Who You Gonna Follow?

Proper 23B; Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, 24; Mark 10:17-21; St. Paul’s 10/14/18

Jim Melnyk: “Who You Gonna Follow?"

The weight of it all is suffocating!  So heavy and close that he can hardly breathe – he can hardly move!  As his eyes adjust to the dim light, it seems as if everything he has ever owned is piled up upon and around him and he is overwhelmed by the heaviness of it all.  It suddenly occurs to him that he has surely died and his mourners have covered him with everything – from all his clothes to even the clay vases that used to sit outside his front door.  As he begins to scream he suddenly awakes, realizing that he was having that same dream that had haunted his nights for the past week.

“What is bringing these nightmares on,” he wonders.  Could it be…no, it couldn’t be that brief exchange last week with the rabbi from Galilee…could it?

The young man had sought out the wandering rabbi almost on a whim.  On one hand, he wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  On the other hand, he wondered if the rabbi had any wisdom that might save him from the deep anxiety he was feeling about his relationship with God.  He had asked Jesus what he thought was a simple question – perhaps expecting the usual religious platitudes, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He wasn’t even sure why he had asked it that way – eternal life wasn’t exactly an everyday topic or concern for him.

Jesus did give him an answer that seemed perfectly comfortable at first.  “You know the commandments,” Jesus told him; going on to offer a summary of the last six commandments of the Decalogue – the ones having to do with how God expects us to treat one another in this life.  “Not a problem,” he had blurted out quite rashly.  “I’ve kept those commandments faithfully from my youth.”  The conversation was going well, and the young man started to feel confident in his status before God.

Mark tells us that Jesus looked upon this young man, and that Jesus loved him.  Who knows if the young man could tell how Jesus felt?  But then came the kicker – words that threw the young man for a loop – words that still challenge listeners two thousand years later.  Jesus had replied: “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.” No way, Jesus, he seems to say.  I don’t care what they say about you.  I’ve worked hard all my short life to build up my portfolio.  I earned this stuff the hard way and I’m not going to simply give it all away.  He recalled how utterly miserable he felt as he turned his back on Jesus and walked away.  In fact, he had turned away so quickly he never even noticed the look of grief on Jesus’ face. 

Yet, what could he have expected from that encounter?  Waiting to make his way through the crowd to meet Jesus he had spoken with several of the disciples, and they were telling the young man about the teachings they had heard.

“‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart – there your rootedness in God – will be also.’  Do not be anxious about your life – what you will eat, or drink, or wear – for isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?”

And the young man began to wonder if perhaps his dreams were trying to tell him something about the wisdom behind the rabbi’s words.

The young man’s wonderings weren’t that far off from the wonderings of those who stayed on the scene.  This is the part where Jesus goes on to say to the crowd, “Look – it’s hard finding your way into the kingdom of God – and it’s especially hard for those who surround themselves with wealth.  Why, it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God!”    

In fact the Disciples are perplexed at Jesus’ words because in their day people equated great wealth with God’s favor and poverty or disease with God’s wrath – and there’s more than a few who still believe that today.  No wonder those listening to Jesus cry out, “Then who can be saved?”  Jesus responds, “Hey, I said it’s difficult – but I didn’t say it’s impossible.  With God, all things are possible.”  It brings to mind an old Jewish saying I’ve read: “The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and camels” (Jewish midrash quoted in Synthesis Today, 10/8/2018). 

“In other words God only needs the sinner to open up just a crack for [God], and [the Holy One] will come pouring in and set up room for an oasis. God only needs a 'foot in the door', so to speak.

The exaggerated and contrasted size [in this saying] is deliberate [but it’s] not an overt judgement on riches or poverty. Jesus reflects on how hard it often is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The riches can so easily be a distraction and hard to share if one is too attached to them. The disciples' incredulity is that if even the rich cannot be saved, who can? But the verdict is that even the rich, and not only the rich, will find it impossible to save themselves – but with God all things are possible” (Donna Nielsen: http://donna-connections.blogspot.com/2010/06/hebrew-hyperbole.html).

The young man’s wonderings aren’t all that strange to us, are they?  Even those of us who have chosen, or accepted a call to some form of life in the church can get caught up by stuff – can get caught up with anxieties.  We all wonder about things like how next year’s budget will play out. We wonder, will my business remain strong this year? Will there be enough money for a raise, or at least enough money to keep my job going?  How will my kids or my grandkids grades go?  Will they be able to get into college?  Will I be able to afford it if they do?  Where is my heart rooted?

It’s easy to become anxious, isn’t it?  It happens to us all from time-to-time.  Anxiety, though, can lead to fear – and fear tells us there’s not enough to go around – so our hearts can become confused, and we can find ourselves needing to grab hold of, or hold on to, everything we can.  Contrary to what we know to be right for us, we find ourselves storing up treasures on earth – if only because we find comfort in the surety of tangible things.  When have you felt suffocated?

When we fear, we give power over to that which we fear.  And as Jesus reminds us in another setting, no one can serve two masters – we will either hate one and be devoted to the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other – and that’s all too real!  No one can follow two masters.

The prophet Amos spoke out to a nation whose enemy was on the doorstep – waiting to pounce; looking to wipe away the Northern Kingdom: “Seek the Lord and live,” Amos challenges them (Amos 5:6).  “I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate” (5:10, 12). Yet there is still time, the prophet proclaims!  Return to God – return to the covenant – follow and serve the Lord – “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (5:15).

Amos reminds us that wealth and success are not necessarily signs of God’s good favor.  Like Jesus so many centuries later, Amos reminds us that being on top – or being first – doesn’t always mean we’ve got it right.  Amos reminds us just a few verses beyond today’s reading that we are called to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (5:24).  Being faithful might just mean some of what we have or hold dear might just get washed away in the flood – we might have to let go of some of what we believe gives us security in order that justice might thrive.

The Good News is that we get to choose what we will store up and where it will be stored.  We get to choose just who it is we will follow, and who it is we will serve.  We can look upon the ever-flowing stream of God’s justice and righteousness as a terrible flood that causes us to let go of the stuff we think we need – or we can see it as the mighty baptismal waters of God washing us clean, lifting our neighbors out of the mire and clay, and giving them, along with us, a firm place on which to stand.  

To paraphrase our Lord’s words, “Who are we gonna follow?