You must be good news before you can tell good news. You must be good news before can tell good news. If you have a story to tell, and it’s supposed to be good news, it won’t make any sense unless you sound like a good news person.
There used to be a character on the Saturday cartoons. His name was "Deputy Dawg". Can my young friends tell me whether they still have Deputy Dawg cartoons? Well, Deputy Dawg was the saddest, the slowest, the most miserable old soul you can imagine. His jowls dragged all the way to the ground. His big brown eyes always looked as if they were about to shed tears. Deputy Dawg’s favorite saying was, "I’m so excited.” "I’m so excited.” Of course what made it funny was that he didn’t look excited. He didn’t sound excited. He sounded like he was about to fall asleep. Poor old Deputy Dawg did not sound or look a bit like what he was saying. "I’m so excited" … you sure wouldn’t think so just to look at him.
You must be excited to make others believe you are excited. And you must be good news before you can tell good news. If you have a story to tell, and it’s supposed to be good news, it won’t make any sense unless you really are a good news person yourself.
I believe that God has given us our homes as the place where we can practice being and telling the good news. If you want to tell the world the old, old story of Jesus and His love, you can start right there in the home, right there in your family. If we are good news to each other in our homes, then we’ll be able to tell good news to others. What we are for each other in our families will determine what kind of news we are for the world.
When my brother was about three years old, he would go to our grandfather and ask Grandpa to read him a story. The thing is that it was always the same story. Bob had an old beat-up Bugs Bunny comic book, and everybody always said, "Why, you’ve heard that story a hundred times." But that didn’t matter. Bob would just go to Grandpa with that old raggedy comic book in his hand and would ask, "Read my Bugs". And Grandpa would put down his newspaper, and gather that three-year-old boy onto his generous lap, and start in old raggedy Bugs. But since I was nine years old and wise in these things, I noticed that after the first page or two Bob wasn’t even looking at the comic book any more. He wasn’t paying attention to the story any more. He was just sitting there looking at Grandpa’s face. He was more absorbed in the man telling the story than he was in the old, old story itself.
Do you see? In the home, what really matters is who we are for each other. Being good news for each other is the way we start telling the good news.
The apostle Paul in the Ephesian letter gives us a powerful formula for becoming good news in the home. There are three relationships I want us to think about so that we can be good news for each other and then can tell good news to the world around us.
The first relationship Paul mentions is the relationship between men and women, especially men and women married to each other. Husbands and wives can be good news people.
Second, Paul talks about the relationship of children and parents. Parents and children can be good news people.
And then … I want to emphasize this one, because everyone, everyone, single or married or widowed or divorced or young or old, everyone is included in today’s message … then Paul says there is a special kind of good news family we call church. Church has to be good news too.
I want to treat all three of these this morning.
I
Let’s begin with a very basic relationship. Marriage. Being the good news in the home begins with what married people do for one another.
Now I have here in my hands a picture that, as of the 20th day of May, will be exactly thirty years old. This picture includes some ignorant folks. Nice and slim and in their early twenties, but they are ignorant. I am talking about the ones in the middle, and especially the guy who is trying to jam a ring on somebody else’s hand. You can see how dumb he is; it takes five other people to supervise! He was so ignorant about the duties and responsibilities of married life!
He was so ignorant about the way married life is supposed to work that in the first few months he would sort of sit beside the window and mope. "Not like Mom’s house. Not like Mom’s cooking. Nobody taking care of me anymore." Believe me, this fellow was not good news. He had not heard what this Scripture says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." In other words, he needed to grow up. In other words, he needed to get involved in his marriage. He needed to make a radical commitment to being married.
But somewhere in that first year of their marriage, this couple in the picture did one thing right. They made a commitment to respect each other. They decided they would not try to out argue one another. They determined that they would not burn up energy resenting one another. And to some degree they became good news for one another. And that’s worked for thirty good years.
Now this Scripture passage is interesting. Some of you, especially the women, cringed when you heard it. "Wives, be subject to your husbands." I’ve had brides ask me not to read this at their weddings. It sounds tough. So let me tell you the first real encounter I had with this Scripture about wives being subject to their husbands and all of that,
As a young seminary student I was invited to preach in a little Kentucky country church on Mother’s Day. I chose to preach on Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, be subject to your husbands". I orated quite a little while on why men should be in charge of things and how husbands ought to have the final word. I got sane amens … that’s aMENS … and some politely feminine stares. On the way home, my wife sat in the car in stony silence for about ten miles, and then just said, "That won’t work. Study it again. Study it again."
I did. I got down a Bible and started at the beginning of the paragraph. Chapter five, verse 21; wait a minute, I was using verse 22. But verse 21 says, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ." Uh-oh. Subject to one another.
And then when you read about wives subject to husbands and read on about husbands loving their wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself ... gave himself … it becomes pretty hard to make that scripture become a club to beat women over the head with. Gentlemen, there is no room for bossing or for strutting or for macho. Subject to one another. Giving one another to the other’s goals, starting with a radical commitment to one another. And when that happens, when men and women, husbands and wives, are self-giving partners, let me tell you, the world will sit up and take notice. The world will let you tell that good news story. Being and telling the good news means men and women committed to mutual self-giving.
II
But being and telling the good news is also involved in the relationship between parents and children. It means that children receive loving care, respectful care. Children who are made to feel as though they are good news will grow up able to tell others good news. Parents who respect their children, parents who care enough about their children to get involved with them, parents who are able even to suffer for and with their children: the world needs that kind of good news. The world can hear that story.
Paul says to children, "Obey your parents in the Lord". The scholars debate the exact meaning of the phrase, "in the Lord." I can’t spend time on that debate this morning. Let me just suggest that Paul’s word says to me that if parents are in touch with the Lord, then they can claim their children’s obedience. Don’t ask a child to obey his parents, just because they are his parents … you know, "Do it because I said so." Earn that child’s obedience. Deserve that child’s response.
Paul goes on to quote the Old Testament, "Honor your father and your mother." That’s fine; but let parents be honorable. Let them live with such integrity and honesty that children will readily see that they are worthy of honor. And this line, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." Parents, when you teach your children, teach them in a Christ-like way. Be the good news at the same time you’re trying to tell the good news; otherwise you aren’t credible.
Last week we shared in a profoundly moving experience of worship, as several of our teenagers told us of the pain and hurt in their lives. We wept. We empathized. And some adults said, "But they’re so young. Young people are supposed to be carefree. I thought the youth had it easy."
Well, clearly the youth of our church and of our community have not had it easy. They’ve had to face things too disturbing for their young years. Let me take you another step. I will tell you that some of our children are facing these hurts too. Some of the children here, even younger than the youth we heard last week, are struggling with serious loss and searing pain. They’ve shared this along the way with sane of their teachers and leaders. And it is not pretty.
But do you remember what we felt last week? Remember that there was something more than empathy for young people? Remember that we felt a deep and abiding joy, because they could speak to us of the presence of Christ in their lives? Remember that we felt the power of new life as they told us the witness of their parents and of the influence of people in the church? And do you remember that every one of them was able to tell good news?
Why? Why was it believable good news? They could tell good news because first good news had happened to them. They could tell you good news and make it believable because they told us that somebody in that home had been good news for them. Parents, grandparents, somebody had been good news.
Oh, let’s respect our children. Let’s invest in our children. Let’s be worthy of our children’s love and imitation. It might cost you some habits that make it hard for your children to honor you— I find it a happy coincidence that the mayor has proclaimed this week alcohol awareness week – surely a child and his respect are worth more than that bottle. Respect your children and commit to their goals. Be good news for them and they will be good news and tell good news for you and for Christ.
III
But there is one more dimension of being and telling the good news. This part is for everybody, whether you are parent or single parent or child or grandparent or never married or whatever. This is for all of us.
The church – the church must be the good news about family life. And I suspect until we as the church can be good news for families, we will be ineffective in trying to tell the good news to anybody else.
The church, if it really is the church, is family. It’s a very special kind of family. It is a forgiveness family. It is a family where the members struggle with one another and sometimes have to push one another, but what they’re working on is cleansing one another, redeeming one another’s lives. The church is a good news, redemptive family.
Paul said it in lyrical prose that has never been matched. "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish." The church of Jesus Christ is a special kind of family. It is a forgiveness family, it is a cleansing family, it is a redemptive family. When the church can be good news for families, then it can tell its story and be heard.
What a church we could be if we became good news for families! What if some of us chose to invest ourselves in children? What if some of our men would invest themselves in boys and girls whose fathers are not in the picture? Wouldn’t that be good news?
What if we created a support system for single parents, so that their financial and emotional and other concerns could be addressed? I know there are people here today for whom that would be good news.
What if we sought to prepare young couples for a productive marriage? What if we developed a class just for young couples and young parents, so that we could build this radical self-giving commitment? A church that will do that will be good news.
What if we took some of our property and created caring centers for children and for youth? What if one or more of our houses could become a facility for troubled young people? Troubled youth? Work with problem kids? Yes, because you and I serve a Lord who thinks that even one ·lost sheep is worth dying for. Good news! Ain’t-a that good news!?
Be the good news, and then the community may let us do evangelism. Then the world may let us do missions. If we can be good news for families, then they can believe our good news story.
The surgeon Richard Selzer tells of the day he thought he had ruined a young woman’s life. In order to remove a malignant growth from inside her cheek, he had had no choice but to cut a nerve, and now her mouth had a funny little droop to it. It wouldn’t work right, and it sagged over there, like a permanent shot of Novocaine. She was anguished over that and worried about what her husband would think of her looks.
Selzer says that when her husband came in, she said, "Look at my mouth. It’s going to droop off to one side like this. I’ll never look the same." Her husband tried words of encouragement. "Oh, it’s not very noticeable. I think it’ll be all right. In fact, it’s kind of cute."
But she persisted. "But my mouth; it’s not going to work right. It’s going to feel funny." She sobbed a little … "and I’m afraid you’ll be ashamed of me."
Dr. Selzer says that her husband, without another word, bent down to kiss her, full on that sagging mouth. As he did so, his lips twisted and turned out of shape to fit hers perfectly. When that strange kiss was over, she brightened and said, "It is kind of cute, isn’t it?"
If you will be the good news in your home, you are believable when you tell the good news.
