When Asked to do a Hard Thing
I spent a week of vacation on Hatteras Island, one fragile part of the network of barrier islands that make up the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is a place I have returned to many times since 1998 – my first visit when my youngest was 6 months old. She’s now 23.
I use the word fragile to describe the landscape. And I try to hold onto that word. Because indeed, it is a fragile ecology, dunes shifting annually, roads washing out, houses succumbing to surf, new inlets opening, boating channels shifting and changing with each tide. It is fragile space.
And it is a fragile human community whose economy has been rooted over decades in tourism, tourism that can take a heavy toll on the fragile wisp of sand.
It is a fragile human community that also wrestles with ideas of liberty – the rights of residents to drive on the beaches vs. the rights of endangered shore birds and turtles to nest on those same beaches.
So every time I am there, I consider the tension between what nature will do and what humanity will do, and I give thanks for the opportunity to experience the fragility and I try to do what is in my power to do no harm, knowing that is a complicated mix of contributing to the local economy so that families who have lived there for generations might thrive, and so that God’s creation might continue to shift and change and also thrive….to be good and fruitful and beautiful and wild.
When I am more stark, less generous with myself, I consider the tension of my deep desire to soak in a week or two of this perfect place against the cost it has for the environment…feeding a system of entitled tourism that will ultimately decimate this fragile spot.
It is in that stirred up space that I arrive at our gospel text for this morning. Hang with me.
This week from Mark’s gospel we are faced with a teaching that is hard to understand, and hard to swallow – especially here in this Faith church community where many might identify economically with the man who seeks Jesus’ counsel.
We begin with a man approaching Jesus seeking counsel (and maybe assurances) about what must be “done” to inherit eternal life.
We’ve talked a bit about the uniqueness of Mark’s gospel over the past weeks – it is brief, and Jesus is often very direct in his teaching. There is no mincing words. That means that the details that are recorded matter.
First, the man refers to Jesus as “good teacher,” and Jesus redirects in his response – only God is good. This is another characteristic of Mark’s gospel – Jesus redirecting attention and honor to God alone.
Jesus then begins to respond to the man’s question by highlighting the need to keep specific commandments – the fifth through 9th, adding another about fraud that is elsewhere in Deuteronomy. These commandments specifically have to do with the wholeness of the community – the well-being of ALL in the community, because communal well-being is God’s intention, God’s shalom.
Jesus teaches that this interpretation of the Law – that which keeps the community whole and healthy – is the heart of faithfulness. It is not about our well-being individually, it is about the good of the whole.
The man indicates he’s been attentive to those commandments all his life.
The text next has an interesting detail – “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”. The translation from original Greek indicates that Jesus looked him in the eye with love. There is something very genuine about this man’s inquiry and his belief that he has fulfilled the law that Jesus responds to with love. Maybe with compassion…feeling the pangs with the man.
And then as Jesus looks at him lovingly, he delivers the hard truth – you must give up your possessions. Sell what you own, give your money to the poor and follow me.
And the text says the man went away grieving, “because he had many possessions.”
Jesus then turns to his disciples to explain that it will be hard for those with many possessions to enter the kingdom of God – as hard as a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
That sounds impossible to me. It did to the disciples too.
And I wonder what is hardest – those with many giving up what they have or giving it up for the good of others?
Next Jesus once again returns the focus to God – he says that what is impossible for humans is notimpossible for God.
For God, the impossible is possible.
So somehow, God makes it possible for people to enter the kingdom of God…even when they don’t “do” all they should.
It’s not our work. It’s God’s work.
This is another core teaching in this text that we must hold onto.
We enter the kingdom of God because of God’s grace, not our own works.
So then, might the man who walked away still have a chance at eternal life? The text certainly leaves that possibility on the table, I think.
Peter, always with a response, seems to be clamoring for Jesus’ approval. He points out that the 12 have given up their possessions to follow Jesus. And Jesus affirms that sacrifice. Then Jesus delivers a specific understanding of salvation – the first will be last and the last will be first. There will be new family and new life for those who have been last in this worldly life.
Now in Jewish culture at the time this was recorded, much as today, there was a certain societal expectation that material gain was some mark of blessing or favor. Jesus really turns that upside down here – and if we go back to how he keeps pointing to God, he’s turning it upside down by suggesting that God’s in control and will make it so.
There is so much going on here. And let’s face it. This text makes so many of us uncomfortable.
Because some of us resemble the man, right? The one who has a hard time giving up his possessions? I know I do.
Did you know that by global standards, to be “rich” is to have net worth in excess of $100k and annual income of $40k?
That certainly puts me in the category. How about you?
Of course I squirm a bit considering this passage. How about you?
Let’s revisit some key teachings here and how they come together in this text.
First, Jesus highlights that eternal life with God is connected to caring for the whole community. And this means the moral fabric, the holy fabric and also the economic fabric.
Next, clinging to possessions somehow limits the ability of those with a lot of possessions to enter the kingdom of God.
AND…what is impossible for us as humans is NOT impossible for God.
(Everybody breathe a sigh of relief – there is some hope after all!)
I wonder, do we trust God to do what God promises to do?
Does that somehow free us from responsibility to others?
Do we hold onto things (things like money and time and talent) in this life because we’re hedging a bet?
What comfort does our stuff or our free time offer to us that our relationship with God does not offer to us?
Do we imagine being able to have both – security rooted in our worldly possessions and full possession of our time and talent AND security rooted in a relationship with God? Do we want to have our cake and eat it too?
It is important to hear this teaching as one that is FULL of tension.
The man’s inability to let go of his possessions seems to indicate a lack of trust in God somehow. Or maybe a need to have stuff and to have God.
I said up front this is a hard teaching. And it is a very specific teaching. It is an example of Jesus being in a specific relationship and teaching a specific person a specific thing. And yet, it is here in our scriptures and so we have to ask, what does this teaching say to US? To each of us individually in our relationship with the triune God and to us as a community in our call to be in relationship with our neighbors?
I wish I could tie this all up with a bow and say, when we read this text, we learn this…
But it is just not that easy. We are called into the hard place of finding how this text speaks to each of our hearts, our unique situations, our current state of relationship to being in control of our time, our talent and our treasure.
And…in the complexity of the teaching, there is a reminder that what feels hard and impossible to us IS NOT impossible for God.
So we need to sit with that too.
This text is an excellent starting point for work our stewardship team is asking of us as a community this year. This text calls us into hard questions and tension that is intended for our journey with God.
Specifically, the stewardship team has created a journal – A Question of Generosity, that challenges us to 40 days of reflecting on scripture and thought-provoking questions about our relationship to our resources – resources that include our money, our possessions, our time and our talents. For forty days we will seek to explore how we cultivate gratitude and a sense of abundance.
Because it turns out that learning to live with this challenge – the challenge of how we live in relationship with God, seeking the shalom of community, while having possessions – is a lifelong journey of learning and growing and becoming. It is a lifelong journey of finding the next best step on our journey of growth with God.
Today, you can pick up a journal for your household – if you are joining us online, you can expect to see one in the mail very soon. The prompts begin this Wednesday, October 13 and continue through November 21. Monday through Saturday, you’ll receive an email from Faith in which a co-journeyer shares their response to the prompt for that day. If you are interested in sharing a response to one of the prompts, I ask that you be in touch with Jan Spencer who will share the schedule and process with you.
I want to give a shout out to the stewardship team and particularly to Melissa Lauber and Jan Spencer who have brainstormed and produced a really robust journey for our growth in this season. They have already given very generously of their talent and time to make this journey possible, and we can show our appreciation by leaning in and participating fully in the journey ourselves.
I want to take us back for just a moment to that thin and fragile stretch of sand called Hatteras Island. As I sat there in the warm sun, listening to the sound of the surf and seagulls and shore birds, as I walked past huge homes and turtle nesting sanctuaries, as I heard the local shopkeepers beg tourist to wear masks into their stores so that year round residents could survive and thrive, I had to wrestle with the question of resources.
And it was hard. And it shapes me. And I am still sitting in the tension. Present with the questions of what is mine and what is God’s.
And I know I need to keep journeying with those questions in community. I need to live in the tension and do my best. And I need to do no harm. And I need to recognize what God has done and is doing and will do. I need to do the work. Day in and day out.
And so do we all.
May it be so.
Amen.
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