The Upwardly Mobile Man

Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us your gift of faith, that, forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead, we may follow the way of your commandments and receive the crown of everlasting joy. (ELW)

THE UPWARDLY MOBILE MAN

The Rich Man asks how to inherit eternal life. Jesus replies, You lack one thing. Go sell all you have ... and come follow me.

Let nothing hinder you from following the way of love.

True security lies not behind with worldly things but ahead with the kingdom.

Rich young rulers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but ...everything.

Have you heard about the Pandora report? About world leaders who have offshored their wealth so as to limit their tax liabilities? Upwardly mobile men.

 

Here in our Gospel is the story of the man who kept all the commandments but went away sorrowing when Jesus called on him to sell his property, distribute the proceeds to the poor, and then come follow Jesus. Who by the way was on the road to Jerusalem, the road to the passion - and to resurrection. But this man, on hearing Jesus' invitation, went away in sorrow, "for he had many possessions." He had at first felt affirmed, happy and confirmed, in that he was able to assure Jesus that he had kept the commandments from his youth. A clue might have been when Jesus asked him, why do you call me good? Only God is good. Which led to Jesus saying, later, for mortals it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven, but with God all things are possible. 

The disciples who ask Jesus to explain everything also want his reassurance, that they will be okay, in fact rewarded, for giving up what they had to follow him.

His reply to them is practically a quotation from the last chapters of the book of Job, when that man, who had remained righteous, despite losing everything, was restored to health and received new family and possessions. 

Sure, these disciples have received a new family, in that they have been adopted into God's family, as brother and sister and mother, as they follow his commandments. 

And perhaps they will receive possessions of replacement value. 

But the point is not what they had, in the past: Jesus is calling his disciples to look ahead, and to move forward, to enter God's kingdom and act in the certain knowledge that his reign is real.

That is going to take some faith, and it is going to require some action.

The disciples are caught between two options and cannot keep them both open. 

On the one hand Jesus calls on them to receive the kingdom as a little child would.

On the other they feel the pull to do something to inherit eternal life. 

What do you do to inherit? 

An inheritance is a gift. Unearned merit is a contradiction in terms. 

The desire to do - to ensure - to make certain - to clinch the deal.

The man who had many possessions could, looking back, say he had kept all the rules.

Except one: Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.

In other words, follow Jesus. 

Then the rest will fall into its proper place, its right relationship.

Seeking assurance the commandment-compliant man comes to Jesus and instead of a sure thing - confirming his status, or giving him more! - he gets a mystery, a challenge, an opportunity.

There is one more thing to do. Be free of all that holds you back. Discard all hindrances. Turn away from what is now only an obstacle.

And come along. To the Temple to hear the teaching, to watch the confrontations with the powers that be, to witness death and death defeated.

That is what is left to do.

And then the reality of the kingdom will become real to you.

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Remember the parable of the sower? Remember the seed that grew up amid the thorns?

These are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. (Mark 4:18-19)

Jesus represents the coming of God’s rule. And so he calls: leave everything behind, and come follow Jesus, be his disciple. . . .  

Be as a little child, Jesus exhorts. Leave status and power over others behind. Abandon power, discard defence. For his power is perfected in our weakness. 

DOWNWARD MOBILITY, Henri Nouwen called it. Abandon overt piety and all prestige. Seek oneness with the downtrodden, the differently abled, the foreign, the domestic abused and forgotten. 

FRANCIS got naked before the Bishop, and all the people in the town plaza of Assisi, when his father demanded back “all you have had from me” - and he obeyed literally. 

Radical sacrifice. That is what the Apostles were called to.

Generous hospitality: that is what the Disciples, the early Christians, practiced. 

Can we give up something? 

An example:

overconsumption 

How do we ourselves over-consume at the impoverishment of others unseen? Do we make others poor?

But where will it lead? Where will the road of discipleship, following the way of Jesus, lead? TO THE CROSS.

RENUNCIATION (Philippians 2:5-8)

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a slave,

   being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

What would it mean for us to give up wealth, power, prestige, the ability to ‘get things done’ - privilege of nationality, race, color, sex, gender identity, age; to hold nothing back, and put first the kingdom of God?

What are we moving away from? What are we moving toward? And where is our security? In upward mobility, or the radical dependence on God that is faith - and hope?

So teach us to number our days 

that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. 

(Psalm 90:12)

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men”:
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

(Isaac Watts. O God, Our Help in Ages Past. 1719)

https://library.timelesstruths.org/music/O_God_Our_Help_in_Ages_Past/

Oct. 9 (6 pm) and Oct. 10 (8 am and 10:30 am):  Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; PS 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

Christ the King Episcopal Church, Tucson (https://ctktucson.org/)

https://www.facebook.com/ctktucson/live/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7AB4NIZv3kMlk9r0yBmGw/videos?view=57

Amos 5:6-7,10-15

Psalm 90:12-17

Hebrews 4:12-16

Mark 10:17-31

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

BProper 23

http://edgeofenclosure.org/proper23b.html

the greatest among you

AProper26 2011
Pentecost XX


Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.


Micah 3:5-12

Micah denounces rofessional prophets that tell people who pay them what they want to hear. They shall find themselves to be without vision, without revelation: with no answer from God. Micah himself, on the other hand, is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the Ruach, the breath of God, and with justice and might: and he is empowered for a purpose – to declare to Israel its sin, its injustice, its inequity. Judges, priests, and prophets are on the take. And so the city shall fall: a ruined house, a desolate ruin, and a wilderness. And so it was – and the people were carried into Exile.

Psalms 42-43

These two psalms together form a three-part lament with refrain, lamenting the past, bewailing persecution in the present, and then – in the midst of the pain – looking toward a future with hope.

“Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me,” the Psalmist pleas. “Bring me to your holy hill” – to that Zion which will be – and to your dwelling and your altar – and I will give thanks to the God of joy and gladness.

The day will come when God will send his savior to his people.

The day will come when they repent and return to the way of truth, the way of righteous behavior, of justice and mercy and peace, the way of the Lord.

Matthew 23:1-12

The prophets in the OT passage, denounced by Micah, were on the take. They did not even say what God was doing; they just told the people – the people who paid them – what they wanted to hear. Jesus is up against something closer to home. The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat – that is, they teach with institutional official authority – and their words are not wrong. Their deeds are. What they say is fine and good and right; what they do is not. They lay burdens on others that they will not bear themselves – they are hypocrites, two-faced. They display their religiosity publicly – making themselves look good in the eyes of the crowd. Sure they wear the phylacteries and the tassels of those seeking holiness; but they just want the look. So their reward is sure; it is on earth. That’s it. They love showing off. But we should not despise them; we should not envy them; we should learn from them. We know better.

We know better also than to seek the titles of teachers of the Law, for we have one teacher – Jesus, we have one father – the one in heaven, and we have one instructor – the Messiah.

Teaching authority – any kind of personal power – comes from God. And Jesus says it – all he has comes from the Father.

The greatest among us, it is he: he who could claim the Name above all Names. And he has come before us as a servant.

Flattery and hierarchical thinking and hypocrisy and ostentatious display, self-exaltation and seeking after titles, will not get us there.

We are already there.

Through the work of Christ God has redeemed us – and God has called us to be his people.

There is no higher title than this: we are children of God, his Beloved ones.

We should therefore be humble. Let us honor each other with all due humility – because we are all equal before God.

Let us be obedient to the word of the Lord. God has called us according to his purpose – to be his servants in the world, bringing his message of salvation to the world. The Reign of God is coming into being, and we are called to belong to it.

This good news is an achievement of parity, is it not? But it is not a leveling – it is not a cutting down to size, not a belittling of others. It is a building up – a bringing up to full stature in the knowledge of the glory of Christ. We can claim true self- esteem; we are God’s children. Does not that make us special?

Yes. It does not make us unique, or better. It is humbling.

We are ones that know the truth – that God made us, all of us, and we need him – not only as creator, but also as redeemer.

We are called to be holy but we can do nothing without the Spirit. With the Spirit, in the Spirit, walking in the way of God, that is a different matter.

It is different from the way we would walk to look good in the eyes of the world. “The greatest among you will be your servant.”


1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

What does it look like to be a servant? Paul writing to the church of the Thessalonians gives us an idea of what it means.

First he greets them: Grace to you and peace. That is the context. And then – in today’s lesson – he goes on to talk about what he has done to come among them as servant and as messenger of the Gospel. He worked day and night, as he proclaimed the good news of God. His conduct was pure, upright, and blameless. – Do you see the contrast to the people Jesus denounced, with their place seeking and their love of show? - And like a father, loving his children, he urged and encouraged and offered witness to them. – What a contrast to the prophets-for-pay that Micah denounced! – He gives thanks that they have taken in to their hearts the Word of God, and that it is at work in them.

He urges them to lead a life worthy of God and of his Calling: to live, to walk in the way of the Lord, to take on the identity of God’s beloved children; to begin to know themselves and conduct themselves as people called into God’s kingdom and glory.

There is no higher calling than this.

There is no greater glory - that does not belong to Jesus Christ himself or his heavenly Father. And indeed, our calling is to glorify God and to bring to being in this world his Kingdom.

How do we go about that? How do we go about being his servants, his messenger people, here and now where we are?

We know that God is at work; God is at work in this place and time. The question is: How will we be part of that joyous kingdom building? How do we get with the program? How do we bring good news?

Look about you – at this place, at these people around you; look beyond the doors of this building, into the neighborhood. How can we the people of God be of service to them? Look even farther – how can we bring the Good News of God’s love to the city, the country, and the world?

This is what we are called to be and to do as God’s people. Anything less is falling short of our high and holy calling.

Outreach must be both personal and corporate, both giving and doing. We become corporate leaders of our community as we engage in acts of service for them, to them, and with them. Corporate doing – not just market survey – as well as focused giving in relationship with those we wish to serve, will reach those we wish to invite into partnership or common ministry, into fellowship, and into the celebration of the Kingdom.

And as individuals, working in the world as transforming agents of Christ, in how we live, in doing our ordinary work as work done for the Lord, in our interacting with others, we become witnesses to the truth of God’s love.

Shall we begin here and now, by being transformed in the renewal of our minds, in the refreshment of our souls, in the good news taken in as our daily bread? Let us claim the identity of servants of Jesus Christ for ourselves, to affirm that through our Baptism and renewed in the Eucharist, we are One in the Spirit; we are One in Christ. We are God’s Beloved, and we have Good News to share with the world! Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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For St Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, WA
October 30, 2011.

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The Thankful Samaritan

CProper23 2010
Pentecost XX

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-11
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem…

Have you ever felt like a foreigner? Have you ever been a foreigner? I was a foreigner once – in Scotland. It was the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and they were celebrating in a garden in Edinburgh. “The foreigner,” I heard some one call me – and I was. I could enjoy the party but I could not share the pride – she was not my Queen – or the status of subject, citizen, member of the kingdom.

The Samaritan probably knew he was on foreign ground, but it didn’t matter much. He was an outside everywhere he went, as were the other nine. They were lepers – outcast – sufferers from a malignant skin disease were treated as unclean, and they were shunned. It would take a miracle to restore them to health and to community, to the common life.

It would take the action of the living Lord. There was nothing the Samaritan could do about his condition, except – call on the Lord, obey his command, trust and hope.

As Jesus went by on the way to Jerusalem, the ten lepers were crying out: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. They kept their distance – they were lepers, unclean – and Jesus said to them, as it says in the Law to do (Leviticus chapter 14) “On the day when he is to be cleansed he shall be brought to the priest.”

As they went, as they began to obey, they were cleansed. That’s the first part of the story. Ten called out, ten were healed. What they knew of Jesus, what had been proclaimed to them, the hint of the good news that they’d heard, was enough to bring them into earshot, to give them the temerity to call out to be cleansed, to be freed of their immediate plight.

Martin Luther said something pretty amazing about these people. Here is what he said:

“For tell me, who had given these lepers a letter and seal that Christ would hear them? Where is there any experience and feeling of his grace? Where is the information, knowledge or certainty of his goodness? Nothing of the kind is here. What then is here? A free resignation and joyful venture on his imperceptible, untried and unknown goodness. Here there is no trace in which they might discover what he would do, but his mere goodness alone is kept in view, which fills them with such courage and venture to believe he would not forsake them. Whence, however, did they receive such knowledge of his goodness, for they must have known of it before, be they ever so inexperienced and insensible of it? Without doubt from the good reports and words they had heard about him, which they had never yet experienced. For God's goodness must be proclaimed through his Word, and thus we must build upon it untried and inexperienced...”


But one of them knew that something more was here – that more than a miracle was present. The healing was the sign of life present in the person before him. He saw, he perceived, he knew – he was in the presence of the very Word of God. And so, he turned, he gave glory to God – shouting loudly, he threw himself at the feet of his Savior, thus confessing him to be Lord – the source of salvation, hope and health, the source of life.

And in gratitude he gave thanks. He responded to the word of God and the grace of God with thanks and praise.

And he was a foreigner. He was a stranger, an alien.

And Jesus brought him home to a place he never knew before: the kingdom not of this world’s way but the kingdom of heaven, where God reigns: the place, the time, even now occurring, where God sets right what has gone off course, when God brings to fulfillment the original purpose of creation – in the thankful Samaritan, in you, and in me.

May his grace be at work among us; may he heal and renew us. May his peaceable kingdom be established in the midst of us; may we know the joy of his service. May we too, like the thankful Samaritan, in obedience follow his command; but knowing he is doing for us more than we could ask for – imagination fails us – may we see him at work in the world, may we turn to him in thanksgiving, may we give glory to God in thanks and praise, may we rise up as his people, renewed refreshed restored reborn; and when we go on our way may we go forth rejoicing in the confidence of faith in a gracious God.

The Lord is your strength and your salvation; in him alone is wholeness and peace. The peace of the Lord be always with you.

The goodness of God the Father go with you. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ protect you. The guidance of the Holy Spirit of God ever lead you. And the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.



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Peace and blessing from David Adam.

Luther quotation from Jami Fecher.

Ideas from Alan Richardson, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Herbert O'Driscoll, David Adam, New Proclamation commentary series, New Collegeville Bible Commentary series, Fred Craddock, Sharon Ringe, Keith Fullerton Nickle, Tom Sine, Ryan Marsh, Michael Ross, Kari Reiten et al.

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