B – 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 15 OCTOBER 2006
Job 23: 1 – 17; Psalm 22: 1 – 15
Hebrews 4: 12 – 16; ** MARK 10: 17 – 31 **

A Sermon by John C. Bush, Interim Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Birmingham, Alabama

Have you ever had the experience of asking a question and then being totally surprised by the answer? Of not getting the response you thought you were going to get?

Little Johnny came home looking for his daddy. There was a serious question on his mind. "Daddy, where did I come from?" Daddy was prepared for this moment. He knew it would come sooner or later and he was ready. Enlightened father that he was, he always gave his son a clear, straightforward answer to every question – trying to respond to what the child wanted to know, but without overwhelming him with more information than he was asking for. So he gave his son a simple explanation that emphasized that Johnny was born out of the genuine love his parents had for each other and for him. He gave adequate attention to what a five-year-old needed to know about procreation.

The little boy listened to all of this with obvious fascination and interest. Then, when daddy was finished, Johnny asked with a note of insistence in his voice: "But Daddy, where did I come from?" "I just explained that to you, son. Is there something about what daddy said that you don’t understand" "No, Daddy. I understand what you said, but what I need to know is where did I come from? Mickey says he came from Atlanta. Susan came from Chicago. Where did I come from?"

Jesus is on his way up to Jerusalem where a cross awaits him. Along the way he encounters a man who has a serious question on his mind: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is the guy we usually refer to has "the rich young ruler" – but we don’t get that from Mark. Mark tells us nothing about his age and doesn’t identify him with the ruling class. We get those descriptions from Matthew – who says he was young – and from Luke, who says he was a ruler.

As we meet him on the road today we know him only as a person of some means who is frustrated by spiritual turmoil. He is deeply concerned about eternity. People of every age have had such questions, arising from particular concerns: human desire; the impossibility of fulfilling our hopes in this lifetime; the struggle of the human spirit to overcome our limitations through memory, to transcend the limitations of our being; or fascination with the experience of dying. Belief in immortality is found in virtually all the philosophies and theologies of the world. It is among the oldest and widest spread of human hopes.

For Christians it is part of our understanding of the nature of God, reflecting life under the power of the Holy Spirit and under the lordship of the risen Christ.

This man’s sincerity is demonstrated by his kneeling in humility before Jesus, and his frustration is evident in his self-contradictory question: "What must I do to inherit?" The problem he exhibits is one we have, too, when we try to curry God’s favor. It is the notion that we must do something to earn God’s grace. But inheritances don’t ordinarily come because of what we do; they come because of whom you are in relation to the one who makes the bequest. It isn’t a matter of doing; it’s a matter of being.

John Calvin was especially intent on helping Christians understand that our liberty as Christians lies in the fact of God’s grace alone, which means we don’t earn our salvation by the things we do or don’t do. It comes to the believer as God’s free gift, unearned and undeserved.

Jesus responds to the man by reminding him of his religious tradition. "You know the law." Then Jesus mentions specifically the final five of the Ten Commandments – the ones that have to do with the social dimensions of the faith. It is instructive, isn’t it, that Jesus doesn’t feel it necessary to remind him of his duty to God. It is his duty to other people that gets the focus.

I’m not sure that is where we would have put the emphasis if we had been in Jesus’ place. We tend to spiritualize religion. To remove it from the realm of economic, political and social relations. There are some Christians, of course, who like it that way -- who would prefer to keep social issues at arm length from religion. But you just can’t do that. Religion is not merely a matter of "spiritual" or "eternal" things but also of matters social, political, economic and immediate concerns for justice, mercy, peace and reconciliation.

Susan Ellison is one of our Presbyterian missionaries to Bolivia where she works with the "Joining Hands for Life" network – part of the Presbyterian Hunger Program's network pairing Presbyterians in the United States with ecumenical partners around the world.

For weeks, members of the network in Bolivia had been planning a workshop focusing specifically on the connection between spirituality and ethics. Members of this ecumenical group of Bolivian grassroots organizations and churches (Protestant and Catholic) wanted to sit down and discuss their shared core values – the spiritual and ethical basis for addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty. But as they prepared for the meeting, more immediate justice issues took precedence: thousands of Bolivians took to the streets protesting governmental policies affecting the poorest of the poor in Bolivia. Consequently, it was no longer safe for the network to meet; events in the streets forced a change of plans – but heightened the urgency and relevance of the topic: the relationship between spirituality and ethics. Between faith and practice. Between religion and justice.

The man’s response in our story makes it clear that he takes his faith seriously. His obvious sincerity and lifelong devotion to the law of God evoke admiration and affection from Jesus. But the story leads us quickly beyond his basic goodness to the reality of his spiritual condition. He seems to be doing everything right – but there is emptiness in his soul and he is very much aware of it. What is it – this source of his dis-ease?

"Go. Sell. Give. Follow." Jesus’ invitation to Christian discipleship is an invitation to action – to do some specific things. But doing them, not in order to inherit eternal life but as an expression of a new quality of life. An eternal quality of life already given and present as a living reality. An invitation to put his life where his words are. But that wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

It is entirely possible – we see it every day – to pass money and property around without either love for others or trust in God having any place in the transactions. There is an abundance of that kind of heartless, soul-less charity. Giving what is easy to give, when it is convenient to give, to people we like and to causes we approve. But that isn’t what the Lord asks of us.

Here is a person whose life – whose sense of self – has been defined by what he owns. By the abundance of things he has acquired. You recognize the philosophy, don’t you? No doubt you’ve seen it expressed in that bumper sticker theology: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins."

There is an old Jack Benny radio skit in which we hear a mysterious-sounding voice saying: "Your money or your life!" After a long silence the same voice demands, "Well?" To which Jack Benny responds, somewhat impatiently: "I’m thinking; I’m thinking!"

It isn’t the fact of what he owns that is this fellow’s problem. Jesus is not attacking affluence; his words are not in praise of poverty. It isn’t what he owns that’s his problem. It is how he feels about what he owns. The central importance of those things in his life. It isn’t really a question of what he does with his possessions, but rather of what his possessions do to him. And Jesus zeros right in on that problem and asks him to define himself by something other than what he owns.

He has a problem with his soul, and his devotion to the stuff he owns is but a symptom of it. He’s trying to keep his spiritual life in one box and his physical life in another. His soul is devoted to God; his wealth he keeps for himself. But that kind of compartmentalizing of life won’t work in the long run.

"What must I do to inherit eternal life" In other words, What will it cost me?" Well, for starters, it will require you to reorder your priorities. In this fellow’s case it was his accumulated wealth. What is it for you? It might be money, or maybe it’s a matter of time – how little of it we have and how we choose to use it. Or of energy, or compassion.

The scripture says the man went away sorrowful, but the word actually carries a combination of senses: astonishment, sadness, depression.

Jesus turns to explain to his disciples the significance of what just happened. He tells them that it is very, very difficult for people like us – people of comfortable means – to keep our priorities straight. In fact, he says, that if we are depending on our own resources to assure our spiritual destiny we will be about as successful as if we were trying to pull a camel, nose first, though the eye of a needle. Now, I’ve heard my share of preachers trying to explain this saying of Jesus in ways that make it less offensive to our affluent, middle-class ears. That is a waste of time. The issue here is spiritual; it isn’t an engineering problem. Jesus is saying exactly what we are afraid he is saying. And notice how the disciples respond: "They were astonished." Again, the English is too bland: they were flabbergasted! "Who, then, can be saved?"

And the answer is straightforward: nobody can be saved who is depending on what you have, or who you think you are, or what you can do -- even if you are clever enough to pull a camel through a needles eye. All those considerations are just going to get in the way; cloud the issue. It just isn’t possible. It isn’t going to happen.

Which bring us to the point of all this. This isn’t a story about how bad money is or about the virtue of poverty. It is about the journey of faith and discipleship, and all those things that can stand in the way of faithfulness. This is a story that invites us to examine our priorities. And when we get to the question of what we can do to set things right, the answer is simply amazing: "With human beings it is impossible. But not with God, for with God all things are possible."

And those words transform the contradictions of this story into a paradox. Entering the reign of God, gaining life eternal – our journey towards wholeness and faith – demands our best obedience and everything we have. And at the same time, everything we have and all we can do are not enough to achieve the life we want. Such wholeness as that can come only from God, and we can receive it only as a gift. As grace.

The Christian gospel is directed toward our incompleteness. That empty place in the soul, the tragic and ironic dimensions of our lives. It is a gospel of God’s own gift of grace, which depends neither upon our goodness nor our achievements. It is all about a life that’s not focused just on attaining things – not even eternal life -- but on having its priorities straight – recognizing that whatever we have, or whoever we are, or whatever we can do are not ends in themselves. Rather, all of those things about us can, in fact, serve the good purposes of God, and serve God’s purposes for God’s people, God’s church and for God’s world. That is our calling and our challenge.

"What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

[COPYRIGHT 2006, John C. Bush]

NOW TO THE ONE WHO,
BY THE POWER AT WORK WITHIN US
IS ABLE TO DO FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY
THAN ALL WE MAY ASK OR THINK:
TO GOD BE THE GLORY
IN THE CHURCH AND IN CHRIST JESUS
FROM THIS DAY FORTH,
AND EVEN FOREVER MORE. AMEN.