The One That Got Away
November 15, 2009
Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Mark 10:17-31
This is one of those stories from the ministry of Jesus that we spend a lot of time trying to explain away – surely he didn't mean this, we say. Wasn't there a gate into Jerusalem called the Needle's Eye? A smaller doorway that would be harder for a camel to go through? Isn't that what Jesus was talking about??
And I have bad news and good news.
The bad news is that I've studied this story pretty closely, and read a lot of commentary, and looked at some of the social science background material, and I've gotta tell you: Jesus means exactly what he says here. And here's a quick list why I'm convinced of this:
1.There is no evidence that there was a gate or doorway into Jerusalem called the Needle's Eye.
2.The story tells us that the man was shocked, and the disciples were perplexed and astounded – it hit them the same way it hits us.
3.Jesus talks a lot about money, and this is consistent with the rest of what he says.
4.Within the story, he follows up the instruction to “Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me....” with two statements about wealth, and how it can be a barrier to experiencing the Kingdom of God.
So yes, the bad news is that I fully believe that this story is about exactly what it purports to be about – Jesus is telling this man that his money is a barrier to the deepest desires of his heart – his desire for God. And he's challenging him to reach beyond his certainties into a place of deep trust.
And the good news – yes, remember I said I had bad news and good news? - the good news is twofold:
1.I'm not going to talk too much about the money dimensions of today's story, although, as I said, I do believe we should understand it as meaning exactly what it seems like it means.
2.The good news about this story is that it is, indeed, intended as good news.
I think many of us hear this story as a negative – we hear it as Jesus is scolding the man and all the others, and setting up impossible standards. But I think the key to the story is in a verse that only occurs in Mark's version of this story, and in fact is that only time in all the Gospels that such a thing is said: after the man says “Teacher, I have kept all the commandments since my youth,” the Gospel tells us: 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.” Jesus tells the man this because of his deep love for the man. He is not placing a burden on him; he is giving him a gift.
When our sons went to Catholic school, parents provided a lot of volunteer help. I was a “lunch mom” several years – helping to supervise the kids in the lunchroom, and then going out on the playground with them, so that teachers could get their own lunch. Our sons noticed that the parents who helped at school tended to come in two varieties: some parents ignored the assigned rotation for the positions such as line leader, door holder, and put their own child at the head of the line when they were on duty; and in any conflict, their own children were always innocent. These moms favored their own children over the others. Other parents were a little harder on their own kids than on the others – they expected more from their own children.
I think sometimes that people of faith expect God to be the first kind of parent, when the Bible describes God as more like the second type. God's love always is calling us higher in order to give us more. But when God seems to be asking a lot of us, it is always coming from God's great love for us.
And especially in this case, when we are told so clearly, as in no other story: 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.”
Now the passage doesn't say that Jesus tells us all to give away everything we own, although the story is clear that Jesus sees wealth as a barrier for people. This story says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him...” and then gave him those instructions. The word that is used for “looking” is the same verb used in a story we read a couple of weeks ago about the blind man whose sight was restored: after Jesus touched his eyes a second time, his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. The same verb is used in one of the stories about Peter denying Jesus after the arrest of Jesus: the servant girl stared at Peter and knew that he had been with Jesus...but Peter denied it. This is a look that sees clearly. Jesus, looking at this man, loved him, and could see what was a barrier for this man to fully trust God.
The story immediately before this one is a short story in which the people are bringing children to Jesus so that he might bless them. The disciples are scolding the folks, and Jesus stopped them, saying “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Some of you may remember my saying before that the context of Bible stories is very important – that we can often gain understanding about a story by looking at the stories immediately before and after it. And in this case, we have a couple of connections: Jesus talks about receiving the kingdom as a child, and then in the story of the man with many possessions, he says to the disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.” Both stories talk about entering the kingdom of God, both stories talk about children. These stories seem to be setting up an important contrast: what is the essential difference between a wealthy person and little children? A person of wealth is independent (in fact, that is often part of the description: independently wealthy); and children are dependent (again, that is often a description for children: how many dependents do you have? The IRS isn't counting your cats here – they're talking about your children). Jesus is telling us that we can't fully experience God when we are depending on something else, including ourselves.
Faith, as the Bible describes it, isn't a matter of what particular doctrine we believe, or the things we can mark off a checklist of right living: faith is about how we trust in God. I've heard it said as “faith isn't knowing what we believe about God; it's knowing that God believes in us.”
The first reading seems at first to be describing something else, but let's take a closer look. It starts by talking about the commandments...and indeed, the first verses seem to suggest that God is providing a set of rules to live by: Now this is the commandment – the statues and the ordinances – that the Lord your God charged me to reach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you.... Yes, it is easy to understand how one could develop a checklist approach to life based on the way it was presented.
But let's dig a little deeper. First, the centerpiece of this passage is the passage: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” This is the central affirmation of Judaism, known as the Shema, from the Hebrew word for “hear “– “shema” as in Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And this is followed by the commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
This doesn't sound like a checklist. And it sounds even less like one as the passage continues: Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This is where the tradition of the mezuzah comes from: the small box that is affixed to many Jewish homes. It contains a scroll with scripture, so that literally, the Word of God is on the doorposts of the home. I saw a large one at the entrance to the Western Wall last summer, and brought two home with me.
But although these instructions can be taken literally as a set of rules, when you listen carefully to them, they really are describing a way of life – a way woven around the love of God. Actually, the early Christians were called People of the Way, and the Greek word for way, hodos, is the same word that comes at the beginning of today's Gospel “as he was setting out on a journey” -- as he was setting along the way..... It is another subtle reminder that we are not called to a checklist, but to a way of living. And at the heart of this way of life is depending on God, trusting God, building our lives on God. And Jesus, looking at the man who has come to him, loves him, and realizes that the man has built his life around his own success. And so he tells him that in order to really enter into the fullness of life with God, he needs to depend on God, and for this man, Jesus realizes it will mean getting rid of what he is depending on now. And the extent to which Jesus has understood the man is shown by his response: he was shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions.
I keep finding that my own discipleship is a continual process of letting go: letting go of my own way, letting go of my own ideas of what ministry should look like, letting go of my certainties, letting go of my own importance, letting go of my own plans. It is a hard process, this letting go, yet it takes me to a deeper, richer place where the footing is more sure because it doesn't depend on me. I know that sounds odd – but among the paradoxes that Jesus teaches is that letting go leaves us with a richer life.
Life often takes us to these places of letting go – the Buddhists call it detachment and see it as a goal – but we have not always had that insight. Yet sometimes, for whatever reason, we are led to places where our own efforts are no longer adequate: when our busyness leaves us unsatisfied, when a change in our job leaves us unsure, when a diagnosis has thrown us into fear, when our own inability to believe what we once believed leaves us without a familiar foundation. It can be hard to let go further at these times, and allow ourselves to trust in ways we haven't yet. But this is precisely how Jesus calls us
Today's gospel story is a call story – the best-known Gospel call story is when Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John – he came upon them while they were fishing, and he said, “Come follow me – from now on you will be fishing for people.” And Peter, Andrew, James and John left their boats and followed him.
By contrast, in today's story, the man couldn't leave what he had to follow Jesus – he is one of the ones who got away.
Which story would be our story? What gets in the way of our trusting God more fully? What are we still holding onto? When Jesus looks at us and loves us, what would he say to us in order to have us embrace a life woven through with that love? What keeps us from affirming Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad – the one God is our God, and we love this God with all our passion and prayer and energy.
Brothers and sisters, hear the good news: we are loved indeed, and called to a deeper, richer life than the one we can create for ourselves. Let us trust the One who loves us and calls us to trust this love. Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Mark 10:17-31
This is one of those stories from the ministry of Jesus that we spend a lot of time trying to explain away – surely he didn't mean this, we say. Wasn't there a gate into Jerusalem called the Needle's Eye? A smaller doorway that would be harder for a camel to go through? Isn't that what Jesus was talking about??
And I have bad news and good news.
The bad news is that I've studied this story pretty closely, and read a lot of commentary, and looked at some of the social science background material, and I've gotta tell you: Jesus means exactly what he says here. And here's a quick list why I'm convinced of this:
1.There is no evidence that there was a gate or doorway into Jerusalem called the Needle's Eye.
2.The story tells us that the man was shocked, and the disciples were perplexed and astounded – it hit them the same way it hits us.
3.Jesus talks a lot about money, and this is consistent with the rest of what he says.
4.Within the story, he follows up the instruction to “Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me....” with two statements about wealth, and how it can be a barrier to experiencing the Kingdom of God.
So yes, the bad news is that I fully believe that this story is about exactly what it purports to be about – Jesus is telling this man that his money is a barrier to the deepest desires of his heart – his desire for God. And he's challenging him to reach beyond his certainties into a place of deep trust.
And the good news – yes, remember I said I had bad news and good news? - the good news is twofold:
1.I'm not going to talk too much about the money dimensions of today's story, although, as I said, I do believe we should understand it as meaning exactly what it seems like it means.
2.The good news about this story is that it is, indeed, intended as good news.
I think many of us hear this story as a negative – we hear it as Jesus is scolding the man and all the others, and setting up impossible standards. But I think the key to the story is in a verse that only occurs in Mark's version of this story, and in fact is that only time in all the Gospels that such a thing is said: after the man says “Teacher, I have kept all the commandments since my youth,” the Gospel tells us: 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.” Jesus tells the man this because of his deep love for the man. He is not placing a burden on him; he is giving him a gift.
When our sons went to Catholic school, parents provided a lot of volunteer help. I was a “lunch mom” several years – helping to supervise the kids in the lunchroom, and then going out on the playground with them, so that teachers could get their own lunch. Our sons noticed that the parents who helped at school tended to come in two varieties: some parents ignored the assigned rotation for the positions such as line leader, door holder, and put their own child at the head of the line when they were on duty; and in any conflict, their own children were always innocent. These moms favored their own children over the others. Other parents were a little harder on their own kids than on the others – they expected more from their own children.
I think sometimes that people of faith expect God to be the first kind of parent, when the Bible describes God as more like the second type. God's love always is calling us higher in order to give us more. But when God seems to be asking a lot of us, it is always coming from God's great love for us.
And especially in this case, when we are told so clearly, as in no other story: 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.”
Now the passage doesn't say that Jesus tells us all to give away everything we own, although the story is clear that Jesus sees wealth as a barrier for people. This story says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him...” and then gave him those instructions. The word that is used for “looking” is the same verb used in a story we read a couple of weeks ago about the blind man whose sight was restored: after Jesus touched his eyes a second time, his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. The same verb is used in one of the stories about Peter denying Jesus after the arrest of Jesus: the servant girl stared at Peter and knew that he had been with Jesus...but Peter denied it. This is a look that sees clearly. Jesus, looking at this man, loved him, and could see what was a barrier for this man to fully trust God.
The story immediately before this one is a short story in which the people are bringing children to Jesus so that he might bless them. The disciples are scolding the folks, and Jesus stopped them, saying “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Some of you may remember my saying before that the context of Bible stories is very important – that we can often gain understanding about a story by looking at the stories immediately before and after it. And in this case, we have a couple of connections: Jesus talks about receiving the kingdom as a child, and then in the story of the man with many possessions, he says to the disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.” Both stories talk about entering the kingdom of God, both stories talk about children. These stories seem to be setting up an important contrast: what is the essential difference between a wealthy person and little children? A person of wealth is independent (in fact, that is often part of the description: independently wealthy); and children are dependent (again, that is often a description for children: how many dependents do you have? The IRS isn't counting your cats here – they're talking about your children). Jesus is telling us that we can't fully experience God when we are depending on something else, including ourselves.
Faith, as the Bible describes it, isn't a matter of what particular doctrine we believe, or the things we can mark off a checklist of right living: faith is about how we trust in God. I've heard it said as “faith isn't knowing what we believe about God; it's knowing that God believes in us.”
The first reading seems at first to be describing something else, but let's take a closer look. It starts by talking about the commandments...and indeed, the first verses seem to suggest that God is providing a set of rules to live by: Now this is the commandment – the statues and the ordinances – that the Lord your God charged me to reach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you.... Yes, it is easy to understand how one could develop a checklist approach to life based on the way it was presented.
But let's dig a little deeper. First, the centerpiece of this passage is the passage: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” This is the central affirmation of Judaism, known as the Shema, from the Hebrew word for “hear “– “shema” as in Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And this is followed by the commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
This doesn't sound like a checklist. And it sounds even less like one as the passage continues: Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This is where the tradition of the mezuzah comes from: the small box that is affixed to many Jewish homes. It contains a scroll with scripture, so that literally, the Word of God is on the doorposts of the home. I saw a large one at the entrance to the Western Wall last summer, and brought two home with me.
But although these instructions can be taken literally as a set of rules, when you listen carefully to them, they really are describing a way of life – a way woven around the love of God. Actually, the early Christians were called People of the Way, and the Greek word for way, hodos, is the same word that comes at the beginning of today's Gospel “as he was setting out on a journey” -- as he was setting along the way..... It is another subtle reminder that we are not called to a checklist, but to a way of living. And at the heart of this way of life is depending on God, trusting God, building our lives on God. And Jesus, looking at the man who has come to him, loves him, and realizes that the man has built his life around his own success. And so he tells him that in order to really enter into the fullness of life with God, he needs to depend on God, and for this man, Jesus realizes it will mean getting rid of what he is depending on now. And the extent to which Jesus has understood the man is shown by his response: he was shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions.
I keep finding that my own discipleship is a continual process of letting go: letting go of my own way, letting go of my own ideas of what ministry should look like, letting go of my certainties, letting go of my own importance, letting go of my own plans. It is a hard process, this letting go, yet it takes me to a deeper, richer place where the footing is more sure because it doesn't depend on me. I know that sounds odd – but among the paradoxes that Jesus teaches is that letting go leaves us with a richer life.
Life often takes us to these places of letting go – the Buddhists call it detachment and see it as a goal – but we have not always had that insight. Yet sometimes, for whatever reason, we are led to places where our own efforts are no longer adequate: when our busyness leaves us unsatisfied, when a change in our job leaves us unsure, when a diagnosis has thrown us into fear, when our own inability to believe what we once believed leaves us without a familiar foundation. It can be hard to let go further at these times, and allow ourselves to trust in ways we haven't yet. But this is precisely how Jesus calls us
Today's gospel story is a call story – the best-known Gospel call story is when Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John – he came upon them while they were fishing, and he said, “Come follow me – from now on you will be fishing for people.” And Peter, Andrew, James and John left their boats and followed him.
By contrast, in today's story, the man couldn't leave what he had to follow Jesus – he is one of the ones who got away.
Which story would be our story? What gets in the way of our trusting God more fully? What are we still holding onto? When Jesus looks at us and loves us, what would he say to us in order to have us embrace a life woven through with that love? What keeps us from affirming Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad – the one God is our God, and we love this God with all our passion and prayer and energy.
Brothers and sisters, hear the good news: we are loved indeed, and called to a deeper, richer life than the one we can create for ourselves. Let us trust the One who loves us and calls us to trust this love. Amen.