Old First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco

October 15, 2006        28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
"This is the Day: A More Generous People".
Rev Jeffrey Cheifetz

 

 

Job 23: 1-9, 16-17

1Then Job answered: 2“Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. 3Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! 4I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. 5I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. 6Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. 7There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. 8“If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; 9on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. 10But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold. 11My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. 12I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured in my bosom the words of his mouth. 13But he stands alone and who can dissuade him? What he desires, that he does. 14For he will complete what he appoints for me; and many such things are in his mind. 15Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him. 16God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; 17If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!

 

 

Psalm 22:1-15

1My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 2O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. 3Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. 6But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. 7All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; 8“Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver— let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” 9Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. 10On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. 11Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. 12Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

 

Hebrews 4:12-16

12Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. 14Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

Mark 10:17-31

17As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘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.’” 20He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 21Jesus, 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.” 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” 28Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

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This is indeed the day the Lord has made, and it is good to be together in worship. Together we re-affirm our faith, and listen for God’s voice leading us another step forward. Like the rich man in the Gospel text, we are drawn to the Holy, and like him something draws us to take a moment out of our busy lives to run to this community place to kneel and bring the questions of the heart: How can I live a more faithful life? What’s the wise and good way to live within my relationships, my work environment, my school, my retirement years? How can I overcome the destructive patterns of my life? How can I keep my soul alive and thus add to the peace and wholeness of this world? How can I calm the anxiety that plagues me all the days of my life? We ask questions in the hope that they are indeed the questions that we need to ask. We ask in the hope that we will hear answers that lead us closer to God and to our true selves.

 

The rich man did not hear the answer he wanted to hear. Why not? It had something to do with what Jesus saw in him. Jesus didn’t just glance at him; he looked deeply into his heart. Of course, he saw a well-clothed man who owned a lot of things, and who had a nice house and status and security in a world full of poor people that was governed by a foreign power. He also saw a human being who had spent his life trying to be good, a solid law-abiding bright upper class citizen of the Empire. But despite his belief that his wealth was a sign of God’s favor, he had a hole in his soul that could not be filled by his status and all his possessions. He lacked the assurance he wanted about his relationship with God. So he came to the rabbi with his question about a spiritual inheritance. And the rabbi looked at him, and into his eyes, and warmed to him because he saw a good and genuine and well-intentioned person standing there with hope and anxiety mirrored in his face, a person who thought that if he could just be a little more obedient, do one more good thing. Then he could keep everything he had, and also put the clincher on his claim to the prize of spiritual security.

 

And in the next moment the rabbi blew up the man’s world - poof. The quest was not what he thought it was. He needed to give up the one thing that he truly depended on to give his life cohesion and order - his stuff. He needed to detach from that stuff, and the control and security and safety and blessing that it represented, so that he could connect with a deeper source, a more true place of the spirit. For him, his wealth got in the way of eternal life, and Jesus saw that, and spoke good news to him that sounded like the worst news in the world. And that good news shocked that good man to his core, for he had always believed that true religion had to do with keeping rules and doing the right things.

 

The rich man encountered the sudden absence of the god he put his faith in up to that point, just as Job in his intense experience of loss encountered his own dark night of the soul. Where there had been light, there was now sadness and darkness. A thick wall separated him from his god and his dreams and his understanding of how the universe should work. When our children were younger they would sometimes say of the world, and even of God, “It’s not fair!”, and we would agree that the world was different than we wanted it to be, and God also refused to play the parts we thought God should play. A European monarch once proclaimed the conviction that God’s business was to forgive, which gave her extremely wide leeway to act in any way she thought expedient.

 

This man’s spiritual journey took a right turn when he wanted it to go straight ahead, nice and easy. He found that eternal life was not something he could just add to his list of what he controlled. Instead, he had to let go, lay aside his security blanket, because instead of keeping him warm it was smothering him. But it was the only thing he knew, and at that moment he could not visualize living without it. The invitation to literally follow Jesus without towing his household behind him was too much. He walked away, grieving.

 

I am sure many of us have experienced loss or betrayal in a way that violated or even swept away our ideas of how the world should be. I remember a parishioner in my first church, over 20 years ago now, who had experienced a deep spiritual awakening. After a time of instruction I baptized her in front of a congregation that had never expected her to do such a thing. One day she went to a hospital in another town for surgery on her leg. The evening of her surgery, I received the news of her death from a blood clot. I was eating dinner with my family. I was so angry that I slammed my fist onto the dining table, scaring our two young children. She had just begun a new life, she was 49 years old, and it was not fair, it was not right. God let her down, let her family down, let her community down, let me down – I put a lot of work into trying to build that little congregation. That loss shook my youthful, more orderly view of reality, and all I could do in the moment was express my grief through an act of intense anger.

 

At least Job was more poetic in his expression of outrage and anxiety. And though he was stricken to the heart by his suffering, and caught off balance by the felt absence of God, he still believed that God existed and cared enough to listen carefully to him in his anguish. The key for Job was to keep the conversation going, though it felt very much one-sided. We would like to think the rich man eventually returned and engaged Jesus in further conversation. We would like to think that each one of us could stay in the dialogue with God whether or not we feel connected.

 

Let me ask this question of each one of us: what is it that we hold tightly in our fists because we think we cannot do without it? If we are asked by Jesus to let that thing go, for the sake of following him, would we be able to do so? What is the security blanket that we believe keeps us safe, but actually hinders us from hearing the good news of God?

 

In the case of our nation, it seems to be the idea that we are always good and well-intentioned and led by God, and so of course we know what is good for the rest of the world. For this community of faith, it may be the image, drawn from the past, of a golden age, with a larger, more active, younger, congregation. For each one of us personally, it may be that we are hanging onto a world, or a family, or a way of life, that no longer exists; or ancient regret, sadness, or anger; or what we used to do for a living that we cannot do any more.

 

Could it be, as we run toward Jesus, and eagerly ask our questions, that we already have in mind the answers that we so desperately want to hear? If so, it’s a fairly good bet that Jesus, who has his own agenda, who looks at us and sees not only the outside appearances but also the depths of the heart, knows better than we.

 

What if, for a change, we were to try something different this time? I mean, we are so experienced in our efforts to control everything, that maybe just once we could try a different way.

Consider: what if we were to run to Jesus, holding what we value most not in clenched fists, but lightly in open hands, with spaciousness in our hearts, without an agenda, ready to receive the answer that can set us free to be what we are meant to be?

 

This story about Jesus and the rich man turns our way of thinking upside down. It is not for us to determine what Jesus should bless, ignoring the Divine agenda. Instead, why not look more deeply, as Jesus did in the story, and name what God is already doing within, between, and beyond us, that which is already blessed? Why not relax our clenched fists, and see what God will put into them?

 

What does all of this have to do with the stewardship or management or holy disposal of our time, giftedness, sense of call, and giving of money? Everything. If all that we are and all that we have belong to God, rather than to ourselves - which is a basic and ancient Christian understanding, and which reverses another misunderstanding that the rich man lived by - then it is all at God’s disposal. Contrary to what our self-protective instincts tell us, all of our stuff, both material and otherwise, is not to be held in clenched fists as we come to Jesus with our questions, as we come to worship, as we go about our everyday business. Rather, it is to be offered up, moment by moment, in an open-hearted approach to the One who invites us to the Table to celebrate and experience the empowering work of the rabbi who was also the Son of God.

 

Jesus asked the rich man to let go so that God could do the work of God in him, something that was ultimately far more valuable than all the stuff he could ever own. The rich man was not asking the right question - “What must I DO to inherit eternal life?” It is not about DOING; it is about BEING. Jesus’ invitation was for the man to BE an open vessel for the Spirit. That is what God intends for us: not to be the first, or the best, or the fastest with the mostest, or whatever we think it takes to become the winner of the heavenly sweepstakes or the celestial poker game. We may not always feel close to God, but our open heart supplies all the room God needs. The way forward for that man was to give away all of his stuff, all that which kept his hands clenched in the face of God, and in the face of the world‘s need.

 

May our question be not, “What must we DO to inherit the reign of God?”, but “God, what would YOU do in my life, so that I may be used in my unique way to benefit my family, my workplace, my school, my community, my church, the world?”

 

May we open our hearts, and open our hands, trusting in the One who sees and knows and loves us.

 

Let us pray: Everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being: You have made us for yourself, so that our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Give us purity of heart and strength of purpose, that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing your will, no weakness keep us from doing it; that in your light we may see light clearly, and in your service find perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.