October 13, 2024 – Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost
Rev. Gary Percesepe
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the good news from the bad. “Grace,” said Martin Luther, “often wounds from behind.” Sometimes what you think is God’s harsh judgment on you turns out to be an act of God’s love. Sometimes grace and judgment are different moments of the same thing.[1]
In our text this morning, six words hold the key. Addressing a man who had questioned him about how to inherit eternal life, the text says Jesus, looking on him, loved him. And then Jesus unloaded on him, what he surely did not want to hear, because he went away sorrowful. Harsh words, Jesus had for him, but Mark lets us know—looking on him, Jesus loved him.
Only a friend can teach you really important things in life. Why? Because only a friend knows how to hurt you in the right way! Sometimes it’s hard to tell the good news from the bad.
Mark casually mentions that Jesus was continuing “down the road.” We know where that road goes. In a few short chapters, it ends at the cross. As he begins his fateful journey, Jesus encounters a man with many possessions who is religiously inclined, who tries to engage Jesus into a discussion about eternal life. But Jesus isn’t dealing. He seems to have a short fuse for these well fixed, inquisitive types. The Ivy League is full of them. Jesus tells him to go obey all the commandments and then come back and they can talk.
The man startles Jesus by saying, “Oh, I’ve obeyed all the commandments since I was a kid in Sunday School. Never broken a one.” High achiever. Merit scholar!
Jesus really socks it to him when he says, “I love you, and because I love you so much I’m going to give you something I don’t give just everybody. I want you to go, sell everything you’ve got, give it to the poor, and then come follow me.”
Mark shows us the man slumped, depressed. He climbs back into his Porsche and leaves, shocked by what he heard. Grieved. He lost interest in the subject and dropped the course.
And Jesus is heard to say, “Man, it is hard to save these rich young ones.”
“How hard is it, Jesus,” asks his disciples.
“It’s about as hard to get a fully loaded camel through the eye of a needle! Impossible! Of course, with God, I suppose anything is possible, even this.”
What do we have here, good news or bad? Well, speaking as an ordinary American with way too much stuff, I can tell you it sounds like bad news to me.
A seeker comes to Jesus to be taught, and he flunks out early. The man refuses, and the reason is money. Bad news, right?
But wait. Where does this story end? With the man’s rejection and departure? No. Peter blurts out, “Lord, we have left everything—homes, family, friends—and we have followed you!”
Peter protests, “Lord, we are not like that guy who asked you idle theological questions out of his sense of privilege and entitlement! We didn’t slink away at the first sign of conflict! You called us and we followed you! We let go of a lot to join up with you. We left everything—job, family, friends—the comforts of home. We stayed the course. We kept at it. We’re still here.”
And then Jesus says, “Rejoice.”
That’s how the story ends. Not with rejection, depression, grief, but in Jesus’s glad promise, when he says “I promise you, for everything you have given up, I will give you much more. For everything you’ve turned your back on, I’ll give you ten times more. Rejoice!”
Looking out on this congregation today, I want you to know that I see you as you are—contemporary disciples trying to follow Jesus. I see a man working multiple jobs to pay tuition for his kid; I’ve seen those who turned down a promotion to devote time to family. Today I see a gifted woman who could have been an architect or a brilliant surgeon; I see the daughter who quit work to look after her mother, even though that mother verbally abused her since childhood. I see you.
Even though they know where this journey ends, there are a few Christians in every church who contemplate how they will look up on wood, and they follow anyway. And to you, Jesus says, “Rejoice.”
Rejoice, despite the difficulties. Jesus has told us the truth. Not what we want to hear but what we needto hear, which is what true friends do. We give it all up and follow, not worrying about where it all leads. Whenever we forget about ourselves and all our puny sorrows, we’re able to rejoice, because despite all the difficulties, Jesus has told us the truth. He’s stripped away the baubles and the meaningless dreck to which you cling. Now you cling only to him, Gary. To him, church! Leave your good Christian life behind and follow Christ! Jesus is drawing us through that narrow needle’s eye towards the way that leads to eternal life.
You see, with God, all things really are possible. Amene.
[1] Will Willimon, Lectionary Sermon Resource, Year B Volume 2, p. 197ff. I’m grateful to Will Willimon for his commentary on this pericope, elements of which I have freely borrowed and adapted, as Will begs us to do. He’s a preacher’s preacher. Mahalo, Will.