Sunday, October 11, 2015
Mark 10: 17-31
First Congregational United
Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Earlier this week, I was in my kitchen at home, standing
near the window, and saw something out of the corner of my eye in our yard
below. A flutter of orange. “David!” I called out, “One of the chickens is
loose in the yard!”
We have a small flock of backyard chickens – Sprinkles,
Cupcake, Blondie, Oreo, and Peaches. They have sturdy coop and a large run that
they can access whenever they want. We used to let them free-range in the
yard…but then we got a dog. More precisely, a bird dog. So, yeah. They don’t
free-range any more, which is why I was so surprised to see one of them on the
loose.
Turns out, it was Oreo who had escaped. Oreo is….an odd
bird. She’s been broody for almost a year now. When a hen becomes broody, she
obsessively sits on top of a clutch of eggs. Now, we don’t have any roosters.
So Oreo can sit on those eggs from now until kingdom come and nothing is going
to hatch. Ever. But she doesn’t realize that. And so she sits.
And because she rarely gets off that clutch, she rarely
eats. And because she rarely eats, she is a scrawny little bird. Small enough,
in fact, that she was able to slip out of the chicken run through a small hole
in the chicken wire. In the yard, she was free as a bird (see what I did
there?) but she was also in grave danger. If we had put out dog out into the
yard, it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. Living beyond boundaries has risks,
you know. When David went out to put her back into the run she tried to squeeze
back through the hole and got stuck. He had to help her back into safety.
And so when I hear today’s passage from Mark, and think
about a camel trying to somehow get through the eye of a needle, I see Oreo in
my mind’s eye….squeezing through
that bit of fencing on her way to freedom and danger.
We don’t know much of anything about the man who comes to
Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit boundless life?” He kneels and calls
him “Good Teacher.” He comes in respect and questions earnestly. He’s not
trying to trick Jesus or make a fool of him. He truly wants to know the answer
to this question.
It seems to me that the man is a bit like my Oreo. Kind of
an odd one. A little broody. While his peers are caught in an endless cycle of
wake-up-go-to-work-make-money-spend-money-pay-bills-check-facebook-fold-laundry-make-the-kids-lunches-watch-the-news-fall-asleep-wake-up-do-it-all-again
this man is a little different. A little odd. A little broody.
Can you see him now, hovering over his clutch of eggs?
He’s worried about things. And not just small things. Big things. He’s up at
night pondering the big questions. And the biggest question of all he brings to
this odd teacher from Galilee. He bows down before him, calls him Good Teacher,
and says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Now, when I hear this question my mind immediately goes to
the afterlife….what happens to us after we die? But eternal simply means
without beginning and without end. Boundless. Limitless. So take of his
question what you will. I’m not 100% convinced he’s asking about what happens
after death. He might just be a little like my Oreo. Peeking through the
chicken wire and wondering, “What happens if I break out of these confines?
What would it be like to be out there in the Big Beyond?” We don’t know what’s
constraining this man, but we can imagine all kinds of things. Most of us know
what it’s like to feel trapped, don’t we?
Jesus, being the Good Teacher that he is, is happy to
enter into dialogue with the man. He says, “You know the rules…” and he lists
them. The man says, “But I’m already doing all of that. I’ve done all of those
things since I was a boy!” And Jesus looks at him and loves him.
And then he says, “You lack one thing. Go, sell what you
own and give the money to the poor. Then come and follow me.” And this man –
this broody, worried man – hangs his head low. He went away grieving. He is
unable to do the thing Jesus asked him to do because – and here we find out one
more thing about this nameless man – he had many possessions.
Too many to sell, I suppose. Too overwhelming. Too odd,
even for this odd man who was already out of step with his peers. Too
demanding. Too scary. Too much. The security and dependability of the
always-available chicken feed and water is too appealing. The protection of the
chicken wire begins to look more like a comfort than a constraint. Jesus the
Good Teacher has taken it too far. The price is too great.
As we move through our stewardship campaign this month, we
are asking ourselves to dream with God. What might the future of this
congregation look like? What things can we accomplish together with God’s help?
How can we let our light shine more brightly in our community and in the world?
Those are the big questions. And underneath all of those questions about our
capacity for ministry together are the dollars and cents facts and figures that
our very capable leaders brood over – financial reports and pledge cards and
endowment policies and bills from the plumber, the electrician, the gas
company.
It makes me a little glad Jesus isn’t the one doing a
Moment for Mission today. Because I fear that if I asked him how much money I
should be giving to our church and to the Crisis Center and the Breadbasket and
Shepherd’s Crossing and Emergency Shelter the answer would be overwhelming. Too
demanding. Too scary. Too much.
A funny thing about this story, though: while the subject
at hand is money, there are several other things happening in this story.
For starters, and I’m indebted to David Lose who called my
attention to this one, the format of the story suggests that it is primarily
about healing.[1] All of the
healing stories in the Gospels follow a formula. Someone comes, they kneel
before Jesus, they call him by an honorific name, and ask for help. In today’s
story, Jesus interacts with the man and offers an answer to his question. But
instead of going away healed, as so many others do, he goes away shocked and
grieving. It’s like a healing story gone awry. And if it’s a healing story,
then there has to be something that ails the man.
His question is about breaking out beyond the boundaries –
“How do I find life that has no beginning and no end?” And Jesus’s answer is
that he needs to sell everything he owns. It makes me think a bit about our
possessions and the way they possess us. We covet and buy all these things
because they think they will make us happy. And maybe they do, for a time. But
they are also a lot of work.
Maybe you’ve heard of Marie Kondo, who wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,
which became a New York Times bestseller this past year. Her methods for
figuring out how to get rid of things we own have become so popular that her
name is now a verb. The other day, I heard someone say, “Yeah, I really need to
go through and Kondo my closet.” Apparently, it’s so difficult to get rid of
things that we have to buy another thing (a book) to teach us how to get rid of
our stuff. The things we possess often possess us.
And so Jesus’s prescription for this man who possessed
many things was fairly simple: get rid of it all. But he couldn’t take the pill
and so he went away still sick.
The other thing that’s happening in this story is that
they’re on The Way. In verse 17, “As Jesus was going on the way, a man ran up
to him…” Biblical Scholar Mark Vitalis Hoffman notes that “The Way” is
code-language in the Gospels.[2]
Jesus’s earliest followers said they were followers of The Way. Jesus said, “I
am The Way.” Whenever we see stories about Jesus or his followers on The Way,
we know it’s a story about discipleship. What does it mean to be a follower of
Jesus?
After all, the cure for whatever ails the man actually had
three parts: 1) sell what you own, 2) give the money to the poor, 3) follow
Jesus. The path to limitless life is found by following Jesus.
Those of us who live in the 21st century don’t
have it as easy as the people in Mark’s Gospel. They could just follow Jesus in
the flesh and blood. We don’t have that option. And so, those of us who find
this Jesus character compelling have to find other ways to follow.
We all have spiritual practices that breathe new life into
us and enable us to experience the Holy more fully. A few weeks ago, I preached
about prayer. Last week, several of us walked in the CROP Walk. Some of us are
music-makers, casserole-bakers, Sabbath-keepers, labyrinth-walkers, hospital-sitters,
kindness-givers. A rich Christian life draws upon many spiritual practices as
we work to follow The Way.
As we consider our financial gifts to this church during
stewardship season, I invite us all to consider more fully the deepening of
relationship that comes with generous and sacrificial giving. In my own life,
the practice of regularly, intentionally giving away a significant portion of
my income – both to the church and other worthy non-profits – has been utterly
transformational. It has reduced my anxiety, rearranged my priorities, and
given me a true feeling of freedom. For some strange reason, the more I’ve
given away, the less worried I am about what I have. The more focused I am on
the needs of others, the less I feel trapped by the what-ifs of my own
financial situation.
I fear, my friends, that Jesus may have been on to
something when he told the man to give away his possessions.
I, for one, am awfully glad he’s not here today because I
know I can’t bear to give them all away. But I also know that I can continue to
push myself to do more. And I can prayerfully consider how to continue the work
of allowing God to radically reorient my own values and fears and desires.
After all, I can see Jesus standing there. We come to him
asking how to be free. And he looks at us and loves us. He loves us before we
can even respond to the prescription he’s about to give. And whether we can
swallow the bitter pill of giving it all away, or go away grieving, or land
somewhere in between, I believe he is still standing there. Looking at us. And
loving us. And continuing to invite us to follow him. Even when it’s hard.
Amen.
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