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October 15, 2006

Anne Jensen - Oct 15, 2006

Proper 23 B Mark 10:17 10/15/2006

Today’s gospel, to quote one blogger, is a “doozy.” We hear it with mixed feelings: it’s familiar, yet it makes us profoundly uncomfortable. We identify with that young man, as the seeker. We fear that if we were given the same teaching, we too would grieve and turn away.

Ever since Jesus met the rich young ruler, we have been looking for a way to embrace this passage as Truth, without actually having to believe it or live it.

We have rationalized it—
Jesus was just reminding us to keep our priorities straight! After all, people with money support the Church and pay the bills, and have done so since its beginning.



We have theologized it—

The Hebrew people like many ancient people, thought wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and a mark of righteousness and worth. Jesus was teaching them new ways of looking at the world.

We have decoded it—
Scholars speculate that the eye of the needle refers to an ancient gate; A gate so small— so narrow—that a camel could enter ONLY if its load was removed. It turns out this was a medieval interpretation, and sometimes it includes the image that the camel had to get down on its knees to get through. Not a bad image. So, Jesus is telling us to give some of our possessions away. Enough, at least so we can fit through the gate…

We have ignored it.


And a few have embraced it: St. Anthony of the Desert, Francis of Assisi, Maximilian Kolbe, Dorothy Day and Mother Theresa are examples.

I think our greatest fear is that without our wealth, without our possessions, we will have no life, no existence, no way of our knowing who we are, or others knowing who we are. Our security is threatened.

The rich young man has found that his wealth does not buy him what he longs for. Does he approach Jesus as someone whose life seems empty and who is seeking a fix, as if Jesus were a first century Dr. Phil?

Maybe this gives us a clue. What if we looked at this story in a new way? Usually we imagine that the rich man does need to learn to let go, to share or to feel less attached to his wealth. For a moment-- Imagine that the rich man needs healing. Something is making and keeping this good man sick. He is ill, and he cannot heal/save himself any more than the blind man Bartimaeus could. A physician would seek to identify the toxin in his environment and remove it. Jesus does just that: “Go, sell, give, come, follow…” Jesus has compassion and even love for this young man who kneels at his feet, and recognizes the illness that besets him: it’s a kind of addiction. The most effective treatment for addictions has been a spiritual approach developed by Alcoholics Anonymous and modified by other groups.

Step one is to admit that we are powerless over our addiction, whatever that addiction is—that our lives have become unmanageable.

Step two is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to health.

Step three is to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. Step three leads us back to the story.

Remember when the young man approaches Jesus, he says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answers, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jesus is pointing to God as the One who can meet the young man’s desire. What he wants can’t be bought.…not by wealth, and not by observing the commandments to not hurt others that this young man has followed since he was a child. The first three commandments tell us to love God above all else. Had he taken these to heart?

Jesus not only tells the young man to sell his possessions, he tells him “Give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” He is pointing to a way of life that is more than just avoiding bad behavior so that he can be perceived as good. Jesus is pointing the way to a life where riches are shared with the poor. Life is found in sharing life with others, including even the poorest and the marginalized. The young man is shocked and turns away, grieved.

I think Jesus must have been grieving too. He says to the disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.” There’s a tenderness there, despite the image of the camel, that matches the compassion and love he felt for the young man.

Now it’s the disciples’ turn to be shocked! “Then who can be saved?”

“For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” God is at the center.

Jesus’ words are not just an abstract reflection. They speak to the real spiritual difficulty—the fear of losing self-centeredness, or to say it another way, fear that we do not have control over our lives. Jesus knows what this young man cannot grasp, that by letting go of his anxious self-absorption and his hold on things, he will find a new security, and a new relationship to the very things he has released from his grip.

Jesus knows from his own relationship with God that a new generosity, a new abundance of spirit, far from eliminating one’s world actually gives it back in profoundly new and free ways.

Freedom from addiction is what the addict yearns for. Recovery begins with naming the addiction, admitting that we are caught by powers that we cannot handle by ourselves, and putting ourselves in the hands of God, who loves us and desires our wholeness, not just as individuals, which is certainly true, but also as a community of human beings.

What does that mean for us here at Trinity? This community is a place of immense privilege and yet it has pockets of poverty, but even this poverty pales in the face of life in third world countries. My hope is that Trinity can be a place where we can admit that collectively we are uneasy about our relationship with money and uneasy about talking about money.

In the last couple of weeks, you have received information about Trinity’s financial situation, and we will talk more about it in the coming month. But wouldn’t it be a sign of God’s healing grace if we could put our trust in God and risk honest and respectful conversation about the gifts God has given us and how best to carry out the mission of the church? Christian community ought to be where we are safe, where we need not be defensive about who we are or where we are in our journey. There is no need for being puffed up, because respect is offered to everyone.

The church ought to be a school for conversion, so that instead of turning away in fear, sadness or grief, we can together follow Jesus into a life of servanthood.

You know, Garrison Keilor always opens his monologue with “It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Woebegone.” Lake Woebegone is that imaginary place where people have real lives—where daily events raise the large questions of life. And it turns out no to have been quiet at all. It has been filled with seemingly small incidents that raise the larger questions of life, with all the attending human emotions. It hasn’t been a quiet week here at Trinity. Some people are upset, several people have had surgery. Some have a condition not yet diagnosed; people are facing life transitions. The railing on Montgomery House is gone, so I share with you the lines from Julian of Norwich, words which I find strength and comfort. “All will be well. All manner of things will be well.” I really believe that, for you, for me and for this church, because as we follow Jesus, we will find God is at the center.