Pentecost 19, Proper 23, Yr. B
October 11, 2009
Job 23.1-9, 16-17; Ps. 22. 1-15; Hebrews4.12-16; Mark
10.17-31
Our readings today from Job
and the Psalms are full of what can only be described as despair.
God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified
me; if only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!
Job is not having a good day.
And the Psalm is one we read
on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so
far from my cry and the words of my distress.
And yet in the lesson from
Hebrews we hear this:
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with
boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
When we are struggling, how
do we get from feeling forsaken and wanting to pull the covers up over our head
to escape God or to hide from God…
To a place of actually coming
to God in boldness for the mercy and grace that we so desperately need?
Can’t relate to that
question?
How about this one then.
How do we get from feeling
like we can overcome our challenges in life by trying hard and making good
choices…
To that same place that God
wants us to be…coming to God in boldness for the mercy and grace that we so
desperately need?
It may seem like those are
two very different starting points.
One is that place of feeling
overwhelmed by life, like we’re just limping along making it day by day.
And the other is that place
of self-determination, that if we just keep working at it things have to get
better.
I think that those two
places, those two ways of feeling are similar, though.
What do they have in common?
The both sit on a foundation
of the lure of focusing on me.
Whether we act like we
believe that God is somehow out to get us and make our life miserable…
Or we’re acting like God is
just waiting for us to get it together and problem solve our life…
The focus in both ways of
being is on us…on me.
Our eyes are turned on
ourselves.
How do I feel, what can I do,
why is this happening to me?
Jesus came and proclaimed a
very different message about life and about what God might be wanting from us.
A very counter cultural
message…then and now.
Self –sufficiency is so
tempting.
For me anyway, and I assume
for a lot of you.
I grew up in a family where I
was the youngest of 3 girls.
Our family had some chaos in
it…alcohol, verbal and physical abuse.
I grew up with a keen eye to
how to fly under the radar.
I knew that I was one to
trust in.
I grew up unchurched and with
a strong and reinforced sense of my own self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
I had a major conversion
experience in my late teens and became a Jesus person, a Christian.
I got married, had two kids,
and was a church going machine.
At least 3 times a week…twice
on Sundays, Wednesday nights and other assorted prayer meetings or Bible
studies.
For that period of time I
would have said that I was putting my trust in Jesus and not myself.
But by the time I was 23 I
was widowed and a single mom.
It was the perfect moment in
time for me to conclude that self-sufficiency was going to be a better way to
go.
To me, God had let me down by
not protecting me from tragedy when I was so faithful.
Love God and rely on yourself would have been a good summary of my religious
worldview at the time.
Does that seem about right to
some of you… Love God and rely on
yourself?
I think that most of us want
to have a sense of self-sufficiency.
It feels safer, more in
control.
Over the last 32 years a lot
has happened, a lot has changed.
But most of all I would say
that my heart and mind and spirit have been worked on and worked on in letting
go of the fantasy of self-sufficiency.
God has been relentless, has
chased me every step of the way.
The message about trusting in
God’s love is in this story from Mark’s gospel that we heard today.
And that message is far from
encouraging us to feel like we have the reins of life in our hands.
Jesus has met up with a rich
man.
Maybe he was from Cameron
Park or El Dorado Hills.
I know most of you don’t think
of yourselves as rich, but go with me here.
This man is both rich and a
faithful follower of God and God’s commandments.
He is a good person who does
the right thing and loves God.
But he’s heard about this
Jesus and about some of the followers of Jesus and he’s intrigued.
He thinks there may be
something to what this guy is saying and doing.
He’s heard about a whole list
of signs and miracles and he’s heard about his teachings, which seem really
solid to him.
So the rich man asks Jesus
what he must do to inherit eternal life.
Being rich he’s familiar with
the idea of getting his ducks in a row in order to inherit something of value.
And being religious he’s
thinking that the check list to insure eternal life would be a good thing to
get nailed down.
Jesus looks at this man and
loves him.
Do you think that the man
could feel that love in Jesus’ eyes in that moment?
Jesus tells him that he must
sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then to grab a
backpack and follow him.
This is the only story in
Mark where someone turns Jesus down when he calls them to follow him.
But this man was shocked that
Jesus would ask that of him and he went home to his money and his possessions.
He turned Jesus down.
That’s when Jesus takes the opportunity
to try to explain to us what just happened.
This man, this rich young
man, wanted to know how he could make good with God without being different,
without changing.
He wanted to keep his money
and get the new check list for religious compliance leading to eternal life…
So that he could be in
control of his life and his destiny.
Jesus is having no part of
that.
Our human attempts to be
right with God have failed over the decades and millennia.
And that is what Jesus tells
the disciples and us.
How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the
The disciples were perplexed
and slack jawed at that one.
Being wealthy was, is a sign
of God’s blessing and favor, right?
Figuring out and following
the right set of rules is the way to please God and make ourselves good with
God, right?
Jesus says no.
This young man and the
disciples did not understand the power and influence riches and possessions
have over us.
I don’t know if Jesus is
saying that each and every one of us must sell all we have and give the
proceeds to the poor in order to begin following him.
I do know that Jesus is
saying that money and things pose very real challenges to us as human
creatures.
Money and things represent
control and safety and self-sufficiency.
Jesus is saying that the
challenges are so great to us that they make getting into the
Literally…
The disciples ask the obvious
question…
Well if a rich, blessed,
religiously faithful guy can’t really expect to make it in…who can?
And Jesus gives the Jesus
answer…
For God all things are
possible.
While it obviously matters
how we live our lives…
Still we cannot be good
enough, follow enough rules, have enough worldly wealth and power and
influence…
We cannot be self-sufficient
enough to be right with God.
There is a part of me that
still just hates that…but it is the truth.
All that we have, all that we
are is by God’s grace and mercy.
We can approach the throne of
grace with boldness, not because of us, but because of what Jesus has done for
each of us.
We can trust that God has made a way for every one of us
to be with God, to follow Jesus.
Like the rich young man, the
way that God has made for us asks us to let go of thinking that we are in
control, that we are self-sufficient…
Jesus is asking us to believe
and trust that that our wealth can tempt us away from giving our whole selves
up to following Jesus.
I keep talking about riches
and wealth and I know you are probably sick to death of hearing Kent and I go
on and on about the completely amazing abundance of all of our lives.
The truth is no matter how
stressed or anxious or worried you are about your monthly bills or about how
you’re going to afford your retirement…
We are still more well fed
and more comfortable and more physically safe than most people on the planet
right now or throughout history.
Listen to what Jesus is
saying because its crazy and we don’t really want to hear it.
Jesus is saying that being
comfortable in this life makes it that much harder for us to really believe
that all we have belongs to God and not to us.
Being comfortable makes it
hard for us to really believe that God is all we need.
This is a generous
congregation, no doubt.
Over $5000 came in last week
for the Kellerman’s ministry to the pygmies.
Those who support the
operating budget and the building/mortgage budgets here at Faith are generous.
But it’s that time of year
again when we’ll be asking you for pledges to this local church to keep the
building open, the salaries paid, the programs going, and the outreach
ministries funded.
And that may be more annoying
than usual this year.
Money may be tight or money
may feel like it’s tight.
And we’re still going to ask
you anyway to pray and think about what God will be calling you to give of the
money and wealth that God has given you.
Out of gratitude and out of
wonder and out of your thanks for God’s great patience and mercy.
We’re asking you to give not
because you can but because you will.
Jesus asked the rich young
man to give all his wealth, all that made him feel safe and in control.
And the rich young man said,
I won’t.
We have so many reasons why
we believe that we can’t.
Jesus is offering us a
different way to live.
Jesus offered his very life
in order to offer us a different way to live.
In gratitude and in boldness we
approach the throne of grace and simply say…
I will.
All that I am and all that I
have…I will.