Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

October 15, 2000 - "When You Run Into Jesus"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church; October 15, 2000

Mark 10:17-27

When You Run Into Jesus Mark 10:17-27 The Reverend Anne Benefield Geneva Presbyterian Church, October 15, 2000 Mark 10:17-27 As Jesus 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?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You 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.' He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, 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." When he heard this he was shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It 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." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." Prayer: Gracious Lord, Though the scriptures startle us, even frighten us, help us to be open to your Word. Gently guide us beyond our own understanding to a sense of your call to a life that glorifies you. May each of us hear your special word that is spoken uniquely to us. Amen. What happens when we run into Jesus? Does the same thing happen to us that happened to the rich young man? Well, not exactly, but there is a pattern. Every time I run into Jesus, he throws me off balance; he expects a lot; but he is generous with his grace, too. In short, Jesus is: 1. Full of Surprises. He startles us. He shocks us. He never leaves us in the same place where he finds us. 2. Full of High Expectations. He wants the best for us, but somehow that always means he makes us do more and be more than we even want to try to be. 3. Full of Grace. Even though he keeps surprising us and he has such high expectations for us, it's his grace that keeps us afloat. Knowing that this was the Sunday when I would give my stewardship sermon, I thought it was ironic that the story of the rich young man was the Lectionary scripture for today. This story is one of the most memorable in the Bible, but I have never heard anyone say it is their favorite story. It is unsettling. When I read it, I wonder if Jesus is calling me to give everything up, again. How do you do that with a husband and family? Then there is the part where Jesus says, "It is harder for a rich person to get into heaven than it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle." Only a few of the culturally based images used in the Bible still speak with such urgency to us today. Whatever else we may or may not understand about this story, we certainly understand that wealth doesn't make it any easier to get into heaven. Jesus is telling us just the opposite. He's saying that wealth makes it harder to get into heaven. That is surprising news today just as it was surprising news in ancient Israel. I believe that Jesus likes to surprise us. I believe he likes to get us a little off balance. I read an article about education theory once and found a most interesting idea. It seems that learning is speeded along when we lose our balance and realize that our current approaches won't solve a new problem. Let me give you a very simple example. When we are little we learn to count and add numbers one or two at a time. That approach serves us fine until we want to buy five pieces of bubble gum at 5 cents a piece and we don't know if we have enough money. The tension of not knowing how much money we need motivates us to learn to multiply so we will know that 5 times 5 is 25…We will need 25 cents. The point is that Jesus knows that we need to be moved out of our comfort zone before we will be open to learning new things about him and about his call for us. I heard a story that illustrates this point. Dr. Megan McKenna tells this story: There once was a very wealthy, but rather nasty man. He had enormous riches and the ability to buy more or less anything he wanted. One rainy day, he was walking through town and he passed a fabulous bakery. He stopped to look at all the tempting, mouth-watering delicacies in the window. After enjoying fantasies of how each candy, pie, pastry, and cake would taste, he went in the store and decided to buy a rich chocolate cake. As he stepped out of the store, a beggar bumped into him. The cake flew out of the man's hands and landed in the gutter which was filled with mud and dirt. The man yelled at the beggar, calling him stupid and screaming that he had made the cake inedible. The beggar apologized saying he was sorry, he was just hoping to find something to eat himself. In a cruel gesture, the rich man picked up the cake from the gutter and handed it to the beggar. "There!" he said, "Eat this!" Rather than be offended, the man accepted the cake and took it home to his family. They picked off as much mud as possible and ate the rest of the cake with joy. That night the wealthy man had a dream. He found himself in a beautiful restaurant. The decorations were glorious, brass polished to perfection, rich tapestries hung on the wall, and lovely food was being served all around him. After a few minutes, though, he became impatient because none of the waiters stopped to take his order. After a few more minutes, he became angry. He tried to stop the waiters, but they ignored him. He thought to himself, "This is ridiculous. This is a fine restaurant, but I could afford to buy it. I could buy everything in it-everything on the menu, even the employees." He was getting angrier and angrier. Finally, he managed to catch one of the waiters. He demanded to be waited upon, saying, "Listen, I am a very rich man. I want you to take my order. I shouldn't have to wait. I could afford to buy the whole place, I could even afford to buy you!" The waiter said, "No Sir, you could not buy me. You cannot buy anything here. You see this is heaven and all that you can get to eat is what you sent ahead." With that the waiter pulled out a piece of the dirty cake and placed it in front of the man. "This is all I can serve you because this is all you sent ahead while you were on earth." What a surprise. That's the way it is when we run into Jesus. He is full of surprises for us. And another thing: Jesus is full of high expectations for us. He certainly had high expectations for the rich young man in our scripture story. This story scares me a little, does it scare you, too? I think it's scary because it is so specific. When Jesus says, "The last shall be first and the first shall be last," I figure I'm pretty safe in the middle. When Jesus says, "When you welcome the child or any other inconsequential person you welcome me," I pride myself on being an accepting, accessible person. In other words, like the rich young man, I'm comfortable that I've lived according to Jesus' commandments all along. But then Jesus says, "Sell everything you own, give the money to the poor, and come follow me," and I get scared. Jesus has high expectations. From the rich young man, he demanded his possessions because he knew that the possessions were what separated the young man from God. What is it that separates me and you from God? I have been thought a lot about this. I realized that there are a number of things that I allow to separate me from God. I know I stay busy all the time and that separates me from God. I also know that the love of my family can actually separate me from God. You see, I love them so much that I want to hold on to them tight-so tight that I won't entrust them to God. I also realized that another thing that can separate me from God is my theology. Yes, I can get so caught up in who I believe God is that I can not recognize him because I'm not looking for him in the right places. As you know, I almost always have a story or an example for each point in a sermon, but on this point I don't. There is a reason. You see, only you can provide the illustration of what separates you from God. Any story I would give might actually distance you further from knowing yourself. Jesus has high expectations for you. He wants you to surrender to him whatever it is that separates you from God. For the rich young man, it was wealth. What is it for you? While you think about what Jesus expects from you, I want to make one more point and that is: Jesus expects a lot, but he also gives a lot. His gift is grace. When most people hear the story of the rich young man, they feel confused or worried. That's because they leave at the same time as the rich young man, so they don't hear the most important words that Jesus says. They don't hear the rest of the story. They don't hear the disciples protest that Jesus' expectations are too high, that it's not possible to surrender everything to God. That's when Jesus says the words we need to hear: "For human beings, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." We're not called to make these incredible choices on our own strength. It is on the strength of God that Jesus calls us to action. An old story goes that as Michelangelo dragged a block of marble through the streets of Rome one day, someone asked him why he was sweating so hard over a lump of rock. "Because there is an angel in this rock," he replied. We're kind of like the lump of rock. It frightens us that God seems to be chiseling away, but only God knows the person beneath all that dead stone that we think is protecting us. God is the sculptor and, oh, what graceful hands he has! Will we let him mold us? It is a time for decisions for us. I don't think that Jesus is calling us to sell all our belongings, but he is calling us to get out of our comfort zone. He is calling us to pledge support for his church. He has high expectations of us and he is likely to keep surprising us. As we prepare for our future together, he calls us to make a commitment. Next Sunday we dedicate our pledges. Will we pledge all that we can or will we pledge a little and assume that God's grace will cover us?