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Sell
All That You Have? Gospel:
Mark 10: 17-31 Many Bible passages make us uncomfortable. This morning’s Gospel reading is no exception. It is Jesus telling a rich young man that if he wants to “inherit the Kingdom of God,” he must sell all that he has, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him. It may be that Jesus meant this literally, or that he was being dramatic in order to get the full attention of those who heard it. A parishioner I spoke with said she interpreted it as meaning that she is called to do as much as she can for as many as she can as often as she can; to serve in the name of Christ. No one with whom I spoke was totally comfortable with this passage. Let’s look at it. After asking Jesus what is required to “inherit eternal life,” a rich young man does not accept Jesus’ answer, that what he has to do is obey the Law, basically the Ten Commandments. No, he asks for more demanding requirements. He could have taken the answer as it was: to get into heaven, obey the Law. But he apparently found it so easy to do that, that he wanted more of a challenge, and he got it in spades. In his answer, Jesus is saying that obeying the Law is spiritual and ethical adequacy, but at the man’s insistence, Jesus asks him for more: for total commitment, which requires one to give up the most cherished possession or aspect of their life. For this man, Jesus perceives that it is his property that stands between him and total commitment. Jesus knew that this young man was much preoccupied with his holdings, with his land and what it earned him. He knew that the young man would continue to be so preoccupied even if he joined Jesus and literally followed him, so that what that person needed to do in order to be as close to Jesus as possible was to sell all that had and to give the proceeds away. To quote the Living Church magazine commenting on this reading, Jesus is not saying that we all must do the same. He is not saying that money is bad--nor is he saying that people who have money cannot live in the Kingdom of God. It is just that eternal life calls for a different focus. In the recent presentation of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” on PBS, a group of people who have passed on to the next world conclude that we who are living don’t have a clue. A clue to what is eternally important and what is not. The young woman who dies in childbirth gets to go back for a day but ends up asking to go back to her new world in less than half a day. She realizes that her family simply cannot recognize the relationship of today’s life and eternal life.
There are impediments in this life, which keep us from putting God first. These may include possessions, power, fame, wealth, and family pride. Are we to give these up? Are we to work hard to achieve and then give it all up? Perhaps not. What Jesus is asking of us has to do with those times when we make decisions that impact other people, whether it is how we live next door to our next-door neighbor, or when we make any decision through our work or in our personal lives, which will have either a good or a bad effect on the quality of life of others. He is saying here that God’s justice and love must come first in our calculations. He is saying what the prophet Amos said on behalf of God: “Seek the Lord and live…seek good and not evil…hate evil and love good…establish justice…” So it is not so much a literal “sell all you have” that Jesus is teaching, certainly not for everybody. And by that I am thinking of celibacy as a similar matter--a few are actually called to a ministry of celibacy--in which our sexual energy is channeled into service, and we are able to do that. When we apply that to selling all that we have a following Jesus, there are some who are actually called to do that. But for most of us, what Jesus says in this passage is a plea and a command that we put God’s value system first rather than our own agenda, in our thoughts, words and deeds. If there is something that stands between us and God, we need to deal with that. Deal with it in such a way that we can let it go if need be. If anger or guilt keeps us from putting God first in life’s calculations, we need to deal with it. If reputation or power gets in the way, we need to deal with that. If our nationalism or our patriotism blinds us to injustice that we as a country are perpetrating, we need to take another look and see whose value system we are supporting.... In our reading, Jesus says that if we do put God first in our thoughts, words and deeds, we will not only be rewarded with heaven; we will be rewarded in this life. But we will also suffer persecutions, he goes on to say, if people are threatened for any reason by our good thoughts, words and deeds. ... Whenever we are faced with tough decisions, it is helpful to ask ourselves whose agenda we are using for our decision-making. It is part of the human condition that we usually use only our agenda. It is part of the metamorphosis from being our own person to being God’s person, to put God’s value system before our own. Those who have succeeded in doing it are remembered in history--church and secular--because it is so difficult: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mahatma Ghandi, the firemen who went into a building that killed 350 of them, servicemen who fall on a hand grenade to save those around them. We just cannot serve God by caring for others, if we are always guided just by our own agenda. Although those who are able to make this shift in priorities are few and far between, we are all capable of it some of the time, and what we hope for is to be able to do that on issues and in situations that really make a difference. Many of us believe that we will be with God in heaven whether we do special things in God’s name or not. But most assuredly we will live in this life in the Kingdom of God and will experience the peace that goes with it, if we let go of whatever keeps us from intimacy with God. Amen. Copyright 2003 Calvary Episcopal Church Gospel: Mark
10: 17-31 |
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