Pentecost XIX
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
READ THE GOSPELS, and you often see Jesus moving. Once he began his public ministry, Jesus never seemed to stay in one place very long, and the encounter with the rich man we read today from Mark’s gospel has been called a “journey narrative"[1] because it begins with the words: “As he was setting out on a journey . . . .” (Mark 10:17a) This week, as my family sets out on a journey of its own, I looked to this story for lessons about leaving. Specifically, (1) Why do we leave? (2) What must we leave? and (3) Where can we find strength to leave?
First, why we leave -- Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem, the city where the climactic week of his life and ministry was about to begin. He was drawn inexorably to the place where his Father wanted to use him, to the locus of his vocation. But the story isn’t just about Jesus leaving; there are two other players. The rich man who asked Jesus how to get eternal life heard “You have to leave your wealth to follow me.” Then, a few verses later Peter says, “Look, Jesus, we have left everything and followed you.” (10:28) What caught my imagination is what Jesus said to Peter about one reason we leave – “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age . . . and in the age to come eternal life.” (10:29-30)
What does that mean, to leave some place or some thing for the sake of God and the gospel? If I have harped on one thing all the time I’ve been part of this community, it is the gospel, and one of the best explanations I've heard of the gospel was from a sermon Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave years ago that distinguished between good "advice" and the gospel, a word that means "good news."
The rich man is an object lesson about this gospel. He wants advice, but Jesus gives him news. When he asks “What must I do to have life,” he's looking for a formula -- prayers to say, spiritual practices to adopt, a set of doctrines to believe -- but Jesus says “It’s impossible, if you have to get that kind of life for yourself. A camel could sooner pass through a needle’s eye than you can squeeze enough good works into your life to enter the kingdom of God.” But the gospel says: What is impossible for the rich man, and what is impossible for us, is possible for God. In fact, as my friend Bishop Mark Dyer says, it’s what God does for a living.
That gospel is why my family is leaving this community we love and moving to work as part of a new community in Boston. For years I was like the rich man (albeit with a conspicuous lack of money), asking God "What must I do?" and my obedience was fear-driven and joyless. But over time things shifted, and I began to see what God had done for me, and that melted me. It changed my life. I started to obey not from guilt but from gratitude, and joy showed up. That's when it became the most important thing in my life to tell other people what God won for us in his victory over sin, death and hell, and for my family to cooperate with the work God is doing in the world. That's what brought us here for four wonderful years, and now we leave in the sure and certain hope that we're doing our best to serve God and the gospel.
First, why we leave -- Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem, the city where the climactic week of his life and ministry was about to begin. He was drawn inexorably to the place where his Father wanted to use him, to the locus of his vocation. But the story isn’t just about Jesus leaving; there are two other players. The rich man who asked Jesus how to get eternal life heard “You have to leave your wealth to follow me.” Then, a few verses later Peter says, “Look, Jesus, we have left everything and followed you.” (10:28) What caught my imagination is what Jesus said to Peter about one reason we leave – “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age . . . and in the age to come eternal life.” (10:29-30)
What does that mean, to leave some place or some thing for the sake of God and the gospel? If I have harped on one thing all the time I’ve been part of this community, it is the gospel, and one of the best explanations I've heard of the gospel was from a sermon Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave years ago that distinguished between good "advice" and the gospel, a word that means "good news."
Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it. News is a report about something that has happened which you can’t do anything about because it has been done for you and all you can do is respond to it. In a battle against an invading army, if the enemies have all been defeated and the mission is accomplished, the commanding officer sends back messengers and envoys with a report – good news – of what has already been done. Those carrying the good news are filled with joy and go on living in peace through what has been accomplished for them. On the other hand, if the battle has not been won, the commanding officer sends for military advisers on how to defeat the enemy with new strategies and redoubling efforts. Every other religion sends military advisers to people. Every other religion says that if you want to achieve salvation, you will have to fight for your life. Every other religion is sending advice saying ‘here are the rites and the rituals; here’s the transformation of consciousness and laws and regulations.’ [Jesus sent] heralds. We [are] messengers not military advisers.[2]
The rich man is an object lesson about this gospel. He wants advice, but Jesus gives him news. When he asks “What must I do to have life,” he's looking for a formula -- prayers to say, spiritual practices to adopt, a set of doctrines to believe -- but Jesus says “It’s impossible, if you have to get that kind of life for yourself. A camel could sooner pass through a needle’s eye than you can squeeze enough good works into your life to enter the kingdom of God.” But the gospel says: What is impossible for the rich man, and what is impossible for us, is possible for God. In fact, as my friend Bishop Mark Dyer says, it’s what God does for a living.
That gospel is why my family is leaving this community we love and moving to work as part of a new community in Boston. For years I was like the rich man (albeit with a conspicuous lack of money), asking God "What must I do?" and my obedience was fear-driven and joyless. But over time things shifted, and I began to see what God had done for me, and that melted me. It changed my life. I started to obey not from guilt but from gratitude, and joy showed up. That's when it became the most important thing in my life to tell other people what God won for us in his victory over sin, death and hell, and for my family to cooperate with the work God is doing in the world. That's what brought us here for four wonderful years, and now we leave in the sure and certain hope that we're doing our best to serve God and the gospel.
But, second, what must we leave? “Leaving” doesn’t just mean physically uprooting and moving to a new city. It means risk. Putting everything at stake. Putting all your chips down and letting them ride on the truth that God has acted in Jesus; God is still acting; the project to renew the world continues, and we can have a part in that.
For some of us, that news isn’t necessarily the kind of “good” we had in mind. One commentary I read to prepare for this sermon said: "It is relatively easy to be drawn to faith. The message may sound good initially; we like what Jesus stands for; the fellowship is warm and inviting; and religion is generally a good thing. It is only on the inside that we realize what we have gotten into."[3] For the rich man, it meant he had to leave his wealth to be a disciple, but I think Jesus knew the man's heart and put his finger on the one thing that was really more important to him than God. What that one thing is will be different for all of us. What may God be asking you to "leave" for his sake and for the gospel? Where is God putting his finger in your life and saying "You really want to follow me? Then I want that." What would it look like for us to forsake all we depend on and step out in "radical trust?"
Whatever it is we're asked to leave, it's almost never easy, so our last question is where can we ever find the strength to leave and follow Jesus into the great unknown? How can Renee’ and I find strength to leave you? Where could the rich man have found the strength to leave his wealth, or Peter and the disciples to leave everything to follow Jesus? Where can you find the strength to leave the thing that stands between you and radical trust in God? The answer, I believe, is from Psalm 22, words we read this morning but which are familiar from Holy Week: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That was Jesus' cry of dereliction from the cross. When we understand that the love of God put these words on his own lips for our sake, it does two things: Objectively, it makes a way for us to get to God because no sin is so great that the cross can't cover it. But subjectively, it pulls our hearts. It makes us grasp after a God who grasped for us; to leave everything behind for the God who left all for us.
The thought I'd leave you with today is not my own, but Anne Lamott's: In Traveling Mercies, she writes: "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." Sometimes grace calls us to leave a physical place. Sometimes our hearts have to leave the things they hold most dear. But one thing I know for sure -- we all have to leave this room. In our liturgy our great high priest who was forsaken for us gathers us up and brings us to the throne of grace, to this altar, to share in this meal of his body and blood, then we are told to leave. Get out of here, and go into the world as witnesses to what we have seen. Renee' and the kids and I go into the world as witnesses to what we have seen among you at Ascension & St. Agnes. We ask that you pray for us, even as we pray for you, followers of the same Jesus, all of us servants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] Fred B. Craddock et al., Preaching Through the Christian Year: 440.
[2] Quote adapted from “Good News, NOT Good Advice,” http://timmybrister.com/20 09/09/30/good-news-not-goo d-advice/ (last visited 9 October 2009).
[3] William J. Abraham, “Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Year B,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts: The Second Readings: Acts and the Epistles, Roger E. Van Harn ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001): 480.
For some of us, that news isn’t necessarily the kind of “good” we had in mind. One commentary I read to prepare for this sermon said: "It is relatively easy to be drawn to faith. The message may sound good initially; we like what Jesus stands for; the fellowship is warm and inviting; and religion is generally a good thing. It is only on the inside that we realize what we have gotten into."[3] For the rich man, it meant he had to leave his wealth to be a disciple, but I think Jesus knew the man's heart and put his finger on the one thing that was really more important to him than God. What that one thing is will be different for all of us. What may God be asking you to "leave" for his sake and for the gospel? Where is God putting his finger in your life and saying "You really want to follow me? Then I want that." What would it look like for us to forsake all we depend on and step out in "radical trust?"
Whatever it is we're asked to leave, it's almost never easy, so our last question is where can we ever find the strength to leave and follow Jesus into the great unknown? How can Renee’ and I find strength to leave you? Where could the rich man have found the strength to leave his wealth, or Peter and the disciples to leave everything to follow Jesus? Where can you find the strength to leave the thing that stands between you and radical trust in God? The answer, I believe, is from Psalm 22, words we read this morning but which are familiar from Holy Week: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That was Jesus' cry of dereliction from the cross. When we understand that the love of God put these words on his own lips for our sake, it does two things: Objectively, it makes a way for us to get to God because no sin is so great that the cross can't cover it. But subjectively, it pulls our hearts. It makes us grasp after a God who grasped for us; to leave everything behind for the God who left all for us.
The thought I'd leave you with today is not my own, but Anne Lamott's: In Traveling Mercies, she writes: "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us." Sometimes grace calls us to leave a physical place. Sometimes our hearts have to leave the things they hold most dear. But one thing I know for sure -- we all have to leave this room. In our liturgy our great high priest who was forsaken for us gathers us up and brings us to the throne of grace, to this altar, to share in this meal of his body and blood, then we are told to leave. Get out of here, and go into the world as witnesses to what we have seen. Renee' and the kids and I go into the world as witnesses to what we have seen among you at Ascension & St. Agnes. We ask that you pray for us, even as we pray for you, followers of the same Jesus, all of us servants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] Fred B. Craddock et al., Preaching Through the Christian Year: 440.
[2] Quote adapted from “Good News, NOT Good Advice,” http://timmybrister.com/20 09/09/30/good-news-not-goo d-advice/ (last visited 9 October 2009).
[3] William J. Abraham, “Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Year B,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts: The Second Readings: Acts and the Epistles, Roger E. Van Harn ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001): 480.
©2009 Samuel Wood
