"A Little Deeper"
Mark 10:17-31
October 15, 2006
Saint Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John A. Fleming
I like the story that Max Lucado tells in his book When God Whispers Your Name about the little boy who fell out of bed. Doing that is a common thing. In fact, a few weeks back, Annie Grace fell out of her bed. When the boy's mother heard the thud, the sound of her son hitting the floor, she rushed to him. She comforted him. She helped him back into bed. She put extra pillows up to guard against it happening again. She got him a drink to soothe his fall. When he was tucked back in, she asked him what happened, how he happened to fall out of his bed. This is what he said, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
That is easy to do. It is easy to do in our beds and it is easy to do with our faith. It is tempting just to stay where we got in and never to move. It is easy to stay where we are and not get more involved. It is easy to stay where we are and not to practice spiritual disciplines.
Do me a favor. Pick a time from the not too distant past. Make the time be a year or two ago. If you don't want to go back that far, make the time be six months or so back. When your mind is there, when you remember what your life was like back then, ask yourselves a few pointing questions. Ones like these: "How does my prayer life compare now to the way it was a couple of years ago?" Or ask yourself this, "How is it with my giving to the church? Has the amount increased? And what about my joy in giving, has it increased?" I know, I know, you don't want to spend much time with such a question. Move on to the next one. Ask yourself this, "How is my church attendance now compared to then? Am I coming to worship services more often? I know that being here makes a difference. It makes a difference in me. It makes a difference to our pastor. I know it makes a difference to those around me? How am I doing with that?" By the way it is easier to talk about church attendance than it is about money. Ask another question. Ask this one (and you might need a little help with this one. For this question you might ask someone who knows you well). Ask them this, "Look at me, please. Can you tell me if I have grown, not physically, but spiritually? Have you noticed spiritual growth in me? I know it is a personal thing, but have you noticed it in me? Have you seen it in my actions?"
Spiritual growth in the people he assumed pastoral leadership for was important to Paul. To the Ephesians Paul counseled, "...we must grow up in every way..." To the Hebrews, he wrote, "Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity."
Spiritual growth was important to the apostle. And I want you to hear this. Your spiritual growth is important to me. Our Charge Conference is meeting tonight. One of the questions the bigger church wants to know is how our worship attendance is doing. In these going on five years, attendance has increased from an average of two hundred to an average now of some two hundred and forty-five. This year we are about where we were last year. I am proud of our growth these five years. I am more proud of our Sunday School attendance that is beginning to climb, in part because of our new way of doing Sunday School with our children. I am proud of those of you involved in small groups, from Sunday School to Bible studies and groups like Me Third. I hope more of you will want to be a part of a small group meeting. This is where our growth really is.
Spiritual growth should be our goal. Maturity is mandatory. If my daughter, Julie, stopped growing physically, I'd rush her to the doctor. I would demand tests. I would want to know what was happening with her. I would want to know what was wrong. Because if a baby stops growing, there is a problem. Now, at the risk of sounding like a pastor (which, of course, is who I am) when we stop growing spiritually, there is a problem. Help is needed.
Which is why I wanted us to focus these next three weeks on going deeper. Last year, just before commitment Sunday, we thought together about our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service. This year I want us to take it a step further, a step deeper. And to help us get there I wanted to use our gospel lesson, the story of the rich, young ruler. Well, actually Mark doesn't call this guy a rich, young, ruler. Mark says that he was a man. Matthew has this story and gives us the detail that he was young. Luke's version has him being rich. Combine all of that and you have the story of the rich, young, ruler.
This man came up to Jesus just before he began a journey. He knelt before him and asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" What he really wanted to know was how he could be sure of a place in heaven, once he died.
The crowd that was following Jesus would have known him. In fact, they would have held him us as exemplary. To them, he was a model of what a good person must be like and what a good person must look like. Rulers, you see, were property owners. In the days of Jesus, it was believed that if you followed all of the rules and kept all of the commandments, then God would bless you and God would bless your life. Everyone around you would be able to see it, to notice it. They would see it in the clothes you wore. They would see it in the house you lived in. They would see it in the stuff you have. If you believed that, then you had to believe that the reverse was true. If you did not keep the rules. If you broke the commandments, that would be noticeable, too. All kinds of evil would come upon your life. I know. I know. We don't think this way today. We know better. It is bad theology. But this story is set in a time when that was believed.
So here comes the rich, young man. He falls at the feet of Jesus with a question he must have answered. Some commentators have suggested that he came hoping Jesus would put a rubber stamp on the things he had been doing, giving him assurance that he would have eternal life. I don't think the commentators are right. I think the young man knew something was missing in his life. It was something, I believe, he could not put his finger on. He came looking for what was missing. He was one who was caught up in doing things. He followed the rules. So once the preliminaries are addressed and the idea of goodness is taken care of, the young, rich man is ready. He is ready for the one thing he could do to obtain eternal life. He wants Jesus to give him all of the requirements. He wants to check them off like he would items from in a grocery store once they have been placed in a basket.
Jesus gives him the last five commandments, the ones that have to do with our relationships with other people. The first five, you will remember, have to do with our relationship with God. These are the second five, the ones that have to do with how we relate to others. Jesus said, "You shall not murder." The young man mentally checked that one off of his list. Jesus continued, "You shall not commit adultery." Another check mark for the young man. Jesus said, "You shall not steal." Check. "You shall not bear false witness." Check. "You shall not defraud." "Check." You shall honor your mother and your father." Check. Actually Jesus slipped in an extra commandment. Jesus knew that those with land often defrauded others. The young man answered, "Teacher, I have kept these since my youth."
There's a detail here that you shouldn't miss. Mark tells us that Jesus heard that, looked up at him, and loved him. No where else in the Bible do we get that. Jesus loved him, I think, because he was trying his very best to enter the kingdom, to be a disciple, to do the will of God. Jesus also noticed the one thing in him that kept him from going deeper. He looked at him and said, "You lack one thing. Sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and come follow me."
I hope you are realizing what this story really is. This story is a call story in the biblical genre of all of the other call stories of Jesus. The twelve are set. Jesus has his disciples. But still he calls people. And this young man. This rich man. This ruler of a man has just been called. He has a decision to make. Of all the call stories in the Bible, this is the only one where the one called didn't drop everything and follow. Mark tells us that the man was shocked and that he went away grieving because he had many possessions.
The question that just seems to be begging to be asked out of our lesson is this one, "What is the one thing for us that is lacking of our whole hearted following of Jesus?" I think that I just heard someone think out loud, "One thing, preacher? It'd be great if I just had one thing!"
For the young man, the one thing was his money and his possessions. Of all the subjects Jesus initiated, the one that came up more than the others was our relationship with things. Things in and of themselves are not bad. They become bad when we put them before God. That seems to be the young man's problem. Getting eternal life while putting our things first, says Jesus, is tough. It is so tough, in fact, that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
The problem you see is that we don't own our things, our things tend to own us. I heard about a diamond expert who just happened to be sitting next to woman with an impressive diamond. He asked her about her diamond. He gave his credentials. She said, "This is the famous Klopman diamond. It is one of the largest stones in the world. There is a strange curse that comes with this diamond." The expert was curious so he asked, "What is the curse?" She answered, "Mr. Klopman."
The things we have tend to own us. D.H. Lawrence tells a story of a man and wife who had two small girls their house was nice; the girls had all they needed and the parents worked very hard to provide. In that house there was a whisper, an unspoken phrase that everyone heard but no one acknowledged. It was this whisper. There must be more money. There must be more money.
When Jesus invites the man in our story to have is freedom. He invites him to have freedom from having to have things. He offers freedom from an importance based on the size of his checking account. He offers freedom from the grip that holds him.
Do you want to see freedom? Travel with the family to the bank and watch them pay off the mortgage. Would you like to see freedom? Look at the family after the garage sale is over and the leftover stuff has been taken to the local Goodwill drop off point. That's freedom!
The real question for us this morning is this one, "What is the one thing or what are the several things that keep us from following Jesus all the way?" That is what I would like for you to think about this week. Let us pray.