Fields With Persecutions
October 11, 2009
Mark 10:17-31
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he 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."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question.
I have shared this story before, but when I consider the question just posed it always comes back to me. It was Halloween, 1977. I was a senior in high school, 17 years old. I was iconoclastic even then, and iconoclasts are never in with the in crowd. So, when a couple of guys on the football team and three girls – the numbers seemed significant to me – when a couple of guys and three girls asked me to join them for the evening I said, “sure.”
We road around for a while. One of the guys was the son of one of Chattanooga’s largest car dealership, so nice wheels were a given. I don’t recall doing much beyond stopping at a few friends houses, and, if it was on the same night, TP-ing the snooty private girls school in the neighborhood.
But then one of the guys said, “hey, let’s go down to 9th Street and yell at the blacks”; only he did not say “blacks.” These days 9th Street is named Martin Luther King Blvd., and it was then the main street of black Chattanooga.
To my everlasting shame, I slunk down in my seat and did not say a word. To my equally great relief, we did not spot a soul on the street and headed home soon thereafter.
I knew, even scrunched down in that seat next to a girl I barely knew, that I should say something. I should say, “no.” But I was not willing to risk being thought even less cool than I was. For the sake of fleeting acceptance, I refused to speak when confronted with something manifestly wrong.
It is not necessary to drag ourselves back through the details of painful memories or share what often are deeply private stories in order for our confessions to well up in more general terms. So my confession is this: forgive me for keeping silent in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, suffering, violence.
Are there general confessions that have welled up within you as you are confronted by this text?
The good news of the gospel is that we are not loved because of what we do or fail to do; we are loved because of who we are and to whom we belong. We are the children of a loving God to whom we belong when we are seized by risky faith and when we fail to take the risks of faith.
We Proclaim the Text
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he 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."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question.
My father told me this story when I was a child, and I have never forgotten it. He used the tale to illustrate the New Testament passage that instructs, “no one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It is always among the first things that comes to my mind when I read about the rich young ruler.
As a young man, my dad was a camp counselor and later a camp director for the YMCA, so he spent a lot of time with kids. Kids are risk takers by nature, and the kids who went out on a Tennessee river in aluminum canoes when thunderstorms were forecast were no different.
They set off for a camp site aiming to get there in time to make camp and cook dinner before nightfall. Another counselor was supposed to meet them at the island where they would spend the night. Summer storms in that part of the country blow up quickly in the mid-afternoon, and that’s precisely what happened.
The boys did not want to pull to the side and wait out the rain; they wanted to get to their campsite and have fun. So they pulled out the tarps under which they planned to sleep that night and created floating shelter.
It was kind of clever; and kind of stupid. They could not see a thing, so they did not notice when they drifted past the island and continued on down the river directly toward a low-head dam.
River runners have a name for low-head dams. They are known as drowning machines. The one these kids were drifting blindly toward was particularly monstrous because not only was there a standing, churning, inescapable wave just below the dam, there were large round holes along its flat top through which high water roared during storms when the river was up. The river was up.
The counselor who was to meet the group at the campsite saw the canoes with the tarps drift past the island and head for the dam so he jumped in his canoe and paddled frantically after the drifting kids yelling for them to look out. The boys in the canoe closest to him heard his cries, realized the danger and paddled across the current to the safety of the shore.
But as the counselor got closer to the second boat he realized that those kids could not hear his yells over the pounding rain or the roar of the water rushing over the dam. He also realized that he would not be able to pull the canoes out of the current that had grabbed them. So paddling in desperation he made straight for the edge of the dam, leaped from his canoe onto the flat top of the dam, ran across its slippery surface leaping over the gaping holes to grab the canoe just as it was about to be swept over the edge. Inching back to the side of the dam, he pulled the canoe by its rope to safety.
When the kids recounted this tail to my father, I’m pretty sure he told them that there was no good reason that any of them had survived. No good reason except that in a moment of decision, when the outcome was anything but certain, one young man – not wealthy but rich in courage and the conviction that the gospel of Jesus Christ called him to take risks for the sake of others – risked everything to save their lives.
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your life – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
What values of your faith – of our common faith – compel you to take risks?
The passage from Mark suggests that leaps of faith do not come without pain.
That is an excellent reminder on the Sunday when we receive the Presbyterian Peacemaking offering. While peacemakers may be blessed and called the children of God, the work of making peace – whether in families, workplaces, communities or the wider world – brings fields with persecutions.
When I think of great makers of peace, I think of Gandhi, of King, of Mandela, and of the great risks each took to heal their wounded nations. Two were assassinated, the third spent a quarter of a century in prison.
Most of us will never be called upon to take the kinds of risks that they took, but each of us is called to risk for the sake of the gospel of love and justice. Whether it is risking our treasure or risking our time, we are invited everyday to stand for values that are often at odds with the prevailing values of the culture.
Jesus understood this when he asked the rich young man to sell everything and divest for the sake of the poor, and to follow the way of Jesus – the way of the cross. Jesus also understood just how difficult the challenge could be – and he looked at the young man not with scorn, and not with pity, but with love.
That is how God looks at us today – whether or not we are able to take the risks before us. Whether we are confessing our failures to do so, or proclaiming a gospel that calls us to risk again and again and again. God looks at us with love. It is because of that love that we know that taking the risks of faith is possible. Amen.
Mark 10:17-31
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he 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."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question.
I have shared this story before, but when I consider the question just posed it always comes back to me. It was Halloween, 1977. I was a senior in high school, 17 years old. I was iconoclastic even then, and iconoclasts are never in with the in crowd. So, when a couple of guys on the football team and three girls – the numbers seemed significant to me – when a couple of guys and three girls asked me to join them for the evening I said, “sure.”
We road around for a while. One of the guys was the son of one of Chattanooga’s largest car dealership, so nice wheels were a given. I don’t recall doing much beyond stopping at a few friends houses, and, if it was on the same night, TP-ing the snooty private girls school in the neighborhood.
But then one of the guys said, “hey, let’s go down to 9th Street and yell at the blacks”; only he did not say “blacks.” These days 9th Street is named Martin Luther King Blvd., and it was then the main street of black Chattanooga.
To my everlasting shame, I slunk down in my seat and did not say a word. To my equally great relief, we did not spot a soul on the street and headed home soon thereafter.
I knew, even scrunched down in that seat next to a girl I barely knew, that I should say something. I should say, “no.” But I was not willing to risk being thought even less cool than I was. For the sake of fleeting acceptance, I refused to speak when confronted with something manifestly wrong.
It is not necessary to drag ourselves back through the details of painful memories or share what often are deeply private stories in order for our confessions to well up in more general terms. So my confession is this: forgive me for keeping silent in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, suffering, violence.
Are there general confessions that have welled up within you as you are confronted by this text?
The good news of the gospel is that we are not loved because of what we do or fail to do; we are loved because of who we are and to whom we belong. We are the children of a loving God to whom we belong when we are seized by risky faith and when we fail to take the risks of faith.
We Proclaim the Text
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he 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."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question.
My father told me this story when I was a child, and I have never forgotten it. He used the tale to illustrate the New Testament passage that instructs, “no one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It is always among the first things that comes to my mind when I read about the rich young ruler.
As a young man, my dad was a camp counselor and later a camp director for the YMCA, so he spent a lot of time with kids. Kids are risk takers by nature, and the kids who went out on a Tennessee river in aluminum canoes when thunderstorms were forecast were no different.
They set off for a camp site aiming to get there in time to make camp and cook dinner before nightfall. Another counselor was supposed to meet them at the island where they would spend the night. Summer storms in that part of the country blow up quickly in the mid-afternoon, and that’s precisely what happened.
The boys did not want to pull to the side and wait out the rain; they wanted to get to their campsite and have fun. So they pulled out the tarps under which they planned to sleep that night and created floating shelter.
It was kind of clever; and kind of stupid. They could not see a thing, so they did not notice when they drifted past the island and continued on down the river directly toward a low-head dam.
River runners have a name for low-head dams. They are known as drowning machines. The one these kids were drifting blindly toward was particularly monstrous because not only was there a standing, churning, inescapable wave just below the dam, there were large round holes along its flat top through which high water roared during storms when the river was up. The river was up.
The counselor who was to meet the group at the campsite saw the canoes with the tarps drift past the island and head for the dam so he jumped in his canoe and paddled frantically after the drifting kids yelling for them to look out. The boys in the canoe closest to him heard his cries, realized the danger and paddled across the current to the safety of the shore.
But as the counselor got closer to the second boat he realized that those kids could not hear his yells over the pounding rain or the roar of the water rushing over the dam. He also realized that he would not be able to pull the canoes out of the current that had grabbed them. So paddling in desperation he made straight for the edge of the dam, leaped from his canoe onto the flat top of the dam, ran across its slippery surface leaping over the gaping holes to grab the canoe just as it was about to be swept over the edge. Inching back to the side of the dam, he pulled the canoe by its rope to safety.
When the kids recounted this tail to my father, I’m pretty sure he told them that there was no good reason that any of them had survived. No good reason except that in a moment of decision, when the outcome was anything but certain, one young man – not wealthy but rich in courage and the conviction that the gospel of Jesus Christ called him to take risks for the sake of others – risked everything to save their lives.
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your life – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
What values of your faith – of our common faith – compel you to take risks?
The passage from Mark suggests that leaps of faith do not come without pain.
That is an excellent reminder on the Sunday when we receive the Presbyterian Peacemaking offering. While peacemakers may be blessed and called the children of God, the work of making peace – whether in families, workplaces, communities or the wider world – brings fields with persecutions.
When I think of great makers of peace, I think of Gandhi, of King, of Mandela, and of the great risks each took to heal their wounded nations. Two were assassinated, the third spent a quarter of a century in prison.
Most of us will never be called upon to take the kinds of risks that they took, but each of us is called to risk for the sake of the gospel of love and justice. Whether it is risking our treasure or risking our time, we are invited everyday to stand for values that are often at odds with the prevailing values of the culture.
Jesus understood this when he asked the rich young man to sell everything and divest for the sake of the poor, and to follow the way of Jesus – the way of the cross. Jesus also understood just how difficult the challenge could be – and he looked at the young man not with scorn, and not with pity, but with love.
That is how God looks at us today – whether or not we are able to take the risks before us. Whether we are confessing our failures to do so, or proclaiming a gospel that calls us to risk again and again and again. God looks at us with love. It is because of that love that we know that taking the risks of faith is possible. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
10:42 AM
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