and walks all over. And in doing so, Jesus paints a picture of the world as God intends it to be.

Jesus wasn't necessarily teaching for the crowd at that point. But the crowd's presence kept the disciples honest about who they were, and what price they would need to be prepared to pay for the sake of their commitments to Jesus. The crowd was also there because the invitation to come forward and sit with the disciples, to join His faith community was open to anyone willing to catch the vision of the New Jerusalem and submit to the discipline of God's Realm.

So before He began to preach, He blessed. It was as if Jesus wanted to remind them-- and us-- that God's favor proceeds all our human efforts and endeavors. It was as if Jesus wanted to remind us that our efforts at Kingdom living will always be a response to the graces and gifts we have already received.

What Jesus said up on that Mount flies in the face of our so-called “conventional wisdom”. It collides with “our real world” in such a way as to let us know that here is true wisdom that cannot be had unless someone teaches it to us. Here is a world that you and I would not have known, had it not been for the grace of a teacher willing to take us there.

It is a world, an ideal so out of touch with the reality of human life on this planet that Paul will later refer to it as “the foolishness of God”

As Jesus begins to preach, he speaks in the future tense. The whole new world that he describes, is not here yet, not in its fullness. There is plenty of old world around for people to think that is the only world there is. But as he speaks Jesus switches from the future tense to the present tense.

He tells his listeners what to do, here, now, if they want to be part of a renewed and blessed world NOW—not a heavenly Realm that is yet to come. He tells them-- and us that God’s Reign has already come.

"Listen," He tells them—and us that we are deceiving ourselves. There is happiness in this world, despite the sad and tragic stories we tell. There is hope, despite all the struggle and pain around us every day..

He tells them that there is new life, despite the tragedy and loss surrounding us. There are those whom God has blessed, is blessing, will always bless. This is not pie in the sky when we die. The Kingdom is very near. The Divine Realm is taking root right now. The New Jerusalem is being established, as we speak.”

And Jesus was right. Look around our world today. Look everywhere. Look beyond the bad news. God’s Realm already exists in so many human lives-- the gentle ones, the comforting ones, the givers of care, the generous ones, the helpers, the everyday saints. Look at all they have always done, are doing now, and will do for others. Notice how happy they are!

Think about all the aid that the everyday saints give to their sisters and brothers in need. Realize all the help and strength and healing that they bring to the sick and the helpless and the needy. Look at all those who are willing to serve and sacrifice themselves for others without making a show of it. Look at the peace-makers, the merciful ones, the seekers of justice, the strugglers for wholeness. Happiness and bliss, blessing and joy radiates from their faces.

What an unlikely group of people for Jesus to hold up. Not the scholars and spiritually knowledgeable-- but “Blessed are the poor in spirit" who have no great insights to share-- only themselves. Not the would be champions of faith who willingly make public witnesses of their own holiness-- but blessed are those modest saints who quietly bear the suffering of everyday trials and pains, who share the suffering of others because they are loving people-- because no one ever weeps alone in their presence.

Not the strong-- but blessed are the meek, the gentle, the unpreproposing. Yes, they get walked all over by the world most of the time. But somehow through their courage and love, they manage to make the world more human, even as it tramples them down. Not those who count themselves righteous, but blessed are those who hope to be someday. And who in the meantime, are very much aware of how far it is they still have to go.

Not those who brag of their personal great victory over evil-- but blessed are those who can still see the sin and shortcomings in themselves and thus are able to be merciful when they encounter it in others. Not the purists-- but the "pure in heart". blessed are those ones who know that they're far from perfect, but somehow manage to keep a grain of sweetness and freshness and goodwill intact within their hearts. Not those who have already found inner serenity-- but those who, because they have yet to find it, struggle to bring peace about not only in their own hearts, but with their neighbors, and in their world, and with their Creator.

And lastly, not the top dogs, not the ruling elite, not the professional religious class who go along with the siren song of the world. Not those who bow to necessity and compromise the faith they profess to defend. But blessed are those who will side with the right. Blessed are they who can stand up for their beliefs, their principles, their convictions in the face of public disapproval, or the spirit of the times, or political expediency. Blessed are they who will follow conscience even when all they get for it is pain and hassle and flack. Louis Evely wrote this paraphrase--

Fortunate are the poor in spirit

Fortunate are those who are willing

to let themselves be censured by the word of God,

to re-examine their views, to believe they haven’t yet understood a thing,

to be taken by surprise, to have their mind changed,

to see their convictions, their principles, their tidy systems

and everything they took for granted swept out from under them,

and to face the fact, once for all, that there’s no such thing as a matter of course and that God can ask anything.

"Blessed are you", said Jesus addressing those blessed saints directly for the first time. "Happy are you, for you are doing what is right. Happy, blessed are you, despite slanders and setbacks and insults and persecution. Be glad now, for you are on Heaven's side. Rejoice, for your coming reward will be great, and you will be justified."

You and I tell one another stories about doom and corruption, about good people getting the raw end of the deal, about the big fish who do wrong and get away and the shrimps who get caught. That's exactly the sort of bad news that we like to wallow in. That's what we say. But let us take a moment to remember what He said. Let us not forget what He did.

"Do not forget what is really going on. Do not forget who is really happy and who is not." Let us not forget that the Almighty One, the Creator came among us. Let us recall that Jesus Himself dared to enter this same broken world that we live in, as

a human infant. With a frail baby's body and a wide open baby's mind and heart, He trusted Himself to the human family relationship of Mary and Joseph and His sisters and brothers-- happy, comforting, helpful, nurturing, peaceful and persecuted only in the cause of right.

The OT prophet Micah put it beautifully and succinctly.

“What does the Lord require of you?

Love justice. Seek Mercy.

Walk humbly with your God.”

Let us pray that this same Good News of the Spirit will take root and grow until it covers all the bad news in this world. Let us pray for new hearts, open to the power of the Spirit of the Beatitudes in our lives. Let us live and serve for the sake of this sin drenched old world. And may our prayers and actions help to usher in Christ’s new world--- on earth as it is in heaven, around us as it is among us and within us. Amen.