21st Sunday after Pentecost                 

Mark 10:17-31

 As [Jesus] 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.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

Jesus said, “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—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Following Jesus

A long time ago, there was a man who did such amazing things, and said such wonderful things, that people just had to follow him. His name was Jesus, and Jesus was the Son of God. Everywhere that Jesus went he attracted large crowds of people, who came to hear him speak, because of all of the wise things that he said.

One day, a man came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said, “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.’”

The man said, “Yes, of course, I have followed the commandments all my life.”

Then, Jesus said, “You must sell everything that you own, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come and follow me.”

The man left, surprised and sad, because he was a rich man, and had manythings.

Then, Jesus looked at his disciples and said, “It will be very difficult to enter God’s kingdom. It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom!”

This concerned the disciples greatly, and they began to say to each other, “Then, who can be saved?”

Jesus said to them, “For mortals, this is impossible, but not for God. For God, all things are possible. Everyone who has left their home, their brothers or sisters, mother or father, their children or their fields, will receive one hundred times as much, in this age, and in the age of eternal life to come. The first will be last, and the last will be first.”

I wonder…

I wonder why does Jesus want us to leave everything that we know behind?

I wonder what tone of voice Jesus used when he was saying these things?

I wonder what it means to enter God’s kingdom?

What do you wonder about?

The style of storytelling that I incorporated today’s gospel readings into is called Godly Play. It’s a story form that encountered while I was in seminary, and I used it a lot during my internship. Typically, you use little figures and pieces of felt, and other story telling materials to help the story come alive for the children that you’re telling that story to. I put a bunch of these story kits together the church where I did my internship, so they basically have for an entire liturgical calendar of stories that they can cycle through every year, if they want.

This story about the rich man talking to Jesus isn’t one of the Godly Play stories that I put together, but I wonder if it should have been. It’s never too late to start teaching kids about charity and stewardship, although the bit at the end about people having to leave their families might upset some kids. I don’t think that what Jesus is trying to say here is that we have to abandon our families, but as is often the case, we have to try to figure out what Jesus actually means.

This story isn’t a typical Bible story, like the ones that we often tell to children. It’s not neat and pretty, with an easy to understand moral message at the end. We like the stories that have heroes, the stories about adventure, like the story of Jonah and the whale. It’s kind of like Pinocchio: Jonah’s running away from what God wants him to do, so he gets swallowed by a whale. Then, the whale spits him out when he finally agrees to do what God wants. It’s all very tidy and there’s a nice little message at the end. Perfect for preschoolers.

What we tend to forget is that most of these stories are actually quite grim. We like to clean them up, like what Disney does with traditional fairytales, which often depict death, disease, and mutilation. The story of David and Goliath has David chopping off Goliath’s head after they fight. Noah’s ark? Everyone on the entire planet, except for the eight people on the ark, drowns! But mostly, we just like to talk about the floating zoo, and the rainbow, and the dove with the olive branch in its mouth. And, how many times do we talk about the Good Samaritan? We kind of forget that the man that the Good Samaritan helped was basically mugged and beaten almost to death, and then left bleeding by the side of the road where everyone proceeded to ignore him. We often gloss over the uglier and uncomfortable bits of the Bible.

So, when we come across a text like we have today, which is more than a little disturbing, I mean it kind of sounds like Jesus is telling parents to abandon their children, there’s no heroic adventure, no easy take away message, at least not one that we like, we tend to just avoid it. What are we supposed to make of Jesus telling us to leave our families…to leave our children behind?

If you look closely at what Jesus is saying, it’s almost formulaic. He tells the rich man to do something that he knows the rich man can’t do. Then, he says it will be very difficult for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God. Then, he makes a blanket statement about everyone: “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” He says the famous camel line, “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,” then says, “It is impossible for mortals to be saved, but for God, all things are possible.” Then, he lists off a bunch of more impossible things.

So, he makes four statements about things that are Impossible for mortals to do, and he says, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible,” and then he lists off a bunch of more things that are impossible for mortals to do. Impossible for us, possible for God, impossible for us.

Jesus isn’t expecting us to give up everything we have. He isn’t telling us to abandon our families. He knows that these things, while maybe not technically impossible, might seem impossible, feel impossible to almost anyone. Because for most people, we can’t just decide to leave our families. We can’t just decide that we’re going to give up everything that we know to follow Jesus. This text isn’t about giving things up. It’s about understanding what’s really important, and what’s not. What are we focusing on? What is the most important thing in our lives?

Jesus is using hyperbole here, an extreme exaggeration for dramatic effect. It’s not about putting family and possessions last. It’s about loving God first.

Because, the truth is that our love for our families prevents us from equally loving everyone else around us. We’re supposed to be one family of God, the body of Christ. Everyone that we see is supposed to be our brother or sister. Everyone is supposed to be equal and equally loved. But, if we are going to be completely honest with ourselves, most of the time, our families take precedence. We know them, we’re familiar with them and we have a shared history and a shared blood. The only way we would be able to love everyone the way that we should is if we removed this place of prominence that our families have in our hearts.

Perhaps what’s even more disturbing, is that this story starts with Jesus telling the rich man to sell all of his possessions, and give all the money to the poor, which he is unable to do. So, again with the hyperbole here, I don’t think Jesus is asking us to get rid of all of our worldly possessions, only that we should not occupy a place of prominence in our live, that we should love God and God’s family first. But, this part was included because there are so many people in the world for whom wealth and power is the most important thing in their lives, something that they must accumulate, regardless of how that affects the rest of the world. And, we know how dangerous that is.

I thought it was interesting that this text came up during our Stewardship Month. But, this congregation has always been generous, giving when it’s needed, and giving to the needy around us. The United Way is well into the process of converting a local hotel into transitional housing, and Family Promise and Our Place are working together to expand their services. Plymouth played a huge role in both of these projects, raising money and awareness of our unsheltered neighbors through the Rough Sleepers book read last summer. We bought sleeping bags and socks, we make sandwiches and crock pots of food. We know how to put God and God’s family first. It’s why we chose the phrase, “Because of you, our church changes lives,” as our stewardship theme this year.

At the end of the day, what Jesus is saying here is that he knows we’re not perfect, and that he doesn’t expect us to be. We are not supposed to save ourselves. We can’t save ourselves. That’s his job. That’s God’s job. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. What he does expect from us is to do the best we can. To love each other more than we love things, and to try to love those who are not our family as much as we love our family. Even though we are going to fall short of loving people the way they should be loved, we still need to try. Even though we might not be able to truly treat everyone as members of our family, we still need to try. We’re supposed to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and treat each and every individual as members of our family. This’s what Jesus was trying to teach us; this is the underlying and paradoxical message of “sell all of your possession and leave your family.”

I’m not going to stand up here and tell you to get rid of everything that you own and to leave your families. I can’t even ask that of myself. But, as much as you can, try to love everyone in the same way that you love your families. Try to be present to how Jesus is moving in you to love everyone that you see, because even though we can’t do it alone, we are the instruments of God’s love in the world. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei