Sermon for Sunday 14th October: first draft

As we have discovered so often in our look at Mark’s story of Jesus, it is written to those on the way and it is an attempt to make sense of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Though separated from Mark’s community by some 2000 years, our purpose and theirs is fairly similar: we are trying to make sense of what it means to follow Jesus.

Mark writes his story of Jesus to those of us like you and I who are on the Christian pilgrimage and is an invitation to follow.

This morning’s gospel reading is set on the ‘way’. In the context of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is beginning his long journey to Jerusalem, where the son of man will be handed over, executed and then rise triumphant from the grave. The early believers of Jesus were called ‘followers of the way’. This comes from the Greek word, ‘odos’, which in turn is a translation of the Hebrew ‘Halakhah’, which means ‘to walk’ or ‘to go’. Jews did not see the law as burdensome; rather it was an act of grace that allowed them to be fully alive. For the early believers, the act of following Jesus was something dynamic and moving. This remains the case today.

At first glance our gospel reading does not make comfortable reading.

When the young man heard what Jesus had said, he went away gloomy and sad.

These are not the most comforting words that have been written about an encounter with Jesus.

The man who comes to Jesus wants to know what he must do to gain or inherit eternal life. It would be a mistake to hear this as ‘what

must I do to get to heaven when I die’. Rather, the man was asking Jesus, what he must do to be part of God’s kingdom now.

As Christians, we believe that God’s kingdom is both in heaven, the place where God is traditionally said to be and is coming here on earth. This is why we pray: ‘your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven’.

Jesus tells the man to keep the commandments, quoting directly from the six of the commandments, which particularly relate to how we live together.

The man presses Jesus; but I have kept these all my life.

Jesus simply adds one other challenge: go, sell, give and come.

It was at this point that the man leaves saddened unable to do what Jesus asked.

How are we to make sense of this encounter?

The challenge to the man seems to be specific to him as an individual. Although, peppered liberally through the scriptures are warnings about wealth and to the rich; Jesus is not condemning those who are rich per se; only those who use their wealth to abuse others.

This should be of comfort to you and me. Even given the current recession, in global terms; those of us even in Bartley Green, which as a council ward is well within the 10% of most deprived areas in the country, we are rich.

But in making this text a specific challenge to an individual, we are not completely off the hook. Jesus is challenging the man to give his allegiance to him and him alone.

Allegiance is very strong language; yet it lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, even an Anglican.

This is why at the heart of the baptism service is the signing of the candidate’s forehead with the cross followed by the statement that we will endeavour to follow Christ (Jesus) resisting all that is evil.

Those with Jesus on the way are shocked at the challenge of Jesus, and all the more so when he goes on to speak about the camel going through the eye of a needle.

Jesus when talking about the camel going through the eye of the needle is like the good storyteller he is, putting in humour and exaggeration; but his point is crystal clear, discipleship costs everything.

Imagine the camel going through the eye of a literal needle, and most of us will smile. Some of us schooled on childhood cartoons will probably give at least a silent guffaw. Like much humour, there was a serious point. We have sometimes lost sight of the funny side, by creating imaginary gates in the walled city of Jerusalem. There must be a needle gate; which means that a camel can be unladen or stoop down. Such assertions are both unnecessary and unworthy of what is going on. Not to mention a historical flight of fancy.

In conversing with the man, Jesus puts his finger on that which holds him back from abandoning all for the sake of the kingdom. It

was not his riches, rather his inability to put them at the disposal of the kingdom of God that was the problem.

You have heard me talk of one of my heroes before, the German Pastor who stood up against Hitler in the Second World War; Pastor Dietrich Bonheoffer; who paraphrases Jesus’ come and follow him as an invitation to ‘come and die’. There is little wonder that we have sought to misunderstand him, by creating imaginary gates in the Jerusalem city walls. That would be easy, rearranging what we hold close and having Jesus as an add-on. Jesus looks us squarely in the eye and asks us to follow him.

It probably will not be riches, Jesus asks us about.

It could family.

It could be friends.

Career

Where we live

Jesus in our Gospel reading looked the man in the eye and wanted him to follow, to be part of the community of the kingdom. The man chose not to.

What will we do this morning, as Jesus asks us to follow him?