Well...hello again!
Hurricane Helene was supposed to smash Tallahassee with Category 4 or at least high Cat 3 winds and rain on September 26th. Instead...it clobbered Florida's Big Bend Coast...and followed Idalia's path through Valdosta...up to Augusta and Savannah...and finally causing the predicted landslides in the southern Apalachian mountains. Asheville, North Carolina's downtown became a river. And towns such as Chimney Rock were completely destroyed.
It's been hard and awful. And it hasn't helped to have people peddling lies and conspiracy theories about FEMA trying to take people's homes...and others putting out weather maps depicting mythical storms forming in the Gulf of Mexico.
Back in Valdosta, power lines and substations were down...utility poles snapped like toothpicks...and roofs and homes damaged by the winds. St. Barnabas was without power to the church for a little over a week; although our parish hall came back online after about four days...allowing us to offer a place for folks to go to charge their phones and sit in the AC.
All of that to say: last week's sermon was mostly a time to talk about what had happened. The week before we couldn't meet and even if we had wanted to...some folks literally would not be able to get to church because there was a tree blocking their driveway or their street.
So here's this week sermon...largely based on Mark 10:17-31...and the rich young man who wants to know what he has to do to have eternal life. Enjoy!
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“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
We’ve probably all heard that phrase at one time or another.
The band Aerosmith used it a song in the 1990s called “Amazing.”
Steven Tyler…the lead singer… wrote:
“Life’s a journey, not a destination and I can’t tell what tomorrow
brings.”
There’s lots of theories on where that phrase came from originally.
The most likely source seems to be that a pastor named Lynn Hough
used it when he was doing a Sunday school teaching back in the 1920s about the
apostle Peter.
Regardless of who came up with that phrase and when…it’s the one
that kept coming back to me as I looked over our readings this week.
We’ve been slowly recovering from a major hurricane…and praying for
others as yet-another one slammed Florida this past week.
Lights are on again.
Off again.
And then back on again.
Our nerves have been given a jolt every time some bad actor or
conspiracy theorist decides to go on the internet and peddle lies about new
storms…and raise doubts about the helpers sent to assist us with the real ones.
As linemen and women work to untangle power lines from downed
trees…and broken power poles snapped like toothpicks…thousands…even millions of
people…are sweaty…hot…tired…and bothered.
We humans are not always the best at being patient…especially when
we’re uncomfortable.
The journey lately has certainly been rocky and fraught with
difficulty.
Like Job…and our psalmist…we lament.
We want a quick fix…and we want it now.
“My God, my God: where is our air-conditioning?”
“Haven’t we been good people?
What else must we do to get our power back on and to stay on?”
What else must we do.
That’s where we find our rich man coming to Jesus in the Gospel of
Mark.
He wants to know, “Good teacher, what must I do to
inherit eternal life?”
Isn’t there something that I can do?
We can almost picture Jesus raising an eyebrow at this question.
What must he do?
Jesus takes this in and goes ahead and tells the man to basically
keep the commandments that he presumably already knows.
But that’s not what the rich man is after.
He wants to know…”What’s the quickest way to get to the destination…to
get and possess eternal life?”
He’s impatient. He already knows all about the journey…the whole don’t
murder, don’t bear false witness, honor your father and mother, yadda yadda
yadda.
He wants to know: What else must he do?
Again….I’m thinking that Jesus’ eyebrows must be permanently up at
his forehead.
The rich man has completely misunderstood the mission.
Because none of this is about doing; it’s about being.
It’s about how one is living right now to make things better in the
world right now.
It’s about the journey…being in communion with all of creation….the
expansion of friends and family.
It’s about that sense of belonging that manifest both when life is
going great…and learning how to make lemonade when life delivers us a bushel of
lemons.
I think we all get caught up in this same misconception that we
must “do” something to receive what is already available to us in the form of
God’s grace.
We tend to think that grace is some sort of commodity that we can
only have if we do something more…something extra…beyond simply
being and living a life based on Love.
But the thing is we can’t do anything to earn the gift that is
freely given.
And there’s no short cut or “get grace quick” fix.
What Jesus offers to this man…and what is offered to us…is the
invitation to stay on the journey and not worry so much about the destination.
And that requires us to change our perspective of what it means to
inherit eternal life.
Eternal life is in the present…not some future “when I get to
heaven” sort of thing.
How are we moving…living and having our being right now as people
of God?
Like the disciples and this rich man…we can so easily get deluded
into thinking that “grace” equals “material rewards.”
That’s the terrible theology of the prosperity gospel… that somehow
having lots of money and “things” is proof of God’s love.
But the reward that Jesus is promising has nothing to do with money
or more stuff.
And that’s the rub for the rich man.
Jesus has burst his belief bubble…and challenged a whole system of
believing that equated wealth and status with living in God’s favor.
It’s what Job has gotten wrong in his ranting and raving at God in
our First Lesson.
Job…like the rich man…like Peter…and like us mistake that having
material things signals God’s favor.
But a life of faith is not a guarantee of only good things in life.
In fact… to follow Jesus is to join with him…
At the bedside of a sick relative…
In the grief of a spouse…
With the person who has lost a home…or their job
To cry out in those words we
remember Jesus said on the cross:
“My God! My God! Why have
you forsaken me?”
It’s too bad we didn’t hear all of Psalm 22…because the psalmist
knows…that even in this moment of agony… that God is still there…
Later in Psalm 22 at the 23rd verse we hear:
“for he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; but when they cry out to him he hears
them.”
Because God shows up for us…and in us.
God becomes known and seen and experienced when we help each other.
When we come alongside a person…whether it’s a family
member…friend…or stranger…and lend an ear or place our hand on their shoulder…that
is the way…the truth… and the life… of being Jesus.
That sort of loving kindness is a manifestation of God’s Love in
the here and now.
Companionship…compassion…are the riches we get on this journey.
Journeying together through the valley of the shadow of death makes
that trek a lot less lonely and frightening.
Be willing to let someone be the embodiment of Jesus for us makes
us a whole lot more human.
In the name of our one holy and undivided Trinity.
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