The Gospel isn’t meant to be gulped down on Sunday morning, but gnawed on through the week so it really becomes a part of us. You’ve got to work at it, like a dog with a good bone! Here’s the Gospel for this coming Sunday — the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost — with food for thought about what we own and what owns us. Gnaw away!

Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost – Mark 10:17-31

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, someone came running up and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to share in everlasting life?” Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: No killing. No committing adultery. No stealing. No bearing false witness. No defrauding. Honor your mother and your father.”

The other replied, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my childhood.”

Then Jesus looked at the person with love and said, “There is one thing more that you must do. Go and sell what you have and give it to those in need; you will then have treasure in heaven. After that, come and follow me.”

At these words, the inquirer, who owned much property, became crestfallen and went away sadly.

Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, “How hard it is for rich people to enter the kindom of God!”

The disciples could only marvel at these words. So Jesus repeated what he had said: “My children, how hard it is to enter the realm of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the Needle’s Eye gate than for a rich person to enter the kindom of God!”

The disciples were amazed at this and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible – but not for God. With God all things are possible.”

Peter was moved to say to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!”

Jesus answered, “The truth is, there is no one who has left home, sisters or brothers, mother or father, children or fields for me and for the sake of the Gospel who won’t receive a hundred times as much in this present age – as many homes, siblings, parents, children and property, though not without persecution – and, in the age to come, everlasting life.

“Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

The Backstory – What’s Going On Here?

Chapter 10 in Mark is the journey to Jerusalem. Jesus knows Jerusalem means the cross … and so the closer they get, the higher the stakes of following Jesus there get. Luke uses the transition phrase “Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem” … so from this point forward everything is about the cross. Mark doesn’t use that phrase, but the effect is still the same.

This reading tells us that this encounter happens just as Jesus is setting out on this journey and so it sets the stage for everything that is to come. And the message is simple — what Jesus offers is ultimate risk/ultimate reward. There could not be higher stakes or higher sacrifice required for following Jesus — to the point of giving up everything we have. But there could also not be a higher reward …. having treasure in heaven and living as a part of the kindom of God.

That this journey ends at the cross should surprise no one. And yet it still does.

A few things to chew on:

*” Good Teacher, what must I do to share in everlasting life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” — The inquirer addresses Jesus as “good teacher” … a respectful way to address a rabbi, a teacher of the Law. But Jesus quickly discounts that greeting and shifts the focus. This is not about him being a teacher, even a good one, teaching
how to live within some rules God has set. Jesus has just said in the conversation about divorce that the Law was an accommodation to our humanity. Jesus is here to lead us directly into the heart of God. Jesus is here not just to be a “good teacher” but to bring out the image of God that is inside and upon each one of us. To chip and cast away everything else so that all that remains is us as God sees us and dreams for us to be.

*” Then Jesus looked at the person with love” — There are lots of other verbs that could be in the place of “love” here. Jesus could have looked at the person with scorn, pity, anger, ridicule … you can fill in the blank yourself. But we are told, “Jesus looked at the person with love.” Jesus loved the person as a prerequisite to telling him the most difficult truth Jesus had to tell. Jesus loved the person before he shared something with him that was going to cause the person sorrowfully to go away from Jesus — presumably forever. In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott says: “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay exactly the way we are.” Jesus loved this person enough to tell them a truth they needed to hear, even though it might end their relationship. In the church, we are called to “love one
another as Jesus loves us.” Is this how we love one another?

Try This:

Jesus’ challenge is about possessions. But the root of any question about possessions is not so much about what we own, but about what owns us.

Jesus is inviting us into a new way of being … a way of being where our identity is not wrapped up in anything else but being God’s beloved child. Everything — and Jesus means everything – else falls by the wayside.

The words Jesus hears at his baptism are the words he says to us.

You are my beloved. You are my beloved. You are my beloved.

Nothing else matters.

If we don’t trust that we are known and loved by God, it’s pretty much impossible to give up everything … or even anything! So this week, let’s just work on that piece.

For a few minutes at the beginning of each day and a few minutes at the end of each day, take some time in silence. Pray with the phrase from this Gospel:

“Jesus, looking at him(or her or them), loved him (or her or them).”

Let Jesus look at you and love you. Then let yourself look on Jesus and ask Jesus to help you know God better. The “leave everything and follow me” piece will still be there later.

For now, for this week. Just try this.

The Kindom of God

You might have noticed a slight change in our worship language over the past couple years at All Saints Church. We’ve dropped one letter – and turned Kingdom to Kindom.

The difference is important. Kingdom is feudal language of a male God who is apart from us, rules over us, rewards us when we are good and punishes us when we are bad.

Kindom is something different entirely.

Kindom is not about ruling but about relationship. It is about a God who is not apart from us but who is “God with us.” The Kindom of God is the human family bound together by relationships of deep love, all in with each other, knowing that what happens to one happens to all.

The Kindom of God is not a place but a way of being … a way of being of the greatest joy. There is no anxiety in the Kindom of God because we’ve got each other’s backs so completely that nobody has anything to fear. And liberated from anxiety, we are free to live and love and create.

No fear. No need to hold anything back. No need for anything but love.

That’s the Kindom of God.

And then Jesus says this: “How hard it is for rich people to enter the Kindom of God!”
Jesus isn’t saying that wealth is bad or that people with wealth are evil. He is saying that when we hold onto wealth … when we believe that riches are our possession … a couple things happen.

First, we are tempted to believe the myth of self-sufficiency. When we have wealth we depend on our own wealth – and not on one another – to live, thrive and survive. And that means we close ourselves off to the reality of the Kindom of God – that we get to depend not on ourselves but on one another.

That leads us into the second trap of wealth – fear and anxiety. When we have wealth and we believe that our survival and thriving depends on us keeping our wealth … and acquiring more … we become anxious and fearful about losing our wealth and we hold onto it more tightly.

And the more tightly we hold onto wealth, the more we cut ourselves off from the joy of sharing the wealth of creation with one another. The harder it is to “enter the Kindom of God.”

What would the Kindom of God look like at All Saints Church? Pretty amazing. It would be a community where everyone is housed, clothed and fed. Where everyone has education and medical care. Where everyone is known and loved. Where any wounds were healed together and any challenges were met together.

Do you know what would not be a part of this community?

Fear. Anxiety.

Because we wouldn’t ever have to fear our basic needs being met … or being outcast … or being alone.

We can be this church. We can be this community. We become it as we How could this be? decide we aren’t going to let it be otherwise.

We become this kindom as we decide that we are going to be liberated from fear and anxiety.

We become this kindom as we decide we are going to live not in the fear of Kingdom but in the joy of Kindom.

That’s how we enter the Kindom of God.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Check out the rest of Sunday’s readings

The Lectionary Page has all of the readings for this Sunday and every
Sunday – click here for this Sunday’s readings.

Collect for Sunday

Pray this throughout the week as you gnaw on this Gospel.

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may
continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.