Mark 10:17-22; Mark 10:23-31
This week we are going to be looking at our Gospel lesson. I wanted to preach on the Gospel last week (maybe you wished I did too), but I held off, because this week and last week’s reading need to go together. So really, we are going to be looking at both lessons and hopefully not having a sermon that is twice as long. And what we’ll come away with is an appreciation of the centrality of Christ in our lives. Because that is what we need, we live in a world where we experience all kinds of forces, and temptations, and pressures pulling on us. And sometimes these pressures are obvious, sometimes they are subtle, but no matter how they come to us, it’s easy to take our eyes of the cross, and the empty tomb, and the Gospel, and get bogged down in stuff that isn’t nearly as important.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. I’m pretty good at staying focused, I don’t let the culture, or music, or ads, or anything get into my brain and heart. If you lived on a deserted island, I might agree with you. But we can’t help internalizing the messages we get from all around us, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. We learn and remember so much stuff we never intend to learn and remember. If you don’t believe me, just take this little quiz I designed. It’s on your bulletin insert, just shout out the answer if you know it.
Number 1, finish the line of the song, “Jeremiah was a _Bullfrog_.” Number 2, what company has this logo (AT&T)? Number 3, When the Hindenburg crashed in 1937, reporter Herbert Morrison at one point cried out, “oh the _Humanity!__.” The animal representing Aflack Insurance is a Duck. How about Geico (gecko)? A few months ago, a woman had 8 babies, what nickname did the media give her (Octomom). Did you get those? How much time did you spend trying to memorize that information? Probably zero, but it still managed to get in your head somehow, and you probably didn’t even realize that it had happened until I pointed it out. That’s the way it goes sometimes. All this information is relatively harmless, but that’s not true of everything that gets into our minds, and hearts, and tugs us in certain directions.
This is defiantly true of the man who ran up to Jesus and asked him an important question in last week’s Gospel lesson. I put the reading on the insert, so let’s turn to it now. This guy very respectfully and earnestly runs up to Jesus and asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now, I am conflicted when it comes to this guy. He likes Jesus, he respects Jesus, he is earnestly seeking his wisdom, so he gets some good credit in my book. HOWEVER, he is so clueless about his own weakness and dependence, that he asks a pretty wild question of Jesus. A question about what HE can do to receive the ultimate prize of eternal life.
The assumption is that Jesus will tell him something that he will be able to do. That getting eternal life is something he ALMOST has, and just needs a little help getting over that last hurdle. Jesus gets the guy to admit his delusional view of himself: “You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And instead of seeing how he has fallen short of all God’s standards and designs in each of these areas, the guy responds, “no problem, I got all those covered!” Really?! “And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.””
So Jesus, we read, has pity on the guy, he looks right at him, and loves him, and says essentially, I will make you aware of your sinfulness. “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” For as much as the guy thought he had everything figured out, there was something that was pulling on him, tugging at his heart and mind, and he wasn’t even aware of it. He thought he was doing so well on his own, but he wasn’t. He put his trust in something other than God, he put his focus on stuff. He found is value in what the world calls valuable. He had been led pretty far astray in sin, and really had no idea until the word of Jesus came to him.
We know that he left, but we don’t know what happened to him after that. I like to think that he went away, and thought about his sinfulness, and repented and met up with Jesus later to follow him. And that very well could be what did happen, but we don’t know, because nothing is said about that. But what we are blessed to have the Bible talk about is found in our Gospel lesson for today. Jesus took this opportunity to teach the disciples something they would never forget, and something we shouldn’t forget either.
Jesus who looked with pity upon this rich guy, then gazes upon the disciples, “Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” This was shocking to the disciples, the Bible says they were amazed at what Jesus said. “What do you mean those who have wealth will have a hard time getting into the kingdom of God?” In their culture (much like ours), being wealthy was seen as a good sign, that you must be doing OK with God, that you must pretty much have everything figured out and be on a pretty even keel.
But Jesus takes it a step further. Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” This really gets personal. It was OK to talk about the rich guy, but when Jesus starts talking about how hard it is for ANYONE to get into the Kingdom of God, the disciples get scared. And maybe you do too. And that is a good response. Jesus illustrates his point by presenting them with a ludicrous image, something that could never be. The largest animal they knew of trying to squeeze itself though the smallest opening they could think of. You don’t have to try it to see how impossible it is!
And when the disciples hear this, they ask the right question, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus point is well taken, that salvation isn’t something that anyone can achieve for themselves, anymore than a person can make a camel fit through a needle. What makes it impossible is that we are sinful people. And for as much as we might like to fool ourselves into thinking we are OK with God, or that he might not take OUR sins so seriously, we don’t fool God, ever. HE knows us. He knows the areas of sin in our lives that nobody else knows about. He knows about the sinfulness in our lives that we might not even be aware of. And he knows that no matter how hard we try to be good, to save ourselves, to live how he commands, we fall desperately short of it all. All we can do, when faced with the camel size sin, and the eye-of-the needle sized door to the Kingdom of God, is throw ourselves on the mercy of God.
We can’t lean on ourselves, or somehow convince ourselves that we’ve actually done pretty well with the Law of God since we were kids, there is no case to be made for us and in our defense. But at this point, Jesus has some wonderful words, that should be like healing balm for our ears, “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God.” On your own, no one can be saved, it’s simply impossible. But with God, not only is salvation possible, it is a reality.
Jesus made it clear how he makes the impossible, possible for us later in chapter 10 (verses 33 and 34): “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” It’s hard to imagine Jesus being more explicit and clear about what was going to happen, but the disciples still struggled to, “get it.”
As soon as Jesus tells the disciples that what is impossible for man is not impossible for God, good old Peter goes from one extreme to the other. At first he felt the pull of fear and was afraid that he could never be saved. And then, instead of celebrating the confidence he can have in Jesus making his salvation possible, he succumbs to the pull of pride, and immediately starts trying to find comfort in his own actions, “Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”” Luther describes this kind of deal like a drunk trying to get on a horse, he falls off one side, and then when trying to get back on, falls of the other.
And this describes too often how we live too. Not that we are guilty of drunken horseback riding, but sometimes we go from one extreme to the other. We give in to the pull of fear, and trying to find security and peace in all kinds of things outside of ourselves. We hoard our resources, we try to find love and affirmation in places we need not go, we are consumed with thinking about how awful we are, and how God could never love us or accept us. We give in to the pull of hopelessness and despair. We cry out with the disciples, “Who can be saved!”
And other times we fall off the other side of the horse. We are full of ourselves. We kid ourselves into thinking that somehow we don’t need God. That really, we are doing just fine on our own, that we’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping God happy, and in fact, we don’t REALLY need him all that much, at least not as much as some people. We raise our voices with the rich man who said, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”
As far as the Devil is concerned, either side of the horse will do just fine. Either way, we are kept from seeing what is actually at the center of our lives and our salvation. What is at the center? The cross. The place where Jesus made the camel fit through the eye of the needle. The place where Jesus did the impossible. Where he took our sins, all our sins, every last one, and made each one his own. The place where his flesh was torn, where he suffered unimaginable pain, and a horrible death so he could give us unimaginable grace, and a glorious life. This is the place where God wants us. This is the place he wants to occupy in our lives, and has a right to occupy, I might add.
This is one of the reasons I love our church logo so much. Right in the middle, right in the center, standing tall, and standing out, is the cross. It is right in the middle of the picture, and it is the point the people gather around to celebrate and give thanks. It is what the people of God are all about, it is what we put our hope in, it is why we exist. We are who we are because of the cross. We have the hope we have because of the cross. And we do what we do because of the cross. Because God has done a miracle in each of our lives. He has saved us from hell, he has forgiven our sins, and he has called us his own.
This is where God calls us back to, every time we let something tug us off course. And the first thing we need to acknowledge this morning, is that there are things in our lives that do pull us in directions we shouldn’t go, there are things that distract us, there are things that cause us to either live in fear of God, or to act like God doesn’t really matter as much as we do.
I remember when my first car, a beautiful 92 Chevy Cavalier, developed and alignment problem. I would be driving down the freeway, and it pulled to the right pretty hard. In fact, you really had to work against the car to make it get in the left lane. On the other hand, to get in the right lane, or to make a right turn, all you had to do was let go of the wheel, and you felt like you were in Kit from Nightrider, it was driving itself! If you, “just let go” of the wheel in your life, where would your mind and your heart take you? What forces are tugging on you these days that have taken your attention of Christ, and his love for you, his plan for you, his forgiveness, and mercy, and grace? Relationship troubles, health concerns, finances, some sin you refuse to see as sin, something from your past that won’t let you rest? There are all kinds of distractions out there. Any number of sins that get us so far off course that we can’t possibly get back on. That’s the bad news.
But the Good News is just what Jesus told the Disciples, “with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” For as much as your focus gets pulled from God, he never takes his eyes off of you. For as much as we go to one extreme or the other, the cross is always there at the center of our lives. And the cross is always the answer to the question, “Then who can be saved?” In the miracle of God’s mercy, the answer from the cross is, “You, you can be saved, and in the blood of Christ, you are.”
AMEN
