The Goods

Mark 10:17-31

October 14, 2018

            Let’s assume from the very beginning of this sermon that Jesus was speaking absolutely and unequivocally truthfully. I know, I know, some of you – perhaps all of you – are thinking,

            “Amy, I always assume that Jesus was speaking absolutely and unequivocally truthfully.”

            I have no quarrel with that. I would claim it as well. But stick with me on this. Let’s all assume that Jesus was speaking absolutely truthfully in our passage from Mark. And with that assumption in mind, let us hear again these words.

            “As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

            Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’”

            Are you still assuming it’s all true? And if you are, how are you feeling right about now? I’ll be honest with you. I’m a little nervous. I’m more than a little uncomfortable, because while I am not rich I have a lot of stuff. I own a lot of things. I have a life filled with possessions. And I promise you that when I leave here today I am not going to go out, sell my possessions, and give the money to the poor. I’m not. However, as I have also agreed to assume that what Jesus says is true, I will leave here disturbed by his words and struggling with what to do with them.

            What do we do with these words, these unsettling and disturbing words about riches and wealth and the kingdom of God? First of all, let me share with you something that I learned only this past week. If you have ever been told in a sermon, perhaps one delivered by me, that the eye of a needle was a small gate into the city of Jerusalem, used for camels, it’s not true. There was no such gate. There is no evidence that any kind of gate like this ever existed. According to commentators and biblical scholars, this was made up in the nineteenth century to spiritualize this text. Why? Because thinking that Jesus was referring to an actual narrow gate makes his words sting a little less.

            And that’s what we want. We want his words to sting a little less; because when it comes to wealth and possessions, this story about Jesus’ encounter with the rich man stings. We don’t know anything about this man other than what we read in the gospels. Sometimes referred to as the “rich, young ruler,” in Mark’s gospel we only hear him referred to as a man. But whether we call him the rich, young ruler or just know him as a man of means, the way he approached Jesus was interesting.

            He clearly was not a man looking to trick or ensnare Jesus as the Pharisees did. He knelt before Jesus. The people who knelt before Jesus were the ones in need of healing, either for themselves or someone they loved. The Syrophoenician woman who begged Jesus to heal her child knelt before him. Jairus knelt before Jesus and begged him to help his daughter. To kneel was to prostrate ones’ self. It was a gesture of humility and pleading. The rich man knelt before Jesus. Clearly, he was seeking something he could not find on his own. He was driven by a need that his wealth and possessions could not fill.

            So he ran up to Jesus, knelt before him and asked the question, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

            Jesus’ initial response seems strange.

            “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

            Was Jesus engaging in mutual humility? Or was he pointing out to this man who had plenty of goods that the real source of goodness was not found in people, not even in Jesus; nor was it found in possessions, in stuff? The real source of good, of the good, was only found in God. God alone is good. So even to refer to Jesus as good was to miss the mark.

            Jesus went on to say, you know your commandments. You know what they are. You shall not murder or commit adultery or steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall honor your mother and father. Jesus added a commandment; one that we don’t find in the original Decalogue. He also said, “You shall not defraud.”

            Did Jesus say this because this man gained his wealth through the defrauding of others? Were his words based on an understanding that many of those who were wealthy were so because of exploitation of others? We don’t know. Again, that’s what Jesus said, and we are assuming that everything Jesus said was true.

            The man answered Jesus saying that he obeyed all the commandments. He followed the Law. He was not guilty of transgression against any of them. Then Mark tells us something that we do not hear in any of other gospel accounts, nor do we hear this in any story about Jesus.

            “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”

            Jesus looked at this man, this rich man, who we assume had goods to spare, and loved him. He loved him.

            Jesus said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

            Jesus looked at this man. Jesus loved this man. And Jesus saw that even with all this man had, with all that he owned, he still lacked something. He lacked something that money and possessions could not fill. Perhaps it was that lack, that need that drove this man to Jesus in the first place. Perhaps deep down the man realized that he was lacking, that he had a void in his life that could not be filled by stuff or things or wealth.

            “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

            There are so many things to be unpacked in this story, so many levels of meaning in which to dive deeply. I could preach twenty sermons on it, and that’s a good thing. This story pushes us not only to reexamine how we see wealth, but also to consider how we see the poor. To be honest, this story is not just about what Jesus said to some man a long time ago, it is about what he says to us right now. It was not just the man who was shocked and grieved by Jesus’ words, all the others around them were shocked as well. To be rich was a sign of blessing. To be poor was a sign of God’s disfavor, even God’s curse. Are we that much different today? Isn’t poverty more often viewed as a moral failing and wealth a result of doing all the right things?

            Jesus did not chastise the man or reprove of him because of his wealth per se. But he called him to see that his wealth, his possessions; the goods that he set such store by were not really what was good. Only God is good. All good comes from God, not in spite of God. Jesus did not condemn the man’s wealth nor did he condemn the man. Jesus looked at him and loved him, and asked him to see good in something else, something bigger, something better.

            Sell all that you own, give the money to the poor, then come and follow me.

            Jesus called the man to be in a new relationship with the people around him, and Jesus called him to be in relationship with him. Get rid of what distracts you. Give away what binds you, and follow me. In Mark’s gospel especially, faith is not assenting to or ascribing to doctrine or a set of rules. Faith is about following. Faith is about relationship. If there is something that prevents you from following or being in relationship, then let it go, give it up, give it away. All those possessions, all those goods, they are nothing in light of being in relationship with Jesus; of being in relationship with our good and loving God.

            What Jesus said was true, and we have to wrestle with his truth. We have to live with it. I’ve already said that I won’t leave here today, sell what I own and give that money to the poor. I know that. But that does not excuse me from taking Jesus’ words about wealth and following and faith seriously. I cannot spiritualize this story away. I cannot write it off as being something different from what Jesus actually said. For the rest of my life, I have to face the fact that what I own can get in the way of how I live with others, how I treat others, and how I walk in relationship and faith with God.

            Yet here is the good news. Jesus looked at that man and loved him. Jesus looks at us and loves us. Jesus loves us, in spite of the fact that we can so easily fail to follow him, regardless of how many times we, like that man, walk away from him. Jesus loves us in spite of ourselves, and what is impossible for us is never, ever impossible for God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

A Community of the Broken -- World Communion Sunday

Mark 10:2-16

October 7, 2018

            I sat there feeling hopeless. Shame and guilt washed over me in relentless waves. The topic of our conversation had shifted, and one person dominated the discussion. What is wrong in our society, he said, is that our kids are coming out of broken homes. Homes with single moms, he said, and no fathers in sight. It is these broken homes, these broken families that are at the root of our crumbling culture.

            This was about six years ago. I was sitting in a ministerial association meeting – actually, I was hosting it, because we were in the parlor of the old church. The person talking was and is a minister in this community. It turns out, although I didn’t know it at the time, that he too has been married and divorced – more than once on both accounts. But I didn’t know that. What I did know was that I was newly separated. I was now a single mother, and if I believed what this man said, my kids were doomed.

            As he continued to talk and talk and talk, I got quieter and quieter. I didn’t know where to look. Catching the eye of another colleague was impossible. I didn’t want to look at them. I was too ashamed. I just bowed my head toward my hands, closed my eyes, and prayed that this rant would soon be over; that he would either run out of steam and stop on his own, or that someone would interrupt him. I don’t remember how it ended. I just know that it did. I held it together until the last minister left, then I sat and cried.

            I suspect that this other minister was not trying to shame me. I would like to believe that had he known my situation, he would have held his tongue or at least worked at some sensitivity. But even if he had done either of those things, I doubt that my shame and guilt would have been abated. Even if he would not have made any of those remarks, I would have still heard them. I was saying them to myself every day. I didn’t need to hear a sermon about the evils of divorce; I was preaching that sermon to myself on a regular basis.

            Hearing this passage from Mark may bring out those kinds of sermons in our heads. After all, it would seem that this passage is designed for just that purpose. Jesus was on the move again, drawing crowds and teaching them as they went. Into this setting some Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. That might be a clue to us that this passage is not just another way to condemn those who have failed in their marriages. The Pharisees wanted to test Jesus, and we know that whenever Pharisees wanted to test Jesus, there was more at stake. Testing was another way to try and trick him. They wanted to catch him up in a trap of the legal kind.

            But Jesus never fell for it. He never gave them the satisfaction. They asked a question about divorce, which was a legal issue, and he turned the law back on them.

            “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

            “What did Moses command you?”

            “They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote this commandment for you.’”

            Because of your hardness of heart … it wasn’t that Jesus didn’t take marriage seriously. He quoted from Genesis to show the divine intent behind marriage. He spoke privately to his disciples about remarriage being adultery. But he was pushing them to see something more, something bigger.

            Although the Pharisees asked about the lawfulness of divorce, that legality was not really in question. Even though divorce was frowned upon, it was assumed that it would sometimes happen. It was perfectly legal for a man to divorce his wife. And there was no long drawn out court process for this. He only had to write a “certificate of divorce.” As I understand it, that was basically the husband writing down, “I divorce you” and handing it to his wife. The reasons for divorce could be as simple as the wife burning the husband’s dinner just one too many times.

            Jesus was not countering the Pharisees test of lawfulness with more legalism. Jesus pushed back on their hardness of heart. A divorce was a breaking of relationship, and that breaking of relationship often left the most vulnerable in society even more vulnerable. Women had no status or power outside of their husband or other men in their family. To be divorced was to lose the protection of that man. I have said it again and again, and I will keep saying it, there is a reason why we so often hear about care for the widows and orphans. It is because women and children were the most vulnerable in that society. Divorce exponentially increased that vulnerability.

            Up to this point in the narrative, Jesus had been trying to teach the disciples and the crowds that the kingdom of God was for those who were vulnerable. It was for the least and the lost. Jesus had already pulled a child into his lap and told the disciples that welcoming such a little one, a vulnerable one, was welcoming him and welcoming the One who sent him.

            Divorce was a breaking of relationship that caused harm, real physical harm to those who were left in its wake. I know that can still be said about divorce today. It would seem that I am backing up the words said by that minister six years ago; that the troubles of our society spring from the broken family. If only families stayed together, all would be well. But here’s the thing: divorce does happen. And it hurts. It hurts like hell. And it can harm. But brokenness is not limited to divorce and divorce alone. We are broken; all of us. We are all wounded in one way or another. We are all damaged by the struggles of life. To live is to eventually be broken. To live is to eventually experience broken relationships and broken hearts. You do not have to live through a divorce to know that.

            But what makes me so sad is that when it comes to church, when it comes to being the church, we seem to forget this reality of the human condition. We seem to get it into our heads that church is the place where only the really, really good folks get to go. I have heard many people say that they were faithful members of their church … until they got divorced. Then they no longer felt like they could attend. They felt like they just weren’t good enough to sit in the pews. It was as if divorce stained them so badly, they could not get clean again.

            When I was going through my divorce, I considered leaving the ministry for those same reasons. Who was I to stand in this pulpit and preach when I had failed so terribly, so horribly? But Alice told me something at one point that helped me more than she knows. She said that going through this would make me a better minister, because I would have even more empathy, more understanding for the pain others go through. I don’t know if I have proof yet that she was right, but I do have hope.

            You see we are all broken, in one way or another. Today as we celebrate World Communion, I cannot help but think about all the people around the world who will gather at tables and altars, in large cathedrals and small storefronts, and take the bread and the cup. I cannot help but imagine all of the stories that will be brought to those tables. I cannot help but imagine hundreds of thousands of broken people gathering to hear the familiar words, “The body of Christ, the blood of Christ.”

            We are all broken. We are a community of broken people, but we are also a community of blessed people. We are a community of blessed people because God does not abandon us to our brokenness. God does not give up on us because we are broken. God calls us out of our broken places, God calls to us in the brokenness of our hearts. God calls us not only in spite of our brokenness, but maybe because of it. God calls us and God loves us. God binds up our broken hearts. God pours the balm of love and healing on the broken places and the broken relationships. God calls us to the table, broken and blessed, and tells us the good news that the kingdom is for the broken and the lost and the vulnerable. God blesses us just as Jesus blessed those children.

            We are a community of broken and blessed people. May we acknowledge our brokenness, and may we see the brokenness in others. Then may we reach out to them in love and grace, just as God reaches out to us, with love and tenderness and grace over and over again.

            We are a community of broken and blessed people. Thanks be to God.