Saturday 22 October 2016

A sermon on the set readings for tomorrow . . .

When I read the Gospels, I often get a sense of the disciples finding it hard to understand, to keep up with Jesus as again and again he tells them things that challenge their childhood certainties. Today’s reading from Luke is a case in point.

A member of the ruling class comes to ask what seems to be a genuine question. He’s a man I think who’s been doing his best to the right things; he’s kept the law, said his prayers. But for all that he still feels he’s not done enough. So he comes to ask Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Note that word - inherit. Not what must I do to receive eternal life, but what must I do to deserve it, what must I do so that it can’t be denied me? You know the answer already, Jesus tells him - keep the law, and you will gain eternal life.

But the guy’s been doing that, yet somewhere deep inside he knows it’s not enough. So Jesus tells him: “Give it all away. Sell everything you have. Give the money to the poor. End up with nothing. Then come and follow me!” But he’s too rich to contemplate that. He might have gone along with a request to be a bit more generous; he might even have obeyed had Jesus said, “Give away half of what you own.” But he’s not prepared to give up owning things altogether. And he goes sadly away.
The disciples are thunderstruck. Remember, we’re talking about a well respected and good living man, whose wealth would have been generally understood as a sign of God’s approval. “Who can be saved?” ask those who’ve witnessed the exchange. Jesus is very blunt when he says: “It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But it’s true; we may think we own stuff, but often the stuff ends up owning us. And this man’s riches had perhaps become a prison he couldn’t break out from.

We’re rich; maybe not quite as rich as we were a couple of months back, and we’ll be a little less rich still by this time next year, if the pound continues to fall and food and fuel go up in price. But that’ll still be a minor reduction in our overall richness, rather than a transition from rich to poor.

But that’s what Jesus asks of the rich man - a complete transition from rich to poor. It’s nonsense when you think about it. If everyone with money gave it all away to those who hadn’t got any, then they’d be rich, so then they’d also have to give it all away, presumably to those who first gad it. But then they’d have to give it all away again - well, you can see that if you follow Jesus’ instructions to their logical - or illogical - conclusion, you have an economy in a complete mess and a country full of beggars.

But let me go back to that word “inherit”, and indeed to the question “What must I do?”. Jesus answered the question he was asked, but it was the wrong question. The only way to inherit the kingdom would be to keep every last bit of God’s law. But we could only hope to do that if we gave up everything in our lives that might get in the way of our completely serving God.

Which can’t be done. As Jesus says to his disciples, “for mortals it is impossible.” We will always fall short. But Jesus goes on to say, “What for mortals is impossible is possible for God.” Jesus is speaking about grace - God’s loving and forgiving and generous response to our failure and helplessness. What we can never deserve or win by our own efforts God freely gives us. That’s the central message of Jesus to a people whose lives were dedicated to keeping the law, and in that way doing enough, becoming good enough to deserve heaven: that we are saved not by own efforts but only by God’s gracious act.

The sign of that was the cross. At this point Jesus and his disciples are still travelling to Jerusalem, and the disciples have no idea what will happen when they get there. But what will happen is that a sacrifice will be made that only Jesus could make, and it is made for our freedom.

And so this service of Holy Communion is also called eucharist - thanksgiving. Here we consciously join ourselves to the sacrifice made for us, by the one man who really did let go of absolutely everything, becoming in that instance the poorest and most degraded man on earth. And yet he has decided to be there, to make his determined way to the cross. On Calvary Jesus is both perfect sacrifice and perfect priest; and he showers us with the wealth he refuses to keep to himself.

I wonder whether the rich ruler who came to Jesus came to understand all this. I wonder whether he overcame his sadness and his fixation on his own wealth and position, to become what Jesus called him to be, a follower, a disciple. I hope he did, and if he did, his life and his understanding of life will have been turned round. He no longer has to earn his way into heaven; the way is already open, and his challenge, ours too, is to live lives of loving and sharing and healing and restoring thanksgiving, in which we share with the world the grace we have so richly received.

It would have been clearly understood back then, in a world where slavery was commonplace, that a person saved, redeemed by someone else would then owe his very life to that person, would essentially belong to them. This service not expresses our thanksgiving for Jesus, it is a statement each time we do it that we now belong to him. So the Christian life is a life of generosity and service, but not in order to gain or deserve anything - we “go in peace to love and serve the Lord” (to quote our closing words at this service) because of what he has freely given to us, and because now we belong to him, and in him are made richer than in our wildest dreams.

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