06 19th Sunday after Pentecost

            My friends, I greet you today in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our lesson comes to us from the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are Christians 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! I it s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is a Christian to enter the kingdom of God.”  The disciples 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.” 

Now it is quite obvious that I made a substitution here.  Do you notice what it was?  Basically I replaced “rich” with “Christian.”  I did this because I wanted you to get a sense for the power of Jesus’ words here, and to be able to understand why the disciples responded the way they did.  Jesus isn’t picking on the wealthy because they are wealthy.  He is going after a wrong understanding, a false worldview. 

You see, it was a commonly held belief back then that if you had God’s favor then you had material blessings.  So the more wealth you had, the more you were loved by God.  That is God’s love for you is seen in the possessions you have, therefore if you have a lot of stuff, if you are rich, then it is because God loves you.  So, based on this flawed understanding of God’s blessing, who are the most likely to be saved?  The rich.  Hands down.  So when Jesus says that it is hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Can you begin to understand why the disciples were perplexed and astounded?

According to this worldview the rich would have the best chance of salvation and if entering heaven is difficult for them, well then who has a chance?  Then who can be saved? I mean their jaws must have been dragging on the ground.  This was going against what they thought to be true, and the way they thought that things worked. 

So how did you feel, when I read the verses with the change in there?  Did it make you squirm a little bit?  Did it make you a little uncomfortable?  It is a difficult thing to have a view that you’ve held for a long time, be yanked out from under you.  Yet, if that view that is held is a false view, then it needs to be removed. 

The question that the disciples ask is, “Who can be saved?”  What Jesus is saying here is that salvation is difficult.  In fact it is impossible, for a human being. That is the whole camel and eye of the needle thing.  There is no way. 

Let’s play a little game.  This is a good opportunity to wake up.  This will be a simple true/false kind of a thing.  Raise your hand at the correct time.  Ready?  Good.  True or False; salvation does not come from what material possessions we have.  True or False; Salvation does not come from works that we do.  True or False; Salvation does not come from what we believe.   

Who can be saved?  You see the point here is not to focus on the human beings and on what we do, because for us it is impossible.  But the point is that we be pointed to our God.  For with him all things are possible.  Salvation does not lie in us, or in what we have, what we do, or even what we believe.  But salvation lies in Jesus Christ alone.  It is for his sake that you and I are saved by grace through faith.  This way there is no boasting. 

Now I want to clarify something here.  I am making a distinction between belief and faith.  Belief can be like knowledge.  It is neither here nor there.  It is important to believe the right things, the true things, the noble things, but that is not the same thing as having faith.  Faith is like the hand that holds on tightly.  Through faith we cling to Jesus and to his promises.  Faith does not require that we have a complete understanding of the mysteries of God.  Rather faith takes God at his word.  Faith trusts the work that Jesus did on the cross, also that he rose from the dead.  That through him we have forgiveness of sins, everlasting life and salvation.  Faith says that even though are bodies will die, that they will not stay dead.  That one day they will live again, only they won’t be corrupted by sickness, suffering sin.  Faith is a gift given by God to his people.  So he gets all the credit.  And we do thank and praise him for that gift. The good news in this is that salvation is not impossible for our God.  But he has done something about it.  And he freely gives his salvation through Jesus Christ. 

So do you get it?  Are you with me.  Good.  Our friend Peter opens his mouth again.  I am so thankful for Peter.  He is so human and so easy to relate to.  Still not quite getting the point that Jesus is making, he begins to say, “Look we have left everything to follow you.”  And Jesus says, “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, sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.”

Here Jesus shifts things around, just a little bit.  It is as if you were to take a diamond and turn it slightly.  You are still looking at the same diamond, only now you are looking at a different aspect of it.  In a similar way, Jesus shifts the focus from the salvation of a human being to what it means to live in that salvation.  Peter asks about what was lost, and instead Jesus points him to what is gained. 

Being saved, being part of the kingdom of God is nothing something that happens to us in isolation.  Rather it is something that happens in community.  We are not individuals by ourselves, left on our own.  But we are brothers, and sisters, mothers and fathers and children all together to one another.  The relationship that we have is more than going to the same church.  But we are members of the same family, joined together by a common adoption from our God.  This is pretty cool.  And when it works the way that it is supposed to work it is even better. 

It’s very easy, in our world, to be used to thinking of ourselves in isolation from everyone else.  But God has brought us together to live as his people, as his family, as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and children in this place.  We live together, worship together and work together.  We come together and we share our gifts and talents with one another.  We use them to serve one another, and to serve the community around us. 

I love this.  This is the church.  It is not a building of brick and mortar, but it is God’s people.  Brought together by him. Greatly loved, completely forgiven.  We are not just here as individuals or as life stage groups, but as a family living together, sharing our gifts and talents toward the work of God.  In our words of love and comfort.  In our actions of service, we bear witness to the love of God, to the work of God in this world, in this place. 

It is a work that is not always easy.  For it requires that we learn to think of others before ourselves.  We have to think of the other members of this congregation and how we can use our gifts and talents to serve them.  And then how we can all work together as a congregation to serve the members of our community.  This is true life.  This is the life that we were meant to live.  Our Lord came not to be served, but to serve, and when we lead the same kind of life, we are living as we were intended to live.  And it is truly a good thing.

For as we live our lives in this way we are living out what it means to be saved, we are living out what it means to be in the kingdom of God.  Salvation is not freedom from living responsibly while we simply wait for Jesus to come.  But our salvation changes how we look at the world.  It is the source of our desire to change the world.  It is our motivation for living lives of service, so that through us the world might know of God and his great love for them.  Our salvation is a gift.  And it is a gift that enables us to then be gifts.  It is an awesome privilege and blessing.

My friends, my brothers and sisters, may our God be with us, and richly bless us as we thank and praise him for our salvation and live our lives for him and for his kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.