Luke's gospel puts Jesus' declaring his mission at the beginning:
“He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free . . . .”
Jesus proclaims good news, like Ezra standing before the people who have become disheartened at the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple after returning from captivity in Babylon. Ezra, the great priest who inspired the rebuilding of the Temple in fifty days after returning to Jerusalem from being held captive in Babylon, reads from the writings of Moses (probably Deuteronomy) as a way to energize a dis-spirited people returning from exile only to find their homeland in ruins. From this and with Nehemiah's leadership, the Temple is rebuilt in an amazing act of the community like Americans experienced immediately after 9/11. Rebuilding the Temple was a metaphor for rebuilding a relationship with God through their tradition; it was the proto-Good News of the gospels.
After a week contemplating (celebrating?) Christian unity, Paul's letter to the Corinthians strikes me as good news as well; so in today's readings we have Ezra proclaiming good news, Jesus proclaiming good news, and Paul writing to the church at Corinth of unity that, if taken to heart, is certainly good news for such a difficult group of relatively wealthy, first-century Christians.
Evangelization is ubiquitous these days in Christianity. With the Roman Catholic Church talking about the "new" evangelization as if it has discovered something quite different from the "old" evangelization, the idea of spreading the message of the gospel as good news is front and center for catholics of every denomination. The reason why people don't react with overwhelming enthusiasm for the Gospel is that very often the promise of liberation, and of healing---two essential elements of Jesus' ministry come at the cost of realizing you are not well (or at the very least, not fit), and you are essentially a slave to sin. Want the good news now? Some have characterized this realization as the "good news-bad news" of the Gospel. While I believe that humility is essential for spiritual growth, the big mistake of much evangelization is that the Gospel is presented as a tool of humiliation rather than healing. There are essentially two models of evangelization I've witnessed in my life:
1. Evangelization as Persuasion to Join
2. Evangelization as Acts of Selfless, Healing Love
Jack London in his non-fiction work "People of the Abyss" wanders the streets of early 20th century London to gain insight into the plight of the poor. He finds himself hungry and drawn to seek help from a Christian organization that provides food at the cost of standing for what seems like an eternity listening to a sermon, the "Good News" while hunger pangs persist, before being fed. Essentially, the idea behind this rather misguided attempt at proclaiming Good News is that one must be fed spiritually before being fed physically; classical Christian fail. Good News must be good news.
God becoming human is at the heart of all Christian understandings of true evangelization. Because of this central truth, what we, purveyors of Good News must accept, is that meeting the immediate need of the one who seeks our help is the Good News of the Gospel. Opening soup kitchens to increase church membership, planting tracts with a handy three-step process of "accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior" are all variations of meeting people where you would like them to be rather than where they are. The power of Christ to change lives is betrayed when we expect conversion as the end product of our help. The old adage "let go and let God" is appropriate in these circumstances. As evangelical Christians (there really are no other types, I suppose), the Good News is that true salvation does not lie at the conclusion of a tract, a testimonial, or a creed; it lies at the bottom of a bowl of soup.
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