Grace and peace to you from him who is and who was and who is
to come,
Sometimes
we’re like the man in this morning’s parable – we’re seekers, willing to work
and stretch our horizons, we’re not looking for simple answers or nice-sounding
words. We want substance. We need the truth and we want to know what the truth
means for us.
This
morning’s gospel text concerns seeking the truth about eternal life. The man
who meets Jesus, whom Luke described as a rich ruler of the temple, says he
wants to know what he needs to do to find a place in eternity. Jesus’ disciples
are also seeking and they’ve traveled some distance toward grasping the truth
about eternity. Mark says that Jesus
loved the man who sought him out, first because he’d done his best to follow
the ten commandments and also because he wants to learn more than he already
knows. He wants to advance. Both he and the disciples learn that God is eager to give them as a gift
the eternity they are looking for.
What an
astonishing facet of the truth. Some
very important things do actually come as gifts, not rewards or earnings, but
gifts from someone who loves us. Maybe a
relative gave you a present one time you never expected or a door opened to a
wonderful new opportunity. I’m sure
you’ve received the gift of love from another person and also given love to
someone else. Eternal life, salvation,
the forgiveness of sins, new life – all these are gifts from our loving God
that we couldn’t possibly earn on our own.
A person who seeks these blessings simply holds out his or her hand, so
to speak, to receive God’s gracious gifts.
And after we seekers have found them – or to put it more precisely, once
God has found us to put his gifts in our hands, he then teaches us how
important eternal life is for us and moves our hearts to follow Jesus, as our
Lord instructed the rich man who came to him to do.
The problem
is it’s hard for us to accept gifts. We
prefer doing things on our own. We like the feeling of self-satisfaction that
comes with our achievements. Sometimes,
we’re too proud to receive. We start
thinking this way when we’re children and we hear that Santa Claus makes a
distinction between those who are naughty and the ones who are nice. We don’t like to think that anything is given
to us. The problem is not our culture or
the ways of society or the Protestant life-style. The problem is our human nature. We like to earn what we have.
The rich man
in Jesus’ parable is a perfect example.
He had many things a lot of people covet – money, comfort, the respect
of his neighbors. He lived an outwardly
righteous life, having broken none of the major commandments in a serious
way. He was pleased with himself; he believed
that his prospects for the future were good.
He wanted to top things off by learning what he had to do to inherit
eternal life. He was sorry when he
learned that God didn’t esteem the life-ways he valued. The Lord wishes to give us as a gift what we
can’t earn on our own. When we go
seeking, we sometimes find things we don’t like. It’s no surprise that the rich
young man couldn’t absorb the lesson about dependence on God the first time he
heard it. We can hope that he went home
to mull over what Jesus had told him, for the word of God is powerful and
active, but for now he is a seeker outside the Christian flock.
We note, as
well, that even the disciples were pleased with their own achievements, for
Peter boasted that they’d given up everything to follow him. Even though the Lord brought them to complete
devotion to him later on, at this point, admiration for riches still tainted
their hearts.
We’ll
digress for a moment to about the relationship between a Christian and worldly
wealth. There’s nothing wrong with
riches themselves. Abraham , Isaac, and
King David were quite well-to-do. The
question is – what importance do we attach to wealth? We can take from rich people the impression
that they are superior beings, while there’s something deeply flawed about the
rest of us. Sin touches everyone, but
God sees value in all his creation. He
died to redeem everyone from sin. Our
good Lord hasn’t established a minimum income for salvation. Emphasis on riches keeps people from doing
their best. A person who grubs for money
or strives to keep up with his or her neighbors isn’t seeking very hard. We’re at our best when we’re creative and
independent and rejoicing with thankfulness for what God has given us.
Let’s take
the case of Luke the evangelist as an example, since next Thursday is his day
on the church calendar. We don’t know if
he was rich or poor, but we do know that the Lord gave him a full life. He was a physician; he traveled widely; he
was a friend of the apostle Paul; he expressed himself well and was a gifted
student of history, and even secular scholars admire the Book of Acts, which
Luke wrote as a companion piece to his Gospel.
And, of course, he was a devoted servant of the risen Lord.
Luke could
have used his talents to build up his earthly standing, but he knew that life
is a gift from God, who brought him to serve him. Luke’s secret was the same as every
Christian’s secret: he knew that he was a receiver, not an owner. His received all good things from the Lord –
his friends, his good life on earth, his zeal for seeking the truth, and his
salvation. Christianity changes all
God’s people, and this transformation is one of the things that makes us a
community of believers, living under one God, awaiting the return of our Lord.
While
waiting in faith, we share similar experiences.
First, the Holy Spirit shows us our sins and awakens our
consciences. Jesus held up God’s law to
the rich man in our reading. The man
said he’d kept the Ten Commandments all his life. This isn’t true, of course, because every
heart wanders. We don’t escape our flesh
and the temptations of the devil as long as we live on the earth. The rich man didn’t respond as a believer,
and this, not his wealth, distinguishes him from you and me, for we are aware
of our sinfulness. We never boast that
we’ve kept God’s law. Instead, we
confess our failures. Our shortcomings
are often before us.
But that’s
not the only experience we share in common.
We take hold of God’s pardon, which opens the door to salvation. Forgiveness renews and changes us. If we find that we’re guilty of coveting
riches, for example, then instead of tormenting ourselves or fretting about our
weakness, we take hold of forgiveness in Christ and lean back and rest in God,
who helps us to live joyfully the days he has given us. We’re receivers, as we said, not
earners. We receive life when we receive
forgiveness. Chastened and restored, we
return to following the Lord and live in the glow of eternal life.
We don’t
say, as Peter did, that we have sacrificed everything for Christ, but that the
Lord has drawn us to appreciate the value of sacrifice. What’s more, we don’t really make sacrifices
in the sense that we permanently give something up, because the Lord replaces
in his own way anything we may have lost.
One missionary I read about who spent a lot of time away from home said
that he’d never made a single sacrifice in his whole life. He experienced in a personal way what the
Lord meant when he said that anyone who gave up home or relatives or lands for
his sake would receive a hundred-fold from the Lord in return, along with
persecution, of course, for we Christians often pay social penalties, but
rather than complain about the unfairness of life, we praise God for his
wonderful generosity toward us and the whole world.
To digress
again for a moment, some folks outside the church may say that Christian living
is all denial and austerity on the margins of society and guilt-feelings about
everything that’s enjoyable. This isn’t
the case at all, as the people of St. Peter’s can testify. Christians are grateful receivers of God’s
gifts. We rejoice that all good things
come from him and we give him back thanks and praise.
Jesus’ list
of possible sacrifices is a case in point.
He spoke of leaving a house or family or friends. He used the word “or” not “and”. Nobody is called to leave the whole list
behind, just a part of it, and the Lord replaces what he takes away – and
sometimes in a better form.
So, to
conclude, we remember that there are many good things for Christian pilgrims
like ourselves to seek, especially a deeper faith through the forgiveness of
our sins. Times come, though, when the
good Lord leads us to give up seeking and simply receive. This is the key to our blessedness before God
– not to think of ourselves as doers but receivers. Some of us may be tempted
to seek earthly riches for their own sake – an unnecessary quest, dear friends,
because the Lord sees us as kings and queens already, a high status we receive
now by faith. Why try to look further? Our standing in God’s eyes will be perfectly
visible to us later on in heaven.
The world
and the devil will surely put many temptations before us, including the
temptation to believe that we’re so wonderful that God will automatically
reward us with eternal life. The truth
is that he is wonderful and calls us to live with him in faith and love. Our lives testify to his generosity and our
trust that it will go on and on even after we have received the fulfillment of
his promise of eternal life. In Jesus’
name we rejoice. AMEN.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. AMEN.
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