Last Sunday afternoon, Pastor Terry (from the ALC church) and I held a blessing of the animals. During a short and wonderful service we blessed 2 cats and almost 30 dogs. While we were reciting scripture and praying together, the dogs made the usual ruckus that animals make, but when we sang they all quieted down and as Pastor Terry and I began to bless each one, they listened intently as we touched their heads and blessed them.
The reason we chose the first Sunday of October is the feast day of St. Francis of
Francis was the son of a wealthy merchant family in
One day as he was praying, he was so certain of this call of God that he divested himself of everything that reminded him of his former life - everything – even leaving behind his expensive clothing and emerged from the church wearing nothing but nature’s cloak and went into the woods to commune with God’s creation.
That may not be something we’d like to picture for a Sunday morning, but it does illustrate an important point. Divested of his worldly goods, you might think that a person could do nothing to change the world or to help anyone – and yet, this penniless and for a time naked, person has had an immeasurable effect on the world. The religious orders of the Franciscans and the Poor Claires were founded for people who were of the same mind and were called to serve the poor and outcast of the world.
Francis gave up everything the world had to offer and gained something far greater than the world could imagine.
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In this morning’s gospel lesson, we see an individual quite different from Francis. A wealthy man runs up to Jesus and kneels at his feet and says, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’
We hear these words and our hearts go out to him. Don’t we hear his question in the voices of so many in our day? ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Isn’t there more to life than this? Is there nothing more to living than knowing that someday we will die? Is there some reason for it all – something that makes it all worthwhile?
Jesus tells the man, ‘You know the commandments.’ Yes, we know the commandments. We do our best to keep them, but it still leaves us empty inside. It still leaves us wanting more: more than just keeping the rules and trudging along in the same rut year after year.
‘You know the commandments’, Jesus told him – and the man replied, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth’. Jesus, looking not just at him, but looking through and through him, probably smiled that smile parents still get when they see such sincerity in their children. Scripture tells us that Jesus looked at him and loved him.
The Greek word being used for love here is “agape” or ag-ap-ah'-o as the scholars tell us to pronounce it. This word, “agape”, is found only 20 times in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and this morning’s lesson is the only one of those 20 times that Jesus is said to love a person.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. This was not a man who was trying to test Jesus. His motive was not to find fault with Jesus or call him a heretic. This man was sincere. He knelt at the feet of Jesus and asked what was required of him. He had tried his best to keep the commandments and knew that his life was still empty – what must he do?
‘Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, then come and follow me’, and the man went away grieving because he had many possessions.
In a way, his possessions had him - which is the same thing Francis discovered. Sometimes, it is our possessions that own us instead of the other way around.
Jesus turns to his disciples and laments, ‘It is so hard for those who have wealth to enter the
It is hard - but it's not really about the money. It's about the love of money - it's about the hold that possessions have on us - it's the vision of ourselves we hold onto when we have the security that money supplies.
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In the first century – and in our century, having money was believed to be a sign of God's favor. God liked you and your family and so you had money. Devout Jews could use that money to build synagogues, make pilgrimages to the temple and give alms to the poor. In an age when most people barely had enough to eat, the blessing of a full stomach and a full barn really did seem like God's favor on the rich.
More than that, for Pharisees, keeping the laws of Moses was an expensive proposition. It took lots of money and lots of servants to help you keep all the Levitical laws. This man had spent his whole life living by those laws and enjoying the wealth that made it possible.
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How could he leave everything?
How could he leave his comfortable home? How could he leave his family? his servants, his comfortable lifestyle, his honored place in society, give up access to all the powerful people who come to him for help because he too has a position of power in his community and the privileges and honor that go with it?
Can he really be expected to go about the countryside begging and accepting the hospitality of strangers - associating with the poor and the sinners?
Can he? He measured the things of the world and determined that they were worth too much to give them up for the Kingdom of God - and he went away grieved.
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-- But what if he had said “Yes”. What if he gave all that he had to Jesus and his followers? What good might have been done for the poor and the needy they met on the way?
- What if he said “Yes”. And Jesus told him it as only a test – a test to see how tightly the world’s things had control over him?
- What if he said “Yes”. And followed Jesus into the unimaginable wonder of life lived in the presence of the living God?
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What about us? If we heard the voice of God telling us to do the very same thing - could we? Francis did. So did Mother Teresa who left the secure and somewhat comfortable life of the convent to minister to the poorest people of
We all love our things too much -- and like the man in this morning's story, Jesus looks right into our hearts and loves us anyway.
But Jesus’ words to Peter speak to us today as well. ‘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.’
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If we can let go of the things of the world that absorb so much of our care and attention, God promises something far greater than we can imagine both in this world and in the next.
The ending sentences of this morning's scripture contain the good news for us this day in that it contains the assurance of God’s grace. It reminds us that on our own, we cannot get into the
God does not call us all to sell everything we have and give it to the poor, but we must each look around at our ‘stuff’ and decide whether we have so much of it that we rely on our stuff instead of God’s grace. When Jesus calls us to follow him, we may, like the man in this morning's story, go away grieved. We may miss out on all the wonders God has in store for us, but if we do - if we can let go, and sell, and give, and follow - we will, like Francis and Teresa, find that we too will have gained something far greater.
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Now, I am not suggesting that we all remove our fine middle class clothing and emerge from the church wearing nothing but God’s glory, but - What if we say ‘Yes’?. What if we promised to leave just one thing behind that causes us to settle for something less than the something far greater God has promised us? We need not be afraid that we cannot do it or that we cannot go there because we have the assurance of scripture in the words of Jesus that we can.
It is my hope and prayer that me may all find that way – that we may all say “Yes”. Amen.
