Gospel text for Sunday 14 October 2018

Mark 10:17-31       As Jesus 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.”

Reflection        Can you hear Jesus scratching his head when the young man protests, “I have kept all of the commandments;” (Jesus) “You have kept them? You have depended upon yourself to be righteous and upstanding? You really think you have done this by your own wit and will? Poor young man, you lack one thing. Humility. Go and sell all that you own then come and follow me.” In other words, if you want to find eternal life you must admit your dependence on God with you. 

And if this shocked the young man who was living in the Ancient Near East, a collectivist culture that stresses the importance of community and interdependence of the people, how much more unfathomable is this for those of us who have been raised in a Post Enlightenment culture that understands people as independent and autonomous. How can we digest Jesus’ counsel when the world around us makes it clear that being dependent upon others is embarrassing if not down right shameful? We are supposed to be self-reliant and anyone who is not ought to stop making excuses and “pull themselves up by their boot straps.”

By our wit and will we are supposed to solve our own problems and accomplish our five year, ten year and lifetime goals. We are praised for being self-reliant, self-sufficient and self-made. All these are respectable qualities except we fail to notice one thing, they separate us from God and one another.  

And so Jesus looks at us with love and says, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” As long as we hold fast to our self-determination we are essentially setting our selves apart and claiming sovereignty that belongs to God alone.  Being thus bloated with our selves it is no wonder we do not experience God with us. This is why Jesus counsels the young running man and us to sell everything and follow him. 

Here is the thing. Most of us get stuck on the first part of Jesus’ instruction. “Sell everything.” Really? Not all of us are cut out to make vows of poverty and live in monasteries. So we join the running man grieving and set out again on our own thereby completely missing Jesus’ second instruction, “follow me.”

To follow means to come after, to subordinate our selves to someone or something else, to accept another’s authority as guide or teacher.* When we consent to follow, we affirm our interconnected interdependence which by definition means we stop clinging to our culturally prescribed identities as self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-made and self-determining creatures. We sell all that baggage and follow Jesus, the teacher, who shows us that the way of eternal life is all about being in unselfish, magnanimous, open handed relationships which are possible when we put our confidence in God with us, rather than our selves.  

I believe life is a story and we get to choose whether we want our story to be “with God” or not. If we choose “with God” life, we must get rid of whatever separates us from God. Some of the  culprits are our inordinate desires for safety and security, affection and esteem, power and control. If we choose “with God” life we must grow beyond the presumption of being self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-made and self-determining and affirm our purpose in the world with and for one another. When we choose a “with God” life story we realize, it is not all about me, it is all about we. It is not all about mine, it is all about ours. Our “with God” life story is a story of radical inclusiveness;  life in and of, with and for the well-being of all people. What story do you choose?

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** https://www.dictionary.com/browse/follow

Gospel text for Sunday 31 July 2016

                                                                                                                                                         Mt. Lemmon Sky Lab   

Luke 12:13-21        Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Reflection        It is not all about me, rather, it is all about we.  Apparently the person in the crowd who “…said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me,”” quite forgot this bit of wisdom. He was willing to sacrifice the “we” of his fraternal relationship in favor of augmenting the personal possessions of his “me.”  Isn’t it ironic, to ask Jesus, of all rabbis, to be the mediator of such action; Jesus, the ultimate reconciler of all people?

What the greedy brother fails to recognize and Jesus’ parables intend to teach is the interdependence of all creatures and creation. 

Words from my favorite contemporary poet David Whyte’s poem “Everything is Waiting For You” sing in my heart. 

“Your great mistake is to act the drama as if your were alone.”

“To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.”

“Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.” 

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.”

Whyte’s words invite us into conversation with with each other and all that is. This is where we find our riches. This is were we discover who and whose we are. 

Please click on the image in the upper right hand corner of this post to hear Whyte’s poem and his commentary.  Uploaded to YouTube on Feb 26, 2011, Internationally acclaimed poet David Whyte is an Associate Fellow at Templeton College and Said Business School at the University of Oxford, David works with many European, American and international companies, using poetry and thoughtful commentary to illustrate how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement. In his talk, David encourages us to remain open to know the dialogue with our surroundings inform and inspire our ideas. (accessed July 30, 2016)

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Gospel text for Sunday 11 May 2014

John 10:1-10        Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Reflection        What is life? That was the first question that came to mind when I read Jesus’ words to the disciples and us, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  I typed my question, “What is life”  into google search and guess what popped up? You are not connected! Oops? So I waited twenty-seven seconds and then received 9 billion, 600 million hits.  Now that’s connection! 

In the 1960s Lynn Margulis, the biologist who is credited with one of the great achievements of twentieth-century evolutionary biology, explained how eukaryotic cells - cells that have a nucleus and a cellular membrane and are the basis of all life - Margulis explained how these cells evolved over millions of years as a result of interdependent and cooperative relationships between once-distinct bacteria. (Which of course means our true ancestors are bacterium.) Margulis also suggested that rather than evolution being driven by competition it is determined by symbiotic or cooperative relationships between organisms of different phyla and kingdoms. In other words, at the cellular level, life is relationships between things that are not the same and that change over time.

What does that have to do with our gospel text? Well, sheep and shepherds are of different orders. Much as Margulis’ distinctively different bacterium interact and cooperate to impel evolution,  so too do the shepherd and the sheep collaborate for the common good. I believe that is Jesus’ point when he says, “I came that they may have life and have it in abundance.” I believe Jesus is saying, "I came to be in relationship with them. I came to be in interdependent and cooperative relationship with each and every one of them, like a shepherd with his sheep. See, I even know them by name and they recognize my voice. I came to pour myself out to them (and to us) so that they could pour themselves out to me. Like the ancient bacterium that engulfed one another such that both survived and evolved over millions of years and became the basic cells of life, I, Jesus came to be in intimate, deeply personal relationship with you; loving, leading and caring for you. I came like a shepherd to the sheep; reaching across the chasm of order, genus, family and species. " Jesus came to show us the way of reaching across whatever divides us, the way of bridging our differences and cooperating for the common good. 

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