Rev. Cari Pattison
Woodstock Reformed Church
Sunday, October 10, 2021
“How much are you willing to lose?”
Mark 10:17-31
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 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.'"
He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words.
But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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."
They were greatly astounded 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; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions — and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Before I got a dog, there are a bunch of things I swore I’d never do:
I would never have pet names for my pet.
I would never let him get on furniture.
I would never buy him fancy lamb and venison treats from New Zealand. (Okay, I am not sure I knew those were a thing).
I would never post countless “cute pet pictures” on social media.
I would never take a dog to a restaurant.
I would never bring a dog on a date.
And now? I can neither confirm nor deny- that I have done most- if not all of these things- in the past two months. And I’m not saying they’re all a good idea.
But sometimes when a good thing comes into your life, you’re suddenly willing to let go of your former ways. The things you prided yourself on.
Today’s sermon is titled, “How much are you willing to lose?”
Because what Jesus is asking us, in this passage today, is to be ready and willing to lose something.
***
“How much are you willing to lose?” can mean a number of different things.
This question was put to me last month, by a woman I met on the Appalachian Trail- at a campsite in Cheshire, Massachusetts.
Ollie and I had gotten in late, after a long day of hiking, with rain looming in the clouds. A couple in their 60’s was sitting at a picnic table at the campsite, enjoying a delicious-looking pizza from a nearby restaurant.
They asked me if I wanted a slice, and after 12 miles of uphill hiking there is only one answer to this question.
So as I sat down to eat, I asked the couple their trail names and she said her name was “Happy.” Figuring she must be a naturally positive person, I asked her how she got that name.
She said, “For a big chunk of my life, I was anything but happy. My husband and I lost 3 of our 5 children, in the span of ten years- one due to an infant death in the crib, one due to a car accident, one due to cancer. It was an incomprehensible amount of loss.”
I listened, and couldn’t even wrap my mind around the magnitude of losing 3 children. Happy continued.
She said, “For years I was a shell of myself. All I could think about was the pain, the regret, the ways I wish I could’ve saved each of them, if only I’d done something different.”
“Then finally one day a friend of ours, who’d also lost a child, said to me, ‘You know that most couples who lose a child don’t make it. And many people lose their jobs as well. The pain is too great. You’ve already lost 3 children and you’re on your way to losing a lot more. So you have to decide, how much are you willing to lose?’”
The question cut her to the quick.
She began focusing more attention on her health, her marriage, her work, and her two children still alive in this world. And something slowly shifted. She did not put away all her grief or tears. She did not for a moment forget what she’d lost in this life. But she began to fight for what she still had.
And she found her way to some semblance of “happy.”
***
When you’ve already lost so much, do you really want to lose more?
Sometimes the losses life hands us, make us feel like we have nothing left to lose.
A new friend of mine gave me a poem recently, that says in one stanza:
“We did not want it easy, God,
But we did not contemplate
That it would be quite this hard,
This long, this lonely.”
In this passage today from Mark, I can’t help but wonder if the man who comes to Jesus, rich as he is, might not also be lonely. He comes by himself. He doesn’t mention a family or any friends.
He is so set on proving to Jesus his worthiness, and securing his place in heaven.
***
In ancient times, both in Jewish and pagan religions, wealth and riches were equated with God’s blessing, and a belief in finite resources. 10% of the people owned 90% of the resources- a relatively small elite, in collusion with the Romans. The rest are just subsisting on what they can. The mentality of the man in today’s text, like many still today, is: “God is giving all this favor to me- I must be good. I must deserve it.”
At first this man’s posture and question would seem to indicate an ideal disciple- he kneels before Jesus and praises him. He calls him “Good Teacher.” He says he’s kept the religious law perfectly since his youth.
But Jesus spots his motivation a mile away: he wants to possess the one thing he can’t figure out how to buy on his own. He had everything he wanted in the here and now, but what about later, after life? How could he secure his eternal destiny, be sure that it was as set as his 401(k)?
This man is in the 10%, and basically asks Jesus, “Is eternal life a product I can buy?” He thought he would “inherit” eternal life the way he has received or will receive the family property.
Notice which commandments he names, from the 10: #’s 6-9 (murder, adultery, theft, lying). All commandments relating to basic neighborly behavior. But notice which ones he omits: #’s 1-4, and #10: putting God first, no idols, not taking God’s name in vain, keeping the Sabbath, and not coveting.
What if these commandments he fails to mention, are the very ones keeping him stuck with his own wealth? Shaping the way he makes- and keeps- money?
***
But notice what happens next.
We’re told, “Jesus looked at the man, and he loved him.”
Or in Sarah Ruden’s new translation: “Looking intently at him, Jesus felt affection for him, and told him, ‘You’re missing one thing: come on, everything you have you need to sell and give to the destitute—and you’ll have a storehouse full in the sky—and come and follow me.’”
This is the only time in Mark where it says explicitly that Jesus loves a person. It’s also the only time in Mark that someone meets Jesus directly in a 1-on-1 encounter and doesn’t respond to the Gospel.
Clearly this was a key story for the early church: Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell it.
And then Jesus launches into that famous “camel through the eye of a needle” speech. How many of you have heard a sermon somewhere, sometime, on this image? How was it explained to you?”
I’ve heard people describe “the needle” as a specific gate in Israel-Palestine, that the disciples would’ve been familiar with. It wasn’t impossible to get through- you just had to off-load a few things. Others have explained this passage as only applying to the very rich, who would’ve tried to avoid going through the Needle Gate in the first place.
There are all kinds of ways of trying to explain away why this passage doesn’t apply to us.
After all, no one thinks of himself or herself as “rich.” “Wealth” is always just a few hundred thousand dollars beyond you. But of course, if we look at our lives in the context of the rest of the world, and the history of the world, every one of us sitting here today is among the wealthiest. We do not worry about where our next meal is coming from; we have a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. We live in relative safety.
So Jesus invites this man to give it all up. And the man went away, for he had many possessions, we’re told.
Then Jesus says it will be easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle- in other words- it’s impossible- for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
And the disciples are perplexed- “Then who can be saved?” Weren’t they always taught that wealth equaled God’s blessing?
Jesus says, “For humans it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” He’s always bringing it back to God’s grace.
Then Peter- never one to hold back- says, “Wait a minute- we did what that man couldn’t do! We left behind everything to follow you- nets, families, homes, businesses, everything- so what do we get?”
Ah, Peter. And us. Don’t we sometimes wonder- if we sacrifice something for following Jesus, what’s our reward? What’s the payoff?
***
Again and again, the Gospels tell us:
possession is an illusion-
At the Bruderhof, a nearby intentional Christian community I visited a few weeks ago, one of the older members put it straight to me: “What would be the hardest thing for you to give up, if you joined us here?”
I explained to him that I wasn’t really ready to join and wasn’t actually on a prospective recruit visit.
He didn’t care, and put the question to me again: “What would be the hardest thing for you to give up?”
Well, for one thing, I thought- I’d have to give up a certain form of ministry.
Yes, the whole Christian life is a chance to share the good news of Jesus, but ordained ministry in a church setting, as a pastor, is a particular form of that universal call.
It’s been 1 year since I arrived here at Woodstock Reformed Church.
And some of it’s been bumpy; much of it’s been a blessing.
In the Reformed tradition of Christianity, we follow in a long line of Christians who emphasize God’s Providence and grace. That is, while God gives us free will and choice, there are also ways in which God guides us and brings us to specific place and people.
As one friend of mine says, “I’m always right where I need to be.”
***
When I was looking into adopting a rescue dog, the woman who handles placements for dogs from a shelter in Texas reached out to me. I had applied to adopt Ollie, from a website called “Petfinder.com,” and had already been turned down from several other shelters and dogs. Some wanted only long-time dog-owners. Others required a fenced-in yard. And still others wanted a home with other dogs and children.
But when Landon, the director of placements of a shelter in Texas, called me, she said that out of 18 other applicants for Ollie, she was choosing me. She said she did “a deep dive” on the internet about me, and knew that I was a good fit for him, and vice versa.
When I called her two weeks into adopting Ollie, and said, “Are you sure about this? Because I don’t know that things are working out too well.” And Landon said, “Oh, I am almost never wrong.”
Sometimes I think God is like that. It’s not that we can’t make a change or get out of a situation that’s clearly not working, but I think the whole Calvinist tradition is about acknowledging God’s unseen hand, working in ways beyond our knowing and control.
Maybe sometimes over the past year you’ve found yourself asking, “Is this who God brought us as pastor? She’s not like Josh. She’s not like Kathleen or Bill or the Rev.”
Well, that’s true. There are a lot of gifts I don’t have, and a few that I do, and somehow for this season of the church’s long life, God thinks our gifts might be a good match.
Another thing I love about the Reformed tradition, is the emphasis on how the Holy Spirit moves through a whole community- not just one pastor or leader or teacher.
So in this church, God works through not only my gifts and failings, but all of yours too- your gifts of hospitality and construction, discernment and mercy, prayerfulness and generosity.
Speaking of generosity, I believe this passage today invites us to reconsider what it means to give. So I’ve come up with an acronym: G.I.V.E. to help us remember:
***
Give something anonymously this week. And give to someone you don’t owe anything to- someone who can’t pay you back. And get ready for the joy of non-transactional giving!
Another way of giving, of course, is generosity of spirit. Giving one another the benefit of the doubt. Expressing genuine interest in another. Listening well and remembering what people say. Letting them finish their sentences without assuming you know what they’re going to say, and without cutting in with your own ideas.
Invest in something you care about personally- orphans, food insecurity, housing. Yes, this is incorporated when you give to your church, and that’s where I give first, but also I support several organizations that have specific missions I feel called to invest in. Time is also a great investment, as is energy. Time follows dollars, and vice versa, says Tom. Can you put in a bit of both?
Venture to the edge- that is, give sacrificially- give in a way that you feel it, where you notice the absence. In yoga, we talk about stretching to your edge. Go beyond what feels safe and secure and easy and what you’ve always done. Giving the whole tithe feels scary to most of us. I haven’t done it every year, but the years I have, I have never ever lacked for enough, and I felt somehow freer from financial worry.
Malachi 3:8-11- “Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”
The times in my life I’ve done this, I’ve been the most free from financial worry.
Without exception, the happiest people I know are some of the most generous. Generosity isn’t a quantity, it’s a quality. For that reason it’s not surprising that some of the most generous people I know have themselves been not wealthy in any traditional sense. “Material wealth” versus “Spiritual wealth” – the CSM leaders.
Enter a clearing- a retreat of silence, a digital fast, a week without whatever that thing is that you privately wonder if you can live without- alcohol, sugar, complaining, media, etc. If a week feels impossible, start with 24 hours. See what God has to say to you. Feel Jesus look upon you with love, as he did this man.
Try catching yourself when you say things like “my house,” “my car,” “my money,” and replace it with- “the house I get to live in,” “this car I get to drive,” “this money God’s entrusted to me.” Because in the end nothing we have is our own. (The dollar a kid gets to spend).
***
Because the question, finally, isn’t “How much are you willing to lose?” but “How much are you willing to give?” “How much are you willing to trust?” “How much are we as a church willing to feel the loving gaze of Jesus on us- as he looked upon the rich young man- and walk away ready to join in God’s generous work in this world?”
Because sometimes something good comes into our lives, and we’re willing to lose what we held onto before.
Let us pray:
(The end of that poem by Anna McKenzie)
“So if we are to be turned inside out, and upside down, with even our pockets shaken, just to check what’s rattling and left behind,
We pray that you will keep faith with us, and we with you, holding our hands as we weep, giving us strength to continue, and showing us beacons along the way to becoming new.”