Sermon, Sun 4 October: 'mind the gap'

Focusing upon the story of the meeting between Jesus and
a rich young man...

Earlier in the service, the minister told a story about a
king who liked receiving presents. He demanded that his people
gave him the best and the prettiest of things.
One day, he heard of a quiltmaker who made beautiful quilts.
He went to her, demanding a present of her quilt.
She refused, saying her quilts were only ever given to the
poor and the needy. 'What must I do to get a quilt?' he asked.
In the end, she told him that he would recieve a
quilt only after he'd given all of his presents away.
Eventually, the king agreed...
and in the process not only gained a quilt, but found happiness.
[based on the story 'The quiltmaker's gift']

Readings:
Exodus 20:1-21
Mark 10:17-31

Let’s pray:
may the words of my mouth, and the meditations
of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

A greedy king and a clever quiltmaker.
A rich young man and Jesus.

Two stories that run on parallel lines.
The king and the young man have something in common -
yes, great wealth, but something else:
for all that they have, all that they own,
they both live with a great sense of lack:
neither are completely satisfied with the very many possessions that
they’ve managed to gather around themselves.
It’s almost as if, by being so absorbed by all they own, they’ve lost sight
of what really matters in life.
You can almost hear them ask:
‘Surely, there must be ...something more?’
They can’t quite put their finger on what that might be,
and so they seek solutions to fill the lack, the gap in their lives.
The king thinks that his niggling emptiness will disappear by gaining that one,
hard to come by, quilt, and that he’ll be happy, satisfied at last.
But, he’s greedy, and greed is never satisfied:
there will always be a gap.

The young man is not necessarily greedy -
we don’t know how he’s come by his wealth,
and there’s no value judgement given here:
being wealthy, in and of itself is not a bad thing,
that’s not really the point of this passage.
So, what do we learn of this young man from our gospel reading?
He’s physically able.
Unlike the many others in Mark’s gospel who approach Jesus,
he’s not in any need of physical healing.
He runs.
When he hears that Jesus is on the move,
he gathers himself up and races to catch up
with Jesus before it’s too late.
A couple of week’s back, we reflected upon the parable of the prodigal son,
and, a wee bit like the father in that story,
the young man in our text today is not afraid of losing any dignity:
remember, respectable folk - people in positions of power -
did    not    run, everyone else ran after them.
And, having run to Jesus, the young man is also seemingly not
too bothered about potentially losing any social status:
he kneels at Jesus’ feet - a classic posture of submission and humility.
So:
he’s young,
he’s fit,
and he’s not worried about loss of dignity or status.

We learn from the conversation that the young man
is not setting out to trap, or mock Jesus.  Unlike others in positions of
power have been wont to do elsewhere in Mark’s gospel,
there’s a genuine respect for this rabbi.
You can see it both in his posture and in the manner that he addresses Jesus:
‘Good Teacher’.
Even when he’s challenged by Jesus over the use of the word ‘good’
he re-frames his approach, still using a title of honour: ‘Teacher’.
We learn that he’s pious - he does his best to follow his religion.
When Jesus talks to him of the Commandments,
the young man claims to have kept them since childhood.
And it’s not a boast - which is why Jesus simply accepts his claim:
after all, the Commandments are designed in such a way
that they should be able to be kept.

And just while we’re on the subject of the Commandments:
interestingly here in this passage, we don’t get all Ten.
The Commandments Jesus talks of are the 2nd part of the Commandments
given to Moses.
Thinking back to our Exodus reading to remind ourselves:
the first section of the Commandments centre upon God
and our relationship and attitude to God.
The second section focuses upon our relationship and attitude towards our neighbours.
So something subtle is going on here with Jesus in reference to the Commandments -
a wee, unspoken comment, perhaps, on the young man’s attitude
to keeping the Commandments, and where he may, or may not be at,
in his relationship with God - on what he prioritises. 
He may be fine in relationship to neighbour, but has he created false gods elsewhere?
But perhaps that’s just idle speculation on my part!
What else does the text reveal about the young man?
Given that wealth was considered a visible sign of God’s blessing,
and given the importance placed upon social status and pecking order,
it’s interesting that it’s only at the last,
in the account of this encounter with Jesus,
that we learn that this young man has ‘great wealth.’
Why is the most socially and culturally important detail about this man
only given at the end-point?
Here we have another unspoken but significant detail:
the person hearing this story is almost invited to ask what this might mean,
what it might reveal about God’s values and human values;
and what should be treasured, and where true value lies...

In our text, it’s because of his great wealth that the young man
finally walks away from Jesus and not away with Jesus.
Our particular translation uses the term
‘went away sad.’
‘Went away sad’ is okay, but it does rather lose the full impact
of the original.  The young man went away mourning:
his response is one of great grief and loss.
A feeling coming from understanding that,
for him, the gap in his life was never going to be filled
because he was never going to do this ‘one thing’ that Jesus asks of him.

But let’s go back and look at the question he asks at the very beginning.
I think we may learn a little more about the young man,
and about the way he thinks about his faith.
‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’
Hmmm, the clue is in the word ‘do’.
For this young man thinks that if he only does this or that or the other,
if he makes sure that he ticks all his boxes,
and lines up all his theological ducks in a row, it’ll be okay. 
What must he do...?
He knows that something needs done:
he’s very mindful of the gap.
He’s not sure if he’s done enough to inherit eternal life.
But here’s a thing:
the only thing any of us have to actually ‘do’ to inherit something,
is to outlive the person who has made a will leaving items to us.
The young man’s question, then, is a wee bit all over the place.
Perhaps he’s so used to doing that he misses the point about faith completely:
it’s about what God is doing for him.
It’s about being aware of God’s grace,
and a little less caught up in all of his possessions -
possessions that effectively end up owning him,
that hold him back,
that become a reason for not journeying with Jesus.

The disciples, having watched the encounter between Jesus
and the young men are shocked:
if a wealthy person apparently has problems entering the kingdom of heaven,
they wonder just ‘who can be saved?’
And the response:
'nothing is impossible for God - with God, all things are possible.'

What is it that we treasure?
What are the things that we gather up around us,
that block our way from following in faith?
What are those things - both material and otherwise -
that we allow to have power over us?
Where is the lack, the gap in our lives?
And is our faith-thinking along the lines of the young man’s:
are we busy ticking boxes and doing one more thing?

We come back to that question:
‘What must we do to inherit eternal life?’
First, take the check-list, rip it up, and throw it out.
Ponder instead the thought that faith is about what God is doing for us,
of what God, in Christ, has already done for us, on a Cross, 2 000 years ago.
In that death, and in that resurrection,
what was impossible has been made possible, in and through Jesus Christ.
And we, who he calls his friends, are indeed inheritors of eternal life.
Not by what we’ve done,
but by grace,
by what he’s done.

And, if we find that we do have an occasional niggling gap, a sense of lack,
perhaps, like the king in our story earlier,
we might just discover that the more we give of ourselves,
the more we love God, and the more we love our neighbour as ourselves,
the more that niggling gap is filled.  Amen.