Sermons Online ...
Sermon: The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Year C - 24th October 2010
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30am
Readings: Joel 2:23-32, Psalm 65, 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18, Luke 18.15-30
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” To many people this question is just a piece of religious jargon, an irrelevance in today’s world. They are wrong, of course. Their reaction speaks of a limited view of life: one that can’t see past the material, an outlook which assumes that anything that can’t be seen and touched here and now isn’t worth considering. In reality there is far more to life than that. There is a moral dimension and a spiritual dimension. And in the long run, eternal issues will prove to be far more important than merely material issues.
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” How did Jesus answer the ruler’s vital question? He began by asking another question. “ Good teacher, you said. Why do you call me good? Do you mean it? And if you do, what do you mean by it? After all, nobody is really good: nobody except God alone.”
Jesus was challenging him about his terminology. He wasn’t going to let this man use the word “good” in some vague generalized sense. “Good” means truly good, if it means anything at all. Is that what he really meant? For only God is truly good.
Do notice that Jesus never denies this description of him. He never says: “No, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not good. Only God is good, and I’m certainly not God!” He doesn’t say that at all. What he’s indicating is that if the man’s description of him as “good” is really accurate, then he must be God himself. Has the ruler considered that possibility?
So Jesus is asking him to do some careful thinking about who he really is. And that will be a very significant issue in the light of what he will say very soon. But first of all Jesus takes a conventional approach. “You know the commandments. How are you going with them? You have learned that what you need to do to inherit eternal life is to obey the commandments. What’s the score?”
This is encouraging. The man has wondered whether Jesus will come up with something more complicated. “All these I have kept since I was young.” We don’t hear the Ten Commandments read often nowadays: perhaps that’s a pity. But could we join the man in saying that we had faithfully kept them all since we were young people? I suspect that like me you couldn’t claim that!
Of course his answer is a foolish one, a naïve response. He doesn’t understand the commandments if he really thinks he’s done them justice throughout his life. But Jesus isn’t going to get into an argument about the real meaning of the commandments. Instead he issues a challenge to the ruler. “ Go ,” he says, “and come. Go , and sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come and follow me.”
Now let’s be honest. If I were that man, I’d be rather put out. After all, he had been leading a good life, keeping the rules, doing all the right things. Surely he’d earned his place in heaven. Now it seemed that, despite his getting to the required height, Jesus had raised the bar still further.
Surely it was unreasonable for Jesus to demand that this man give away all his possessions. He hadn’t stolen them. He’d got them honestly. Didn’t God want him to have good things? Didn’t he deserve to have them? Why was Jesus being so hard on him?
I guess Jesus could have responded in a number of ways. He could have given this man a detailed interrogation until he admitted that he wasn’t as perfect as he had imagined. If he had looked at himself a bit more closely, he would have seen himself for what he was: a person in need of forgiveness, like the rest of us.
When we hear the Ten Commandments or the Two Great Commandments at church, how do we respond? “Lord, have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law.” We may keep most of them at a superficial level. But when we look below the surface, we fail. We need God’s forgiveness. And so did this man.
But what Jesus was doing was going straight to the heart of the matter. What really came first in his life? What mattered above all? Was it his relationship with God, or were earthly riches and possessions really more important?
“Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor,” said Jesus, “and come, follow me. You won’t have financial security, but you’ll find eternal life, if that’s what you really want.”
We’re told that the man went away very sad. It was so hard to give away his possessions, to trust Jesus instead of trusting his wealth. He wasn’t keen to let go of his treasures on earth, temporary though they were, in order to gain treasure in heaven.
But we mustn’t be too hard on him. Perhaps one day he did come to realize that eternal priorities came before worldly possessions. Perhaps one day he did become a follower of Jesus. In any case, how would we go if that was what Jesus asked of us?
In fact, that is what he does ask of us. He may not literally tell us to sell our possessions, but he does demand first call on them. He expects us to be open to whatever he calls us to do: to not hold too tightly onto things, to be available for his purposes, to take up our cross and follow him. And counting the cost goes against the grain.
As the man trudged off, Jesus spoke to the disciples. “How hard it is for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
Many have thought that this was a ridiculous thing to say. So some people changed the word for camel to a slightly different word meaning rope. Perhaps Jesus was talking about a rope going through the eye of a needle. Others tried to find evidence of a small gateway in the city wall called “the eye of the needle”. Indeed when Sarah and I were in Jerusalem last year we saw a small opening in the old wall just near a larger gate: this small opening was claimed to be “the eye of the needle”. But in fact there is no evidence that it was called this in Jesus’ day.
Not surprising actually: for Jesus was trying to make clear that it was not simply unusual or difficult or even very difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. It just can’t be done. The whole idea is ridiculous, just as ridiculous as the idea that you could squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle.
Now this man seemed a pretty good sort of person. If a man like him wasn’t going to make it, then who on earth will make it into God’s kingdom? Who can be saved?
And then comes the answer to which all this is leading. “What is impossible for humans is possible with God.” It is not possible for us to achieve a place in heaven: but God can make it possible.
That’s what Jesus was getting at when he spoke about children and the kingdom of heaven at the beginning of our reading. The kingdom of heaven doesn’t belong to children because they are innocent: it doesn’t take long for young children to prove that they are not innocent! It is because they are dependent: they need parents or others to provide the things they need.
And so it is with the Gospel. We are dependent on the love and grace of God for a place in his kingdom. We can’t make it by our own goodness or our own efforts. Hence Jesus says: “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Membership of the kingdom is a gift from God, not a reward or an achievement. We receive it through faith, trusting in the generosity of God to us who fall short. We depend not on our own goodness, but on God’s goodness.
The problem with the ruler who came to Jesus was that he was asking the wrong question. The real issue is not “what must I do to enter the kingdom of heaven?” It is “what must God do for me if I am to enter the kingdom of heaven.” In Christ he has done it all. Through him, the impossible is made possible, the closed gate is opened. By faith, we link up with Jesus the Saviour, and follow him into that glorious reality.
Of course as we trust and follow Christ as his forgiven and accepted people, he may well make demands of us. Life may be comfortable or difficult. But Christ will be there, the source of true spiritual treasure. May we keep depending on him, trusting and following him, as we day by day take up our cross and follow Jesus who in his mercy opens up for us the way into the kingdom of God. Amen.
Paul Weaver