October 10, 2021: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
“As Jesus set out on a journey…” This is how our gospel passage from Mark opens today. Jesus is heading out the door. So, I have to wonder – where was Jesus going, and why?
I’ll never really know the answer to that question, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is his response to this man, and the man’s response to him.
Now, it is usually the thing done to women in the bible that they are left unnamed, but for whatever reason, this man isn’t given one either. So, as I am want to do, let’s give this man a name. Let’s call him Edwin, from the Old English for rich friend.
So, Jesus is heading out on his journey to wherever, and along comes Ed, who kneels before him and asks to be guided to what will ensure his eternal life. And here’s the thing… stopped Jesus in his tracks. Jesus reminds him of the commandments, and Ed says that he keeps every single one. And here is where it gets interesting. The gospel says “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.”
Now, it is easy, and often done, to view Ed as a greedy rich man, but Jesus didn’t – and neither should we. Jesus saw something in him, something that made Jesus interrupt his journey, something Ed didn’t understand in himself. More than that – Jesus loved him. He loved this man, who sought him out. Other than Lazarus, this is the only time in the gospels where it says that Jesus loved someone. Why? What was it about Ed?
Was it his deep yearning to do what was right by God? Maybe. But I think rather it was something deeper. See, I think Ed was a man who was trying to fill a whole in his heart – someone who needed more in his life. Maybe that is why he had so much, because he kept trying to be filled. Maybe that is also why he tried so hard to be good at his faith – because he thought that if he could just do all the right things, maybe that would heal the ache in his heart.
Ed was a seeker. He was seeking his own healing, and he came to the one he knew could heal him. Perhaps Jesus loved him because he could see in Ed a wounded man who, instead of being pumped up with pride in his riches, knelt down before Jesus in humility. Ed was a different sort of rich man – one who knew that despite his riches, something was missing in his life. But when he realized that what he was seeking would require a transformation that would cost him, it was more than he could bear.
I think that we can look back on Ed with compassion, because today, many people are just like him. Because many of us seek God, but what we want to find, isn’t necessarily what God is offering.
I remember last time I preached on this gospel telling you about a book by Tim Hansel called When I Relax I Feel Guilty. In it he writes some insights of what most people want from God, and this is one of those: He writes, “I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of [God] to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please.”
See, I think that is what happened with our guy Ed. He wanted relationship with God, but not to be transformed by it. He wanted $3 worth of God. He wanted a list of things to do, not a way to be. He wanted eternal life in the hereafter, not a life worth living in the present. But as one preacher put it, “don’t run up to Jesus and interrupt his journey if you don’t expect to be challenged.”[1]
The same is true for each of us.
One of the things this long pandemic has brought to our hearts and minds has been a reordering of our priorities. Denied the ability to be physically present with others as a measure of care for them and for us, not being able to gather physically here as a community of faith, our children unable for a long time to physically engage in play and learning with others their age…all of this has, hopefully, given us a sense of what is, and what is not, important.
You know, prior to this, it was hard to break the American penchant for not seeking work life balance. We spent more and more and more time at the office, even bringing the office into our homes with our mobile devices…until we could not without the other parts of our lives – our children, spouse, pets, and so on being a constant reminder of their need for our time too. And I have to wonder if some of what we are seeing now with regard to the reported labor shortage is about more than just wages. Perhaps our priorities in life have shifted – in the right direction. Perhaps many have come to realize that something was missing from their lives, and they aren’t about to return to the way things were. Because the thing is, life – as we have come to realize – is short – sometimes shorter than we hoped.
There is a story I heard once about an “American tourist in Jerusalem who met up with a monk. The monk offered to show him around the monastery of which he was a part. On their tour they came to the monk’s room; the tourist noticed no TV or radio, only a bed, one change of clothes, a towel and a blanket. He asked, “How do you live so simply?” The monk answered, “I noticed you have only enough things to fill a suitcase; why do you live so simply?” The tourist replied, “But I’m just a tourist, I’m only traveling through” to which the monk said, “So am I, so am I.””[2]
Here’s the thing…Jesus doesn’t tell other rich people in the gospel that they need to sell everything. Being rich isn’t some sort of sin – it is how it is prioritized in our life. That is why Jesus later tells his disciples that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle, because once we have riches, it is sometimes hard to reorder their importance to us. The church through the years has found that to be true of tithing as well – that it is easier to do when we have very little in our proverbial suitcase.
Tithing, to be clear, isn’t about a particular percentage or amount of giving (though yes, the biblical tithe is 10% of what we are given). Tithing is about how we prioritize our lives. Do we first determine all that we need in our suitcase, our monk’s room, then…well, add in all that we like into more suitcases and perhaps expand into other rooms, and then…after all of that, decide how much is left that we give over to God? Tithing is saying that we start first with having God a part of that room, a part of that suitcase. And that becomes so much harder as we accumulate more, because we begin to think that all that other stuff is really a need too, and so we give to God from whatever is left after we have provided for all the additional suitcases and rooms. We don’t really even realize that this change has happened to us. Ed probably didn’t either.
I am reminded of an old Zen story about a master and his young disciple, who had told the master how much joy he found in being a monk. The master, seeing that the disciple was very focused on his practice and disciplined, decided that perhaps it might be good to let the disciple live in a small hut down the road from the monastery. While the young monk did not want to leave his little cell, he was obedient and went to live in the hut.
Each night the disciple would wash his one robe and put it out to dry. One morning he was dismayed to find that mice had torn his robe to shreds. He begged for another from a nearby village, only to have the mice destroy that one as well. He got a cat, but he found he had to beg for milk for the cat. To get around that, he got a cow; but of course that meant he had to have hay. He got the hay from the fields around his hut. He had to get workers to help. Soon he was the wealthiest man in the region.
Several years later, the master came back to check on his young pupil to find a mansion in place of a hut. He asked his disciple what had happened. “Oh master, there was no other way to keep my robe.” The master told him it was time to return, but this disciple, who had once found such happiness and joy in his simple life in the monastery, could not find a way to go back, and the master let him go his way, saddened by his choice.
And the thing is, our master, Jesus, is telling each of us to return home – home to what is important. We are Ed!
Maybe that is why Ed wasn’t named in this story because Ed is all of us!
And like Ed, we are called to be his disciple because Jesus loves us and wants us to follow him.
Will we respond and go with him?
Jesus hopes that we do, because the life we will receive will be transformative not only for us, but for others.
Remember that Jesus doesn’t just tell Ed to give away his money, right? What does he tell him to do? To sell what he owns and give it to the poor.
Jesus doesn’t even tell him to give away the money he has, but the possessions he owns. Now, why would that be?
Because Jesus knows that it is our stuff that weighs us down – those possessions possess us – and we start to believe that we need more and more suitcases – more and more rooms – more and more…well, more. The problem isn’t the stuff, or even having it. The problem is believing we need it more than we need Jesus, more than we need even our own soul.
Jesus also knew that what Ed was really seeking could only be found when he started thinking about more than himself. Ed came to Jesus to find out how to secure eternal life for himself. Jesus knew that Ed had looked at faith as something he did, and did alone – worship, do what God commanded, and so on. As though faith is some sort of checklist you do.
Jesus is challenging that assumption – Ed’s and ours.
You see, there are far too many who think that wearing a cross around their neck, coming to church on Sunday, and faithfully reading scripture is how to be a disciple of Jesus. And all of that is good – Jesus does respond to Ed’s faithfulness with love. But Jesus knows that salvation comes when our faith isn’t a to-do list, but a to-be way of life. We enter into the fullness of relationship with him, when we serve him in the world. And serving him doesn’t stop with kneeling before him – it begins there. Ed found that out, didn’t he? Serving Jesus, being his disciple, entering into the kingdom of God in this life, means we must let go and follow him, and that means doing as he would do.
Which brings me back to that very first sentence in the gospel. “Jesus set out on a journey…” And, what happened? The journey was interrupted by Ed. What did Jesus do? He gave his time. He listened to this man who was in need of something he didn’t even know he was missing.
Jesus, by word and example, is showing Ed, his disciples, and all of us now, what it means to be his follower. We give of our treasure and of our time, and that means that we allow our journey to be interrupted, and we reprioritize our lives. We let go of what we think is important to know what really is, and when we do, Jesus will be in that cell with us. Jesus will be what we pack first in the one suitcase of our journey. And when we encounter those in need, who call out to us for help, we will stop and give of our time because we will have more of it. It takes time, you know, to look after all the stuff we have, doesn’t it? How many times have we not been able to give of our time to Christ because there were other things that drew away our focus? How many times did we refuse to have our personal journeys interrupted by the one who was in need?
You know, one of the ways to think about our faith is to consider that whenever we are gathered together, whenever we pray, we too are kneeling before Jesus. And like our friend Ed, Jesus will stop and be with us. He will see us and love us. And, he will challenge us.
Jesus will challenge us to seek him and find him.
Jesus will challenge us to reconsider what we need to live, and what living in him requires.
Jesus will model for us the life we must live.
Jesus will open the path of salvation, of healing, of transformation, of true discipleship.
But we must choose to go…and to let go.
In this stewardship season, when the very life of the parish we call Christ Church is at risk, we are each called to consider our own priorities – our needs and our wants – our faith and our call. We are made to consider what is actually a part of our personal monk’s room – those things that are needed to live – and those things that are not. And, as we look in that room, as we search in our tourist suitcase, do we see Jesus in there? Do we seek him here, but then leave him here after services and walk away? For that matter, do we even take the step Ed did and seek and kneel before him, or are we content that we went to worship and followed the 10 commandments? Do we allow our own journeys to be interrupted to offer Jesus our time and our treasure, or do we walk away from his call to follow him because it requires more than we can bear.
Jesus is on a journey.
Let us seek him and find him.
Let us kneel before him.
And when he calls us to serve him in the world, let us reprioritize our lives and follow him.
For only then will we be free.
Only then will we be transformed.
Only then will we really be his disciple.
Only then will we truly live.
Amen.
[1] The Rev. Dr. Wiley Stephens
[2] https://friarmusings.com/2012/10/24/admonition-sixteen/amp/
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
October 10, 2021
The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
1st Reading – Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
2nd Reading – Hebrews 4:12-16
Gospel – Mark 10:17-31
