Sermon by The Rev. Sam Frazier, Vicar

Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Haw River, NC

October 11, 2009

Proper 23, Year B
The Gospel this morning is about one of the nicest people you will ever meet.  This nice person is the rich young man who came running up to Jesus just as Jesus was getting ready to leave for a trip.  Although he was very successful in the business world as a result of cooperating with the Romans who had conquered the country and currently ruled, he was aware of some lack in his own life.  So he came to Jesus at this time, because he recognized in Jesus some depth, some new and exciting and vibrant characteristics, and a powerful quality of life.  And he wanted this life for himself.  He yearned for it.  He suddenly realized that this quality of life in Jesus was what he had been looking for all his life.  An urgency possessed him.  He could not wait any longer.  He wanted a short cut to achieve immediate gratification.  So he asked Jesus, “What must I do for my life to be like yours?”

“You know what to do,” Jesus replied.  “Keep the commandments.”

“But I have kept them all my life,” the man maintained.  He must have smiled at that point, smiled because keeping the commandments had been easy for him.  He came from a good family and had strong religious education, and he persevered.  So it had been a comfortable life for him.

But then Jesus moved out of the man’s comfort zone and into his pain zone.  He said: “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor.”

The man frowned.  This was not something he was prepared to do.  He just could not do it!  Then it suddenly dawned on him that his wealth was actually the most important thing in his life, and that he was not prepared to give it up.  He had worked too hard to gain it!

In the time of Jesus, Jewish sects, such as the community responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, often referred to themselves as “the poor” as a way of claiming for themselves the special relationship between God and the poor spoken of in scripture.  Christians continued this practice, and one Jewish-Christian sect even called itself “Ebionites” from the Hebrew word for “poor.”  Mark knew about this early practice and drew upon it to underscore the radical break from the world that was required of those who wished to follow Jesus.  The rich young man went away disappointed, disappointed because he could not bear to give up his wealth.  So he walked away from Jesus, unable to give up all those things in his life that did not really matter, unable to give them up because he had allowed them to become too important in his life.

I think that this rich young religious man is very much like you and like me.  He was a good man.  We like to think we are good people.  And we are.  We do the right thing a lot of the time.  We are patriotic and loyal.  We take care of our own.  We reach out to help our neighbors.  We contribute to good causes.

All of this is well and good, but there is a problem.  The problem is that we care about the poor and about those around us who are in need and about injustice, but we never let those needs get too close to us.  We keep them at arm’s length.  The young man who comes to Jesus is very much like you and me.  He, like us, is seeking eternal life.  And Jesus loved this man.  The Gospel says it plainly.  But Jesus detected in the rich young man a preoccupation with himself and with his own spirituality.  He told Jesus that he had kept all the commandments.  Now the man did not claim that his observance had been perfect, but it had been sincere.  Any lapses were certainly not intended, and he had never rejected God’s commandments as a way of rebelling against authority or what he might perceive as limits to his personal freedom.  There was none of this.

Jesus looked at the man and saw great possibilities.  He would give the young man the same call that he had given to Peter, Andrew, James and John, his most trusted students.  They had left all that they owned and followed Jesus, and in the end they would find their reward.  But first, in this young man’s case, one important thing must be determined.  Does he own his property, or does his property own him?  There is only one way to be sure.  Jesus asks if the rich young man could live without his wealth.  Could he give it away, give it all to the poor in exchange for an unseen treasure in an unseen heaven?  The young man turns away from Jesus and goes off in great sadness.  Jesus was asking too much.  In the final analysis, his property owned the rich young man.

It is not easy to give ourselves to God, and the more we have to give, the harder it is.  But there is no time to be lost.  Come, follow, are words of decision and action.  Our lord is already on the path.  He is leading us, and he calls us to fall in step behind him.  We do not know where we are going, but we do not need to know.  We are simply called to come to Jesus and to follow him.

Can a camel fit through a hole scarcely large enough for a man to walk through?  Maybe.  But the process would be terribly humiliating for the camel.  It would have to crawl through the dirt, grunting, snorting and complaining as it inched through the narrow passage.  Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus did not have anything against wealth, just against what it can do to people.  Wealth of all kinds often makes people like camels.  They become proud to the point of loftiness, vain beyond reason, so arrogant as to be unapproachable.  Their attention becomes focused on their own worlds, while the lives of others go unnoticed.  Pray that this is not a description of us.  The Gospel message comes close to home: our property, our possessions are not our own.  We have a responsibility to share them.  Let us pray that when we are challenged to share, that we do not walk away from Jesus in sorrow.

In the next few weeks each of us will be challenged to be good stewards of all that we have.  We will be asked to pledge our money, our time, and our skills to the church over the next year.  Let us pray that we do not turn away from the challenge!  AMEN.