Scripture: Mark 10:17-31
Given on 09/30/2018
On July 4th, 1854, seeking to leave behind the existence that he had known and in search of life in its purest form, life in its essence, the great philosopher and writer, Henry David Thoreau, began a two year experiment by moving to a piece of property owned by his friend and mentor, the poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The property, located on Walden pond, some three miles from his long-time family homestead, outside of Concord, Massachusetts, represented a chance to break away from the trappings of the civilized life. Inspired by the need to strip away the stuff of life and delve deep into his own practice of transcendentalism and meditation, Thoreau spent two years living on the small piece of property exploring the meaning of life and seeking to know what it was that drove humankind to exist in the manner that it did. At the end of his experiment, he wrote his classic, Walden. And perhaps the greatest discovery he made in his time away from society, perhaps the most important point to come away from the book having learned, and, in turn, perhaps the most important point in speaking about the passage of scripture that we are looking at today, comes when he comes to the realization that all of life is a struggle. This is not to say that there aren’t times of happiness, times of joy, times of peace, but, in the end, our lives become find their greatest meaning against the backdrop of the more difficult times that we face. But that, for most of us, that struggle is spoken about only in the quiet of our souls. And so he writes, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Desperation is a powerful word—a passionate sentiment. A description of a reality that is equal parts bleak and, yet, eternally challenging. And, of course, desperation looks different for different people. By the time that we are adults and settled into the trajectory of our lives, we are aware, sometimes painfully so, of the difficulties that plague us. And these difficulties are different for each person. For one, it is the struggle to find dignity in a world that too often discards persons deemed unimportant. For another, it is the endeavor to find answers to the foundational questions of the cosmos. Yet another, it is how to find peace and stillness in a world in which ones worldly possessions begin to feel like less of an asset and more a hindrance to the quest for all these things. But in the end, each of these challenges, in whatever guise they take, emerge from the same deep longing that resides deep in each person’s broken soul. The mass of men, the mass of people, really the whole of people want to know that they matter, that they are cared for and about, that they are loved, that they are secure. And that is, I think, the query posed by the rich, young man in our scripture passage for this morning. This man, with youth and resources, who by his own account has lived an exemplarily religious life, still finds himself stuck and empty, seeking the love, security, and peace that has thus far eluded him.
The passage we have read this morning is a familiar one. It’s a story we’ve all no doubt heard many times over the course of the journey of our lives. A story with a visual example about a camel and the eye of a needle that is hard to forget. And because this is a familiar passage, because we have heard this story several times, at several points in our lives, because the image used by Jesus is so vivid, there is the temptation to believe that there is nothing left for the Spirit to say through these words. And yet we have to believe that the spirit speaks today, calling us to new understandings of the old words, to new understandings of old ideas, to new understandings of justice, and love, and kindness, and peace. And so let’s again try to hear the call of the spirit over the din of the world.
And in doing so, let’s think about this, not as a collection of words from two-two-thousand years ago, but rather as a drama playing out in front of us today where we each find ourselves in the role of this desperate person falling down before the savior. Because as this young man stands in the presence of the great teacher, the source of all life, and he just can’t seem to take that last step that we are all (or at least, I am) quick to assume that we would take. And so as we encounter this young person of means and we (or again at least I) respond in a negative manner. Perhaps it is also the perfection that he believes that he possesses, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Being good Calvinists, we believe that such a perfection is an impossibility and so we are tempted to react with a degree of incredulity towards the man but this misses the larger point. We each seek to be good in the eyes of God, to follow all the precepts of our religious tradition and, in the back of our minds, we must believe that we will gain some degree of benefit from it. And when it doesn’t come, when the rains fall and the storms rage and our boats fill with water again and again, and life feels like it is too much for us, there is a temptation to believe that our devotion to our faith has been in vain all along. And so we are also the man standing before Jesus. Perhaps, if we are honest with ourselves, we feel a tinge of jealousy that this person has the great fortune of standing next to the savior and how much do we wish that could be us. To see this man being invited to leave everything behind and seemingly becoming one of Jesus’s inner circle only to allow his possessions to stand in between himself and the great teacher standing before him. Is it possible that this elicits feelings of frustration in us with this man. He has youth, he has wealth, he has his seemingly unlimited potential for what he can do with the rest of his life and he seems to throw it all away in hopes of maintaining the security of his wealth. And yet, perhaps, this young man, this young man of means has given us a glimpse into our own struggles with life, our own struggles for meaning, our own understandings of fairness in a world that too often seems unfair.
We are told that the young man comes to Jesus, and immediately we see that he kneels down before the rabbi as one would do in that time in the midst of someone powerful and honorable. And in his actions we see that he perceives Jesus as the one who might give him clarity on his journey. “Good teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And just like that we see that the young man is dealing with an issue that plagues all of humankind and each person in this place today, the struggle for permanence in a world of impermanence. He is looking for security in a world that often tears the faithful down, that often falls away when we need it most, in a world that so often seems to be heading down the road to chaos and brokenness and he looks to the one man who he thinks can relieve him of his worry, and he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus’s response? “Why do you call me good? No one but God alone is good.” And here again, we must wonder what the man is experiencing. We must be curious if he thinks he has come all the way to seek out and find this great teacher and Jesus’s response must have sounded somewhat dismissive. “None is good but God.” But Jesus continues, “you know what is written, 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.'" And here we see Jesus is establishing a kinship with the young man—a shared reality. Here Jesus is drawing back to a mutually held tradition where the commandments of Moses, the ten commandments, form the basis for the Jewish worldview and system of ethics. And, perhaps sensing that kinship, the man replies, “but Jesus,” like all good Jews being the underlying premise, “since my earliest childhood have I kept all these commandments. Since I could remember I have followed the Jewish ethic, since my youth I have sought to do what it right and yet, I still somehow feel empty. Like there is something else that is missing from me.”
One spring break, when I was in high school, we spent a week in a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My Uncle’s wife, my Aunt Maurine’s family owned a pretty larger house sitting right along the coast just to the south of Kill Devil Hills. And because it was the week after Easter, it was not yet what one might call beach weather. It was warm enough to walk out on the sand with windbreakers on, maybe we would throw a frisbee or football, but after a few minutes, we would have to retreat back into the house to warm up and enjoy the view of the coastline and the water from the comfort of the living room. And so it was, I imagine, as a way of staving off cabin fever that Aunt Mo brought out something like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. As I recall it was of like the greatest feats of human designed structures, the Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Washington Monument, and the structure that we completed last, the Eiffel Tower. Now, there is something that you should know about me, I hate jigsaw puzzles. And I’m not just talking about the mammoth ones like the one that we did over that Spring Break on the Outer Banks. No, I hate all of them. I hate the concept. Seamus has a 9 piece Paw Patrol jigsaw puzzle that I hate. One of the things that I have learned about myself in my 42 years of life on this planet is that I possess almost no spacial skills. Like, at all. So the idea that I could piece together two matching pieces that are both brown solely because they are both brown rests somewhere on the other side of absurd. Like I said, Seamus has this Paw Patrol puzzle that I swear he can put together quicker than I can and so spending the week doing this exceedingly large puzzle was not my idea of a good time. But bit-by-bit we got it together, mostly with the help of everyone else with me playing the part of the blind pig finding the acorn every now and then. And so it was that we got to the Eiffel tower and went to put the last piece in only to find that we did not have it. It seemed to have vanished into thin air. We had no indicator as to where it had gone. Aunt Mo assured us that all the pieces were there, but when it came time to drop the last piece on the bottom observation deck of the Eiffel Tower into place, it was nowhere to be found. Almost immediately, a morose feeling overtook all those who had been working on the puzzle. During the day we would search for the lost piece throughout the house and at night, it would call like a Sirens’ song to all of us that we lacked one thing. It weighed down on us like a ton of bricks. But, I am happy to report that just as the ton of bricks descended on us upon the loss of the piece, so, too, was it removed from us when my uncle, sweeping out under one of the rugs in the living room, exclaimed, “I found it!” Even for me who hates those things, the feeling of Elysian peace that overcame all of us as the final piece was dropped into place, was overwhelming. And I just wonder if that was the sort of experience that the rich, young ruler was seeking to have when he came to Jesus and laid before him the deepest quandaries in his soul, because just as he offered the query that was in the depths of his very being, so, also, had he asked the question that dwells within most of our hearts, just like that he has asked the question. “Jesus,” he seems to be saying, for as long as I can remember, I have sought to do the right thing, to be the right person, to say and do the right things, and it has not brought me the peace that I seek. There just seems to be this one piece missing.” And we can understand that, can’t we? We can understand that even when we seek to do the right things, even when we seek to say the right things, to offer words of encouragement and hope in even the darkest of circumstances, even then, we do not always have the sense of peace that surpasses all understanding. And so, the man, comes to Jesus and he says in a sense, Jesus since the beginning of my life, since as long ago as I remember, I have done everything I know to be right, everything I know to be in accordance with the rules of my religious community, and still I feel empty, I still feel like I am not loved. Like I am missing that single piece of the puzzle that will bring the whole of the picture together.
And this next part is beautiful. It shows the grace of the savior. It shows the love of God, the sustenance of God. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” The moment, shared between the one who was seeking and the one who is to be sought, transcends all space and time, transcends all the stuff of the world, all the heartache and pain, all the quiet struggle and desperation. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. As if to say, “my child, you are so close.” As if to say, just one more thing, one more step and you will know the peace that surpasses all understanding, you will know the love and forgiveness of God established at the beginning of time and still coursing through the veins of the world, you will know what you have been searching for all this time. “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.” And in a second, the moment of sheer elation comes to a crashing halt for the young man who is standing before Jesus. In a second, the journey that had taken all life seemed to be the unfinished, raw edge of an unraveling swatch of fabric. In a second, the last step of the long march seemed impossible. And sheer elation turns to complete and uttersadness. He lacked one thing but that one thing was everything. Jesus had offered the young man a choice. He could strip himself of the stuff of life and discover the love of God, the acceptance of God, just as he was, and then begin to share in the ministry of Jesus. Share in the journey with Jesus, or he could return to his old life. Surround himself with his things, surround himself with the cold comfort of the old order of the world, the part of the world that says, take care of yourself alone and keep yourself safe, take your stuff and build up huge walls around yourself, because it takes too courageous a leap to believe that in God is found true acceptance, in God is found true, wholeness, in God is found love. And rest. All his life this man had been searching, searching, searching, for something that would satisfy the feelings of isolation that he felt, the feelings of uncertainty and desperation that he had felt and in a split second all of that could go away, replaced by true faith, replaced by forever. Beginning now. But he lacked one thing.
This afternoon, the session of this church will spend time intentionally asking this same question of ourselves, what is it that we lack, as a church, to better follow the will of God as a community of faith. We will ask ourselves the questions, what are we missing, what piece of our puzzle is still lost, what do we lack that would more fully open up the gates of glory for us and then how might we share that glory with others? And we will courageously share the dreams and visions that the Holy Spirit has blessed each of us with. And While I am convinced that none of us will possess all the answers and even though we don’t always even know where any path might lead and we can, in our own space and time embrace as our guide the struggles of the rich, young man, the clarity offered by Jesus, and the call to step out in faith on an amazing journey of discovery the likes of which we can scarcely imagine. I doubt it will appear like a puzzle piece that is found under a rug. It will take time, it will take prayer, it takes sitting in the silence of the moment and honestly asking, “what do we lack?” Nor can I say what the answer will be. We have seen that for the rich, young man, it was the trust he placed in the security of his resources to take care of him. But, we know that he couldn’t see love, he couldn’t see acceptance in the things of the world, in the riches of the world. Likewise, for us, we can rest assured that it is some thing. I don’t know what it is but as a group, led by the spirit, seeking to authentically follow Jesus, we will catch a glimpse of the road ahead. So it is that we will journey together, we will struggle together, we will hold each other up. And in that unity, we covet your prayers for us that we might be a singular body of faith. One in the spirit. One in the Lord. For in the end, we are all, everyone of us, on this journey together. Day-by-day, hour-by-hour, moment-by-moment, all creation is moving towards the realm of God, the peace of God, the love of God. Together, as a community, as a family, as a church, as the whole of the cosmos. May each of us on this journey, from this moment forward, walk hand-in-hand from the shadow of the cross and into the light of the new day. Glory Be to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among all God’s peoples. Alleluia, amen.
*-Image Christ and the Rich Young Ruler by Heinrich Hoffman (1889)