Sermon Tone Analysis

What do you want?

It's the first question Jesus asked his disciples,

John 1:38 “Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?””

It's the question buried under almost every other question Jesus asks.

Jesus doesn't first ask, what do you know? or what do you believe?

What do you want? is the most incisive, piercing question he can ask, because we are what we want.

You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith, p.1ƒƒ

Our wants, our desires, and our longings are at the core of our identity… everything else flows form what we want, all of our actions and behaviors flow from what we want.

The questions Jesus is asking can help us become more attentive and intentional about what we love.

A big part of following Jesus is about learning to pay attention to what you love, what you desire, and allowing God to reorient/reorder your loves, your priorities.

Here’s another way to think about this…what’s the purpose of the Vineyard church here in Duluth?

Why are we here?

What are you doing here?

Are you here because you were wide awake this morning and just couldn’t come up with anything better to do?

As we come together, what are you hoping for?

Why have Christians, followers of the resurrected Christ continued to gather together for a couple thousand years regardless of the hardship or persecution they’ve encountered?

Why?

The fundamental answer , from a biblical point of view… is that what we're "here for" is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we're made….

The point of our regular gathering together is to regularly reorient our lives around the resurrected Christ… to worship is to orient ourselves in the world as God’s image bearers, to receive the gifts from the Spirit of God and from one another… gifts of love and of loving challenge… it a way we participate in our ongoing formation of being (re)created in the image of God and receive empowerment as we go both to and for the rest of the world.

And that we can’t actually do that independently of one another, regardless of how independent we think we are.

“Christ didn't come to make us Christian.

Christ came to make us fully human.”

H.R. Roomaaker (Dutch theologian, professor, and author)

Christ died for us in order to restore our humanity, and to give meaning back to God’s creation.

In this process of discipleship, we are learning together how to reorient our heart, our loves and desires…because living in the world (but not of it) its easy for us to get off track!

There are lots of “course corrections” needed as we go along.

I want to look at a biblical story today that highlights one of the biggest ways our hearts get off track, one of the biggest warnings Jesus gives to his followers…in Mark 10

Let me give us just a little background:

This is another one of those triple synoptic traditions, its an interaction that all three of the gospel writers remember.

It left a mark on their souls.

Second, Jesus has just finished blessing the children that parents were bringing to him, highlighting how becoming part of God’s kingdom is a gift God gives to those who acknowledge their helplessness.

And in the dialogue that follows today’s interaction, Jesus is predicting for a third time his upcoming trail and death; highlighting how this kingdom will cost you everything and it’s totally worth it.

Alright, let’s read this passage…

Let’s look at the interaction…

Good teacher, what must I do…?

From all three gospel writers we know that this fellow is young, he’s some sort of a ruler (has authority over others), and is wealthy.

It’s not normal for this kind of a dignified guy to run.

Or to slide up to Jesus on his knees…That catches our attention, something’s up.

He compliments Jesus and he asks a good question about eternal life and how we're supposed to get it.

It's the kind of question that a religious teacher would find fascinating.

Why do you call me good?

Jesus ignores the main question completely and instead confronts his greeting!

What‽

It's like if you started an email with "Dear Michael," and I wrote back asking "How 'dear' am I? In what way am I 'dear' to you?"

"Well, excuuse me!"

I think this’ll make sense later…

You know the commandments…

And then, before he has a chance to respond, Jesus recites a bunch of the commandments from (Exod 20:12–16; Deut 5:16–20)

I don’t know if you notice this, but Jesus doesn’t list out the first four commandments, dealing with our love of God.

He only highlights the last 6 dealing with how we treat other people…

We’ll get back to that…

All of these I have kept

We might look at this response as prideful or egotistical, but this young man is claiming the very same thing the apostle Paul claimed in:

Phil 3:6 “6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.”

They are not claiming to be sinless, but blameless according the system God had laid out.

"Judaism requires that you dedicate yourself to a way of life in which you keep the commandments, and that you follow the patterns of apology and forgiveness when you make mistakes in your attempt to live them out."

Conrad Gempf

Jesus looked at him and loved him

You’ve got to love verse 21

There’s no one else in the gospel of Mark, where he writes that Jesus loved them.

One thing you lack…

Jesus doesn’t challenge that he’s kept the law, as it’s been stated.

But now he’s going to drive the point much deeper.

Jesus say’s, “One thing you lack”… and then he lists three things to do…

1) Go sell everything; 2) Give to the poor so that you have treasure in heaven; 3) Come follow me.

Here’s my questions for us to consider: what if the three things Jesus is giving him to do, really are only one thing?

And what if this list Jesus is giving him is addressing the issues around the commandments that Jesus didn’t mention, the ones that have to do with a person’s responsibilities before God…worship God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; or have not other God’s before me—What if Jesus is not addressing those commandments??

What if the underlying issue isn't about selling, or giving, or even the following…what if its about a complete reordering of priorities?

He went away sad because of his wealth

Mark describes his reaction with a particularly descriptive word in Greek, stygnazein (stig, na-zo), meaning to be shocked, intensely dismay, appalled, or overcast as the sky, gloomy, disheartened.

Dude!

This young man had been able to manage the checklist of spirituality, but a complete reordering of priorities, a re-centering his life around God, a complete reorientation proved too difficult for him.

The commandments were never about an extensive checklist of how to be spiritual, how to make God love you, how to be better than others, or how to get what you think you want when you die.

The commandments were always meant to be a covenant relationship, a reorientation to a God-centered way of life.

This makes the earlier nit-picking around the word “good” make way more sense…

Jesus wasn’t nitpicking when he asked, "Why do you call me good?”

That is in fact precisely the answer to the man's question.

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

If he knows why it is right to kneel before Jesus,

if he knows why it is right to call him 'good',

if he has come in order to follow, then he would have had the 'one thing' which it turned out he lacked.

Knowing why you call him good involves knowing who you think he actually is.

Jesus is putting himself in the place of God in the covenant relationship—Jesus is putting himself at the center as more important that possessions or wealth.

Sadly, this is that last we hear of this young man, this potential follower of Jesus.

What is so dangerous about wealth?

We are designed to live in deep connection with God (heart, soul, mind, strength), and with one another (loving others as we love ourselves).

When I don’t have much money, I need my friends to help me move.

I need a community around me to help me get settled at college.

I need help watching my kids.

But then as my wealth increases, I generally need you less and less to help me through life.

Money affords us the ability to get whatever we want without relationship or connection.

Some of us who are older, look back longingly, from a place of loneliness, at the relationships we had when we were younger…when we actually needed our friends… even though the relationships we often very difficult.

With enough money, I can get whatever I want without entangling myself with the personalities or needs of other people.

I may not be able to turn stuff into gold, but I can turn my money into anything I want.

If you have enough money, you can find someone who (legally or not) will find a way to give it to you.

(The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, by Andy Crouch)

Jesus gave that power an ancient name: Mammon.

It's not just a generic noun, it's a name.

Matthew 6:24 (NIV) — 24 “No one can serve two masters.