March 2004

Mark 10:17-22

In the tenth chapter of the gospel of Mark, there is a story about a very rich young man who, with the natural enthusiasm of youth, one day ran up to Jesus, fell down to his knees, and said, "Good teacher, tell me what I have to do to inherit eternal life."

First Jesus replied, "Why call me good? The only one that is good is God, and God alone is good." But then He went on to answer the young man's question. "You know the Commandments."

And the young man said, "Yes, I do."

"You don't kill, you don't commit adultery, you don't steal, you don't lie, you don't defraud anybody, you honor your parents."

"I have kept the Commandments since I was a little boy," he said. And he felt good about it.

Then Jesus looked at him lovingly and responded, "There is one thing lacking."

"What is that?" the young man asked.

And Jesus said, "You must sell your possessions, give your money to the poor, and come and follow me."

If you think about it, that is a very big order. How can anybody, in particular a young person, do something like that?

Yet I do know somebody who did it when he was young. Some of you have seen this person. A couple years ago he preached here at Marble. It is Millard Fuller, who started Habitat for Humanity. He recently was in New York to celebrate Habitat's 100,000th house, and he celebrated it with us.

About forty years ago, Millard Fuller was not yet twenty-nine years old, and yet had made a million dollars. It wasn't as easy to make a million dollars in those days, and a million dollars was a lot more money than it is today - but he did it. Still, he felt his life was not right. And so he was led from within by the Spirit to sell everything he had and give his money away, and he followed Jesus. And following Jesus, for him, meant creating Habitat for Humanity. What a life!

To get back to the young man in Mark's story, when he heard what Jesus had said, he was shocked, and he left grieving. Mark doesn't say anything about him after this story. But we might well surmise that for the rest of his life, when he reflected on that question-and-answer period, he thought Jesus had been asking for something that shouldn't have been asked, that was just too much.

Jesus must have seen in the young man that with all of the talent he had, and his great energy - he was really a great guy - he was too married to material things. He was owned by what he owned. He was possessed by what he possessed. And for him to have freedom and a great life he would have to give that all up and do something in another dimension.

Now, that young man, in some ways, represents millions of people in the United States of America, who are not necessarily wealthy, or young, but all ages, all backgrounds, rich and poor. What he represents is spiritual curiosity, spiritual questions. As I've talked to so many, many people through the years, what I hear not only are the questions, but people describing, "Something inside of me is stirring." I hear people say, "There is a nudge. Something is nudging me inside." And sometimes I'll hear the word "gnawing." There's a "spiritual" or "internal" gnawing. And on occasion somebody will say, "I sense something, somebody, beckoning me, calling me."

Although we have this spiritual curiosity, many of us do not proceed with it, do not take it to the next step, because it seems Jesus gets in the way. We'll say or think it to ourselves, "Jesus is the problem. I can't get to it." It's our concept of Jesus tha is the problem.

Now, if anybody were to ask, 'If I do follow Jesus' teachings, will my life be easier?" I would say, "maybe yes, maybe no." To the question, "Will my life be better?" Absolutely yes. But there are things that are holding us back from following Him.

Let me tell a few little stories from my childhood that might relate to experiences you have had in your childhood, or even your adulthood. When I was still quite young, my father wanted me to hear every evangelist that came through town. I don't remember his giving the same pressure to my brothers as he did to me, so obviously he felt that I was the weakest and the most dangerous of the three, and he was hoping that one of these evangelists would catch hold of me. I was eight or nine the first time I heard one of them, and believe me, it was something else. I didn't know the words to describe it at the time, but in retrospect I see how manipulative it was. The preacher worked on guilt and fear to get people to accept his beliefs, and when the offering plate was passed around I have never heard anybody since as manipulative in trying to get people to give. I did not have a good experience, and I pushed back.

I grew up in the seacoast town of Portland, Maine, and when I was a teenager another evangelist came through town, a man who became quite well known in later years. At one point in his sermon he said, "If you people of Portland don't repent, if you don't change your ways, God is going to drop an atomic bomb in Portland Harbor."

And I thought, "Wait a minute." This did not represent Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. This was not Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. This didn't represent the Jesus who forgave the woman in adultery. It didn't represent the Jesus who told the story of the shepherd who went back to find his lost sheep. It didn't represent the Jesus who told the story of the Prodigal Son. So I pushed back against this judgmental Jesus.

And then I've heard so many, many stories from Protestants and Catholics alike who went to parochial schools and talked about the teachers - who really are representatives of Jesus - who were hard and mean-spirited. As soon as you got out of those schools you left the church and religion behind. "I want nothing to do with it!" But Jesus is not the problem.

And I remember my freshman year in college. I was in an arena much bigger than anything I'd ever been in before. I was naïve, I was scared, I was uncomfortable and shy. There was a senior student whom I would call a "super-religious" guy who spotted me and took me on. It seemed he was going to change my life and make me okay. It would have been helpful if he had really cared about me, if he had nurtured me in my spiritual journey and growth. But his method was to find a room in one of the buildings of the school so we could meet there every Wednesday at noon. I went three or four times. He got me down on my knees and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed, and I was the most awful sinner in the whole world. He just damned me to hell. He was jamming Jesus down my throat, trying to get me to get religion, to get Jesus. Eventually I stopped going. I avoided that man for the rest of that year.

We all have our stories. We all have our reasons for folding our arms or keeping Jesus at arm's length. But Jesus is not the problem.

Albert Schweitzer understood the distinction between the Jesus who preached and healed in Palestine and the Jesus we sometimes meet in church today. He said that if we were to take Jesus in his pure form, without all the doctrines, all the dogmas, all the baggage we've put around him, we would find ourselves in the pure light of somebody who is incredible.

To find the essence, the core, of this man called Jesus, we can look at some words He spoke and the way his life lived out those words. The final instructions He gave to his disciples shortly before He died were: "Love one another as I have loved you." That is a big order. It's very difficult. But that is the call, and that is the challenge.

Carlo Carretto, an Italian educator, who in the last years of his life lived as a monk in the desert, in writing about Jesus' call to love, says the best thing we can do is strive to love, and he was right. One of the greatest Americans of the twentieth century who exemplified Jesus' call to strive to love in the face of every challenge was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When we think about what he did! As the years roll on, the tremendous impact he had on this country and on the world becomes more apparent. He led a revolution which might easily have gone into gunfire and murder and killing, and he kept it peaceful and non-violent.

Jackie Robinson, the first black ball player to enter the major leagues and break the color line, tells a story that beautifully illustrates Dr. King's commitment to non-violence. It was early on in the civil rights struggle. Dr. King was at church leading a mass meeting. His wife, Coretta Scott King, was at their home, entertaining a visitor in the living room, when she heard a thump. Something had been thrown onto the porch. As soon as she had taken the visitor down the hallway to a back bedroom as a precaution, they heard an explosion. They began to smell smoke. Moments later the phone rang. A woman's voice said, "Yes, I did it. And I'm just sorry I didn't kill all you."

Soon a crowd of supporters began to build around the King house. People came with sticks and bats and knives and guns and rocks, any kind of weapon they could find, and threats were going through the air. It was a very tense time.

When Martin Luther King returned to his house, he stood on the porch that had just been bombed. These were his words as Jackie Robinson remembers them: "Don't get panicky. If you have weapons, take them home. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must love our white brothers no matter what. We must make them know that we love them."

"Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: 'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you.' This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love." That remarkable, visionary speech set the tone of the civil rights struggle.

Jesus was a pacifist. We don't like to admit that. Jesus was a pacifist. In His own life, not only in His words but in the way He lived, He was non-violent. One day we will finally come to the day when we know and trust that higher law - and yes, it's difficult; yes, it's painful; yes, it's scary; yes, some people will lose their lives - but one day we will hold onto that higher truth that love conquers all.

You see, Jesus is not the problem. The problem is not with him.

Louis Evely, a Belgian priest, in one of his writings said, "The church will win the world when it loves the world." That's a tall order, but I'd like to think - it's not going to happen in my generation, my children's or my grandchildren's - but hopefully, in one generation not too far along, people will come to the point where they're disgusted by war and will say that war is not an option any more, that killing is not an option any more.

It was heartening to hear about the former governor of Illinois who suspended carrying out the death penalty in his state. But generally the news about the aftermath of a crime is very upsetting. Whenever somebody has committed a heinous crime, the first thing they talk about is death penalty, death penalty, death penalty. We, a so-called civilized country, a so-called Christian country, are not following the teachings of Christ. It isn't that people shouldn't be accountable for their crimes, for their sins, but that we shouldn't take the life of somebody because they took somebody else's life. It is regressive to do to others precisely what we punish them for doing. Martin Luther King said we don't solve the problem of violence with retaliatory violence. There's a higher law. There's the greater way, Jesus' way, of non-violence and love. Jesus is not the problem.

And so I call on every one of you, as I call on myself, as we're in the presence of one who was the light of the world, who was the light of life. He really loved people, and He loved life. He forgave and forgave and forgave. He encouraged and He nurtured and He cajoled and He embraced, so that we might get more and more into His light and have the courage to stand and meet hatred and negativism with love. Let us pray.

Lord, when we are in Your holy place, in Your house, seek more out of us. So, Lord, be with us deeply, and help us to love one another as You love us. Amen