A Sermon Delivered by Pastor Keith Swatzel at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey October 11, 2009

Mark 10:17-31

I like to please people most of the time. I rarely take pleasure in a frown or enjoy a ridiculing laugh. I confess that I continually seek approval and acceptance, especially from the people that I respect the most. If I feel especially intimidated, I feel like I could crawl through a field of glass shards just to get it. Certain people just do not allow you to get the acceptance you want. We all know someone, whether a relative, colleague, friend, or mentor. This person just refuses to give praise, instead challenging you to do better. This person is annoying and irritating, and considers a leisurely crawl through glass on hands and knees a beginner’s task. It is a very rigid enforcement, a no pain no gain way of life.

My last math class in high school was painful. It was not painful because of my classmates or even because of the curriculum. Indeed I was a little nervous but excited to take college algebra in high school. But people talk and I had heard quite a bit from the rumor mill. Ours was no ordinary teacher. I saw friends tear up at the slightest mention of her name. They spoke of thunder and lightning and the fear of GOD. She was god in that classroom. The first day of class, 26 awkward and gawky teenagers sat, thumb twiddling and knees trembling. We knew all too much what to expect. The door slammed open and there she stood, Stone Cold Stella. I was relieved to discover that she was actually human and passionate about her work. I followed her and made countless mistakes. I never once did enough to satisfy her, not because she was mean, but because she wanted me to keep growing.

The gospel of Mark shows us the never satisfied, stone cold leadership of Jesus Christ. The disciples are often bewildered, dazed, confused, frustrated, and ignorant. They are never good enough. They seek approval and acceptance time and time again, but Jesus is not interested in mere acceptance. Jesus is not content to set such a low bar of expectation for his followers. Followers of Jesus Christ are pushed to go above and beyond the ordinary, routine demands of life. Following Jesus is not about maintaining an institution or a list of priorities. Following Jesus has everything to do with the impossible, the unimaginable, the seemingly out of reach vision of justice, kindness, and humility. It is a vision of righteousness and mercy in a world of selfishness and wickedness.

Jesus, the teacher is busy, busy leaping over the walls of human limitation. He is healing the sick, feeding enormous crowds, walking on water, and teaching about the nature of the Kingdom of God. Jesus sets out on a journey. He’s not going to a resort, an encampment, or a beach house. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to face the ultimate human limitation, death. As we might imagine, a lot is running through his mind. Can I truly bare the suffering of what seems even to me to be an impossible burden? Are these people worth it? Why is it that no one understands what I am doing?

Enters the rich man. He does not approach Jesus while the crowds are there to listen. This rich man waits until Jesus leaves the crowd. Is it because he is an outcast, rejected and abandoned by society? Or could it be that he has done something so vile, so disgusting that he knows presenting himself in public to Jesus will only invite condemnation? Whatever the motive, this rich man comes to Jesus with a question he desperately wants the answer to. We know this because he has risked mixing with the very crowd he is uncomfortable with to get his answer. It is not out of the realm of possibility that many gave him looks of contempt and hurled insults at him in passing. This rich man is willing to risk at least some of his pride to get his answer.

Jesus must also know something of this man’s peculiar situation. The rich man devises a way around that. He throws himself down to the ground and on his knees pleads for his answer. He intends to use flattery as a means of coercion to get the answer that he wants. Yet Jesus is nothing like him. Jesus is not a man of pride. Jesus is a man who gets down on his hands and knees to reach those that cannot come up to him. But this rich man is lying about his enormous pride as he lies on the ground. He asks Jesus the big question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is it. He crawled through that field of glass, that crowd of haters, he endured the stares and the never-ending borage of insults, prostrated himself before Jesus, and left his own image of self-worth to ask it.

What will Jesus do? What will he say? If the rich man had not thrown himself to the ground to flatter Jesus, he surely would be there now, brought to his knees in anticipation of this moment. Everything hinges on what Jesus decides to say. It is an unbearable situation of helplessness for a man who is accustomed to making his own decisions about everything. The rich man sticks his fist in his mouth as Jesus answers. “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” This is great! Another line-item list! I’m off the hook! Jesus thinks just like I do. My lawyer will be so proud! The rich man gets up off the ground and filled with pride says, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” The rich man is once again in the in-crowd. He has gotten exactly what he wanted. It has turned out better than he imagined in his wildest dreams.

The rich man missed it. Jesus’ words, as often is the case, are a double-edged sword. We recognize these commandments as some of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses. You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother. Where did the commandment do not defraud come from? This is not one of the Ten Commandments. In fact, in the same story of the rich man in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, do not defraud is nowhere to be found. Why is this here? Did Jesus make a mistake? Did Mark misunderstand? Perhaps we can find some deep meaning in the unique words of Jesus in Mark. A brief search of the Hebrew Bible for the word defraud points to Leviticus 19: 13, “You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.” Jesus and the rich man both knew this commandment from Leviticus, but what does it mean?

We can enrich our understanding if we listen to Jesus’ follow-up answer. The rich man is beaming, gloating, gleaming. He feels accepted. He’s gotten his approval. He is wrong. Jesus seeks to help him understand saying, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The rich man is taken by surprise. What just happened? He cannot possibly part with his money. He cheated and stole to get it. In the first century, anyone who was wealthy was a corrupt collaborator with the Roman Empire, people who nail human beings to wood for saying things they do not approve of. The rich man is hated by the community because he cheats the community. This is why he so desperately seeks Jesus’ approval. He failed to catch Jesus’ radical vision of the Kingdom of God and instead focused on his own needs and wants. He got bogged down in books and budgets and money and it drove him to spiritual destruction.

This past week I went to seminary chapel to hear the words of Bishop Jane Ann Middleton. I confess I do not remember much of what she said because very early in her talk something stuck in my mind. She spoke of the new campaign to ‘Rethink church.’ A picture appeared on the screen of many doors and I got lost in thought. I began to remember the first time I walked into the church doors of a United Methodist Church some 5 years ago. I was so nervous and afraid. I felt that I did not deserve to be at a church. I did not know anyone. It truly was like crawling through shards of glass to go inside. All I wanted was a place of approval and acceptance, a community that would honor my existence as a child of God and help me in my journey to God. I was fragile and vulnerable. Now as I have changed over time I have forgotten how it felt to walk into that open door. I worry more about jumping through hoops to be ordained and balancing my checkbook to provide for my family. I feel that at times I defraud, I cheat people. I fail to show them the radical, challenging, stone cold, never satisfied Christ that expects growth, not complacency. I often fall short of God’s vision for me.

What about God’s vision for the church? Too often churches are in the business of maintaining and not growing. I am not talking about membership or budget. In fact, that is precisely the problem. All churches talk about are numbers. We are called by Christ to grow, to be constantly challenged. By the example of Jesus Christ, vision always precedes maintenance. The driving force of the church should never be any form of administration, but every form of imagination. How is the Spirit moving here? Are people crawling through glass shards to get here? How much of our conversation as a church has to do with line-items and how much has to do with the transformative power of Jesus Christ? Even as we want to make a laundry list of priorities, church is not about a list. Church is about being the Kingdom of God. We are empowered to follow Christ, to create, to recreate, to change. Christ is challenging us, pushing us to consider new possibilities and take some risks.

I give thanks to God for all those who serve our church and for the abundant grace afforded us by God in Jesus Christ. God has a vision for each one of us and for this community of faith. Let us truly imagine and embody that vision. Let us be bold. Let us be renewed. Let us be transformed.