Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
[Editor's note of clarification: There's a different between taking Jesus literally and taking Jesus seriously. To be clear, we would be remiss to lose the metaphors, stories and creativity of Jesus, but we do equal injustice by watering down the challenging words of Christ.]
Listen to It
At the start of one of my
pastoral care courses in seminary, the professor asked us, “How many
Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?” We waited. “Change?!?!
Who said change?!?!” We, as
Presbyterians, as humans really, do not like change. If you want to see real whining, forget about
the two year old class downstairs. Just
read the newsfeed on Facebook for two days after a minor change in how it looks. People using a website just to complain about
that same website. I have no scientific
studies to back this claim, but I’d wager over half the posts on Facebook and
Twitter are complaints… mostly about change. Editorial columns, sports columns, blogs… all
full of folks complaining about one change or another.
We don’t like change. Ever.
My home pastor once said in a sermon he was going to tell us about the
great tragedy of his life. Knowing the
losses he’d suffered in his family and how he’d once fallen nearly two stories
off a ladder in our sanctuary, we all braced for the worst. “It was,” he said, “the day I drove here on
the way to work one morning last year… and the Krispy Kreme had closed!”
And brothers and sisters, these
are the small things in life. Even as I
was writing this paragraph in the
coffee shop, a woman got very upset that the tall table in there wasn’t by the
window any more. When it comes to the
big changes, we get even squirmier. Our
faith, our deeply held ideologies, our church, our lifestyle… these are not up
for consideration, much less debate. Our
very identities are wrapped up in what we do and what we have. A recent technology commercial for a backup
service for all your data, pictures, music and so forth ended with these lines…
“Because without all your stuff, where are you?
In fact, without your stuff… WHO are you?”
Psychiatrists tell us how
traumatizing it is to move, to change jobs, to lose a house in a fire. Our worlds are rocked by such major changes
in large part because what we do and
what we own… our STUFF… shapes our
identity. College students meeting new
people immediately ask, “What are you studying?” Adults ask, “What do you do?” A friend of
mine used to refuse to ask this, instead asking, “What do you like to do?”
We’re fortunate in our - modern society, that what we do and what we own are flexible ideas
to some extent. You can change careers. We have a longstanding tradition in the
American dream that you can raise yourself from pauper to prince. And a prince can lose his fortune and become
a pauper. In Jesus’ time, however, one’s
identity was tied to their profession
and possessions,
and those things were not thought to be
flexible. A poor man could not work
his way up to a fortune, nor could a rich man lose his wealth and become poor. A rich man was a rich man, and a poor man was
poor, end of story. That sort of class
system still exists in some parts of the world.
As we read this story, it’s
typically titled “the rich young
ruler,” but that ruins the story for us.
The original hearers of this story would not have had a title. The book of Mark would likely have been
recited as an entire story of the life of Christ in one sitting, straight
through. Without the title, we don’t
know he is rich until the end! The young
man approaches Jesus and says, “Good
teacher, what must I do to inherit
eternal life?” This should strike us
immediately after last week’s reading on the prodigal son. What must anyone do to earn an inheritance?
Nothing. You gain an inheritance
as a birthright, by being the child
of someone.
But Jesus doesn’t point this out
directly. Jesus, as he so often does,
slips around and comes in from the side.
Time and time again, Jesus questions the motives, the opinions and the
perceptions of those around him. So
perhaps he asks him then in the tone he used with Peter when he asked, “But who
do you say I am?” Perhaps he says, “Why do you call me good?” And while
the young man ponders this, Jesus asks him about his own “goodness.” Do you avoid murder, adultery, theft,
lying? Well, of course, replies the
young man. I’m good too. Then Jesus gives it to him, his answer. So far as I have been able to find, it’s the
only time in all of scripture that Jesus gives someone their own personal plan
for guaranteed eternal life… Sell everything you have and follow me… The word hard
has many opposites. Among them… EASY and
SIMPLE. Jesus’ answer is simple. But for this man, it is not easy.
He goes away disheartened…
because he had great possessions! You
see, as we discussed, he couldn’t just have a yard sale. The guy was a rich man. He couldn’t just become poor. He was a rich man. Of course the young man, our cautionary tale,
walks away… and the disciples get the rest of the lesson, as do we… It’s harder for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God than a camel to go through the eye of a needle. And the disciples were “astonished!” Why?
Because even after all their time with Jesus, leaving their jobs and
their families, they still didn’t fully buy into this idea that they could
change their lives, their identities.
And Jesus hits them with it, the
verse we all love as privileged first world, comfortable American
Christians. Like our sermons here at
Wellshire, Jesus liked to end his stories with hope. He says, “With man, it is impossible, but not
with God. For ALL things are possible
with God.” And we all go, “Whew! I was worried there for a sec!” Collectively, we all think, good, Jesus will
squeeze me and all my possessions and wealth through that needle’s eye. WRONG!
The good news Jesus shares with this young man and the disciples is not
that God will push us through that needle magically with our bag of stuff like
Santa down a chimney. Jesus is telling
them, telling us, that God can change us.
God can make us people who no longer need all our stuff, all our comforts,
all the things on which we build our identity.
He can change our hearts so we can build our identity on him, on his
call.
Brothers and sisters, the Good News is that God can change us
into people who don’t need all the stuff, all the status, the professions or
the possessions. The bad news… is that
God can change us into people who don’t need all that stuff. It’ll scare us. It’ll scare our families, our friends. The question from that commercial is worth
considering… Without your stuff, WHO… ARE you?
Jesus says that there are none
who have left houses or siblings or parents or children or property for the
sake of the Gospel who will not receive all of that a hundredfold now and in
the life to come… along with persecutions.
Yeah, he says that. Jesus tells
it like it is… houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and
lands WITH persecutions. Jesus would
never have made it as a used camel salesman, but he didn’t lie. Jesus tells us we’ll face challenges. But he also tells us that in this life and
the one to come, it’s worth it and he will be with us.
This verse is one of the most
challenging for us as people of privilege.
Even in this country, we’re people of privilege. Our
birthright as Americans is to be
among the richest people in the world.
And many of us by virtue of our ancestry, our ethnicity or our skin
color or our parents’ have inherited opportunity and access and power over and
above many others in this nation. We
look at this verse, and we try hard to explain it away, to turn it into a
metaphor, to water it down.
I attended a church a few times in
seminary, a large well-educated, white collar Presbyterian church. One of their adult Sunday school classes did
a series on the hard sayings of Jesus.
The goal was to wrestle with the challenging verses and not merely
explain them away. I attended the one
they did on this passage. The class and
teacher spent the entire class discussing the camel and the needle
metaphorically. They brought up the
explanation about the gate into Jerusalem known as the Eye of the Needle, that
it was small and a camel could only squeeze through on its knees. People love that one… but scholars say it’s
completely untrue and has no basis in fact.
They discussed that maybe it’s a mistranslation and that it was
originally supposed to say something about passing ROPE through the eye of a
needle, difficult, but possible. Also
has little basis in reality. And like
many of us, they discussed how through God all things are possible. They offered up that Jesus always spoke in
context. His instructions were for this
rich man and not for all of us. We can’t all do that. Someone has to work. We can’t all be hippies living on the
street. Not once was it suggested that
Jesus meant what he said.
But I challenge you today to
never again water this passage down.
Because you cannot water down the challenges
of Jesus without also watering down his promises. Jesus
promises that when we give up our professions
and possessions, when we turn those
things wholly over to God in a real way, surrender all we have and all we have
become to God… we receive a hundredfold in return, here and in the life to
come. And who wants to water down that amazing promise? Not I.
And I hope not you either.
Because in Hebrews, it says that
the word of God is living and active. And this means that the words Jesus speaks to
the young ruler and to the disciples… they are living and active… full of
meaning for us today. We can be a people
terrified of change, but assured and confident in the promises Jesus makes. I don’t know if God is calling you to give up
all you have. I do know that if you let
him, he will change you in ways you never expected and the things you hold dear
or the things that hold you, could
suddenly not matter.
God can change who we are, from
prince to prophet or politician to Presbyterian or pretentious to public
servant. That which God dreams for us is
so much bigger than we can know till we open our hearts and minds to be shown. Each of us has marvelous potential to be and
to do so much more than what our self-imposed and accepted identities seem to
indicate. I think RL Sharpe puts it
well…
Isn't it strange how princes and
kings,
and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
and common people, like you and me,
are builders for eternity?
Each is given a list of rules;
a shapeless mass; a bag of tools.
And each must fashion, ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.
For
we are builders for eternity. People have great capacity for change. YOU have
great potential to be changed. Do not
yearn for God to use you on your own terms.
Do not be content with that. Do
not pray for that. Or you’ll go away as
dejected as the young ruler. Surrender
yourself to radical change. Open your
life to the hands of the master potter, ready and eager to be shaped. Amen.
