Title: A Work in Progress

Scriptures: Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31

10/12/03 18th Sunday after Pentecost

Rev. Joy R. Haertig

This week as I was studying I came upon this quote from Thomas Keating in his book Open Mind, Open Heart :

“Suppose we were in a dimly lit room.  The place might look fairly clean.  But install a hundred bulbs of a thousand watts each, and put the whole room under a magnifying glass.  The place would begin to crawl with all kinds of strange and wonderful little creatures.  It would be all you could do to stay there.  So it is with our interior.  When God turns up the voltage (in our insides), our motivation begins to take on a wholly different character, and we reach out with great sincerity for the mercy of God and for his forgiveness.  That is why trust in God is so important.  Without trust we are likely to run away or say, “There must be some better way of going to God.”

The “rich man” came to Jesus in the dim light of a regular day, knelt before him and asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus looked the man in the eye and it felt like someone had just turned a bright flashlight on his soul.  Then Jesus responded with the words that make most of us who are at least somewhat materially comfortable, squirm and look for our sunglasses, “Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

If we are to allow ourselves to come close to God, to open our own inner selves to the wisdom and insight of the Spirit, we will find a well of support and strength.  But it is also inevitable that we will be invited to look at things we might just as well not bring out into the light of day.  For most of us - money - and all it represents - what we believe about it and how we use it, is one of those “issues”.  It is one of the most difficult topics to discuss and evaluate, so it is not hard to relate to the rich man in today's story.  

Songwriter and singer Bob Dylan's words came into my mind this week as I wrestled with this text: “Who do you love?” “You gotta love someone”, Dylan sings, “or some thing”.  We often come to know what we love the most when we are afraid we might lose it.  The rich man followed all the traditions of his faith, but when it came to love - it appeared that the true treasure of his heart was not with God but in the security his riches gave to him.  Somehow Jesus saw that, named it and offered him a challenge.  “Ouch”, is my first reaction.  It is almost impossible to not feel challenged by this passage and live as we live.

I am currently reading a wonderful book by Sue Monk Kidd entitled, When the Heart Waits.  She writes “we seem to think that God speaks by seconding the ideas we've already adopted, but God nearly always catches us by surprise.  If it's God's Spirit blowing, someone ends up having feathers ruffled in an unforeseen way.  God tends to confound, astonish, and flabbergast.  A Bethlehem stable, a Roman cross, an empty garden tomb.  We might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that God's truth often turns up in ways we don't expect.”  

I agree with Sue on this one, being a spiritual seeker does not mean we will feel comfortable and at peace all the time.  In fact the more we let God in the more we see around us and within us that cries out for healing and attention.  (Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to read the morning paper without being a person of faith!)  

As we consider all the potential “flabbergastedness” of opening our hearts to God - it is important to hear loud and clear a line from today's reading that might have passed you by.  In verse 21 it reads: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said…”J”

Jesus did not look at him and say, “You fool, don't you get it?”  He did not look at him and say, “Go to your room until you get it right!”  Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said - “Heh, what about this?”

When our faith journey takes us into those personal places or opens our eyes to see the injustices of our society, let us remember that as Jesus looked at the rich man with love, he shows us how God looks and interacts with us - with love.  

In the reading from Hebrews we are reminded that in Jesus we have a “high priest” that sympathizes with our struggles, who knows what it is like to face the temptations and trials of existence.  Through Jesus we are shown that God is trustworthy and merciful and understands that we are a work in progress.  Ideally this gift of mercy does not end with our own individual relationship with God - but enables us to become more merciful with one another.    

When we open our hearts to God we discover a challenging and compassionate Spirit which in turn can enable us to see how each of us are in process of learning what it means to be a child of God.  As God gives us room, so we can give each other room to grow (no matter what our age), and ease up on our harsh judgements and expectations.

Last week 60 of us gathered at the Seabeck Conference center for our annual church retreat.  This year we spent time talking about what we can do in our various relationships and communities to foster peace.  It was for many of us, a safe place where we could admit that we are a work in progress.  It was a time and place where we could allow that light of God to enter into some of our dark places, admit to our struggles with anger and communication.  I watched the faces of the people there as we listened to one another and in each face I could see the face of Christ and feel his mercy.

 

It is inevitable that if we allow ourselves to come close to God, to open our inner selves to the wisdom and insight of the Spirit, we will find both love and challenge.   We will be challenged to look at our attachments, our grudges, our false selves and expectations, our prejudices and fears.  We will find a God that is continually inviting us towards healing and wholeness.

We don't know what happened to the rich man.  According to the author of Mark, we know he left “in shock and grieving for he had many possessions.”

Like the rich man, we are all a work in progress and if we are spiritual seekers and not just church members, I guarantee that we will be challenged by the question of where our treasure is - who or what do we truly love - throughout our lives.  Imagine yourself having the opportunity to stand face to face with Jesus, as he looks at you with love - what would he say to you?