Year B, Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
October 13, 2024
Job 23:19, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15 Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31
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“The Invitation to Let Go”
The Very Rev. Kathleen Murray
Historic Beckford Parish, Mt. Jackson & Woodstock
21st Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23, Year B) – St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
October 13, 2024
There are so many questions about today’s Gospel passage.
Is Jesus really telling us we have to give away all our possessions to inherit the kingdom of God?
Is Jesus really telling us that wealthy people cannot enter the kingdom of heaven?
I’m not going to answer those questions, but I will tell a story and ask you where you might see yourself in the story. My thanks to a friend who first told this story some years ago and allowed me to retell it for today’s sermon.[1]
“It takes place in Jerusalem in the year 70. The city is at war with Rome, which is fighting to crush a Jewish uprising. Jerusalem is under siege, and the Roman army is about to break through the last wall holding it back. The city is jammed with Jewish rebels and refugees from Galilee, and they’re all starving. Times are hard. When you’re hungry, and I mean really hungry, the only thing you care about is getting something to eat.
The man at the center of this story has been hungry for months.
He’s getting ready to pull up some weeds from the rubble to eat. There was a time when he would have been too proud to do that, but not now. A lot of people left before the Romans came, including his own family, but this man stayed back to guard his property. He now knew that when there’s nothing to eat, the property really wasn’t worth much.
He felt like one of the animals who foraged about for food. But the only thing he cared about was finding enough food to make it through another day. And there wasn’t much left growing in the place where he was looking for food that morning. He’d had to search further.
He squeezed past a stone wall and froze in fear at the sign of another man not twenty feet away. Would this one try to steal what little food he had?
But just then, they both heard heavy footsteps coming their way, and in that moment, these two potential enemies became allies. The two who had been scrounging for food quickly his, slipping back behind the wall and sliding down to sit with their backs pressed against the stones, hoping they hadn’t been spotted.
That was when the man recognized the stranger behind him. They had been friends in boyhood and attended Temple together, but they hadn’t seen each other in many years.
‘Simon?’, he whispered. ‘Simon, is that you?’
Indeed, it was Simon, and his story unfolded in hushed tones as they huddled together, waiting while the footsteps moved away and returned as the soldiers searched the area again.
Simon had joined those who followed The Way, the name the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth gave themselves after his death. He’d been gone from Jerusalem for many years, but he came back to deliver a letter to the leaders who remained. Now, he was trapped in the city.
That’s all he had to say about himself. What he really wanted to talk about was this Jesus.
Simon spoke of the love. He spoke of the way the believers shared everything they had and the prayer that sustained them as they went about sharing their message that all of scripture had been fulfilled in Jesus.
‘Through his death and his rising again, he offers forgiveness of sins, and freedom far more meaningful than freedom from Rome,’ he said.
The man wasn’t really interested, but he let Simon talk. He simply didn’t have the energy to stop him. And in his weakness, the man closed his eyes and allowed himself a distant memory, remembering the day when he himself had come face to face with Jesus.
Simon that the man had closed his eyes, stopped talking and asked if he was all right.
‘I met him once,’ the man said at last. ‘Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when I thought I might become one of you. I was so young; my head was so full of dreams. I imagined I could be more than a merchant like my father and his father before him.’
‘And I was pious, too. I followed the commandments. But I thought we’d forgotten what it was like to love God. I was traveling to attend to some business and came across a crowd gathered around this Jesus. I’d heard so much about him and was curious, so I stopped and went closer.’
‘He was so sure of himself. And there was something about him that made people want to go after him. The sicker they were, the hungrier they were, the more they seemed to want to be with him.
I felt it myself, though I was hardly one of them. They were not people I would have associated with. Yet, on that day, I thought I would be willing to go with them for his sake.’
‘He welcomed all of them. I never imagined what he would ask of me.’
‘I went up to him when he was finished and asked what I’d have to do to share in this new life he promised.’
“Observe the commandments,” he said, but I had always done that, and I told him so.
‘What else?’ I said, and his answer grieved me deeply.
“You must go and sell what you have,” he said, “and give money to the poor.”
‘But that was impossible. How could I fulfill my responsibilities to my widowed mother if I gave everything away? And what about my wife and children?
‘I couldn’t do it, you understand; it was out of the question.’
Simon looked at him curiously then, shaking his head.
‘That was you”, he said. “I can’t believe that was you!’
‘What do you mean that was me?’
Simon said, “We still tell a story about that day, about what you said and what he said to you, but the man in the story has no name. In the story, a man went to the teacher, fell to his knees and asked what was necessary to inherit eternal life. But the man in the story can’t accept the answer, and he turns and goes away. I’ve heard that story many times, and I never knew it was you.”
The man said, ‘A story about me you heard many times.’ ‘How odd when I went on with things and never thought of it again.’
But that wasn’t true.
The man did go on with his life. He attended his business and met his responsibilities to his family, but sometimes, when he was alone and the house was quiet, he wondered what his life might have been if he hadn’t turned away.
And now he found himself reliving those few minutes he spent with Jesus so very long ago – remembering the expression on his face – the tenderness of his eyes.
‘I’ll never forget the way Jesus looked at me,’ he said after a while. ‘I knew he loved me, and I’ve never felt loved in quite that way. Not by anyone. He loved me.’
Simon was looking at him now in nearly the same way. ‘He still does,’ Simon said, his words and expression so tender. ‘He still does.’
Simon put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and stood up. ‘The soldiers are gone now,’ he said. ‘We should get away from here while we can.’
‘You go on,’ the man answered. ‘I’ll come soon. I’m just so tired.’
And when Simon was gone, he closed his eyes again and wept.
Now, you might be wondering if this story is true, and I’ll tell you something I once heard from a wise woman: ‘All stories are true, and some of them actually happened.’
We don’t know what became of the man in today’s Gospel. We don’t know his name or what he did with the rest of his life.
He turned and walked away from Jesus; we don’t know if he ever returned.
We don’t know what happened to the man in this story either, but we do know that the invitation to follow Jesus is always open.
Jesus invited us to let go of the things that don’t matter so we can focus on the things that do.
Jesus asks us for total commitment – he asks us to let go of all the stuff we hold onto because we think we can’t be safe and secure without those things. He asks us to trust him. He knows that it will be heard and that some will turn away.
But the possibility of turning back is always there because God makes all things possible. The love is always there.
Come, he says. Follow me.
[1] The Reverend Catherine D. Kerr