The Culturally Relevant Gospel

Just what is the Good News and why would anybody care? Is it culturally relevant? Should it be? Has it been relevant to culture in the past? Before I attempt to answer these questions, I want to point out that the Gospel, or Good News, in not a propositional argument that one must accept or die. It is news that will be welcomed by those it is intended for. Although many may need convincing that a particular message is indeed the good news they've been longing for, good news must offer a good alternative to their current predicament, or it is irrelevant.

In a previous post on this subject, I wrote this: Gospel is more than just good news. It is the good news brought by runner to the king that the battle has been won. It is good news heralded. It is anxiously awaited news. It is the answer to a burning question. It is for all people. And it is current and present tense.

We all know good news when we hear it. There is no need for convincing us that the alternative is eternal torture. If the news is truly good, then we will recognize it as such. And recognition depends upon relevance. Unless news is relevant, it does not apply—by definition.

Relevant: Having a bearing on or connection with the matter at hand. (Free Dictionary) Synonyms include: pertinent, germane, material, apposite, apropos.

There are some who claim that the good news mostly says that we can avoid an otherwise sure eternal hell by believing the right things and following the right rules. But this is hardly relevant to people who are suffering now, nor is it particularly good news. It is not even the good news that Jesus himself proclaimed.

In Luke 4 we find Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath, reading in the synagogue from the prophet Isaiah. And this is what he read.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Isaiah 61)

Then he said: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And it includes liberty to the captives and oppressed, and it proclaims the “year of the Lord's favor.” There are certainly qualifications later on, but those are not part of the good news. Ultimately, this news is good to those who want it and bad for their oppressors.

The good news is about mercy and justice. We need to study the times of Isaiah to understand the historical “relevance” of his words. I won't take space for that here, but will merely say that Isaiah claimed that pride and injustices committed in the northern kingdom of Israel were the cause of their capture and destruction at the hands of Assyria. Furthermore, Isaiah warned his own countrymen in Judea that the same fate awaited them, if they trusted in themselves instead of God. Although unjust themselves, destructive empires are unwitting tools of justice.

Jesus came at a similar time in Israel's history. Like Isaiah's day, there was probability of utter destruction at the hands of an empire. His people had been a captive or client state of one or another empire for about 600 years. But that's not all. The ruling families maintained their local power and wealth through their political and business ties to Rome. They benefited from the suffering of their own people. This arrangement they claimed, was the best way of bringing about theocracy, or the kingdom of God. The Pharisees sought to cleanse the nation of “sinners” to bring in the kingdom. Zealots hoped to fight their way into the kingdom. These groups justified their own injustices against others as necessary for bringing about the kingdom as they saw it. Jesus corrected these false notions of kingdom.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

They were wrong about the kingdom of God. It was not a return of the earthly, Davidic kingdom in which they could be proud. But it was “in the midst of you.” Jesus taught that the kingdom was doing God's will and it was ripe for the picking. It is already here, and it is free. It does not require ushering in, but merely reaping. “Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.”

Understood in context, Jesus message was about good news to the oppressed and judgment to the unjust. It was not good news to all. It was bad news to those in power, either political or religious. It was not a message to the poor that they must get their act together or go to hell. Although heard by the elite, his message may have meant this. But to ordinary people, Jesus brought relationship, love, comfort and hope for justice. And he left us an example for which we need no theology.

The message of good news must be relevant to those it is intended for. If it fails to fit the current context, then it is not the good news at all, but something closer to the first century claims of the political and religious elite. It is then self-serving to those who espouse it. Beware of those who claim to hold the keys to the kingdom and those who point out who is in and who is out. It is not their kingdom after all. If their message is not relevant to the discarded, poor, humble and oppressed, then it is not the good news at all. Because the good news is relevant to the poor (non-proud), it is liberty to the oppressed and judgment to the unjust. The real kingdom is relevant.

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