SERMON 14 - SUNDAY 7 OCTOBER 2012

Sermon at All Saints Church, Whiteparish - Morning Worship- Sunday 7 October 2012

Luke 18:18-25

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable to you oh Lord. Amen [Psalm 19:14]

Although I have led and preached a couple of times at Evening Prayer here during the year – this is the first time I have taken this particular service and for me it’s been an absolute delight – so far! – especially to hear the wonderful music – lovely hymns and singing – As a once time chorister in Lincolnshire, it’s always good to hear worship being led by a good choir.

I am also delighted to be preaching here this morning for another reason – you are embarking on a stewardship campaign in Whiteparish which means that my sermon can be based on the stewardship reading from Luke which you’ve just heard, and not a particularly difficult passage from Mark on divorce – which whilst it might have been entertaining for you to watch me squirm – would have been a real test for me.  Perhaps on another occasion.

Not that the Luke reading is particularly easy either. I have read this passage dozens and dozens of times and have to say, in the past, have had great empathy for the rich ruler who is told that if he wants to inherit eternal life he must sell EVERYTHING! and distribute his money to the poor and only then come and follow Jesus!

What?!!! It was a simple question but the answer which the young man got was quite unexpected. EVERYTHING!  You mean EVERYTHING, ALL MY POSSESSIONS!

At face value that means that all of us who live in what we would all agree is quite an affluent part of Wiltshire, and on a larger scale an incredibly wealthy part of the world, appear to have no hope whatsoever of entering the kingdom of Heaven or having eternal life.  In the words of Private Fraser of Dad’s Army – we’re all doomed!  Doomed unless we sell everything and become monks or nuns I guess.  How on earth can I preach that with my own smart Mercedes in the church car park?  I am probably doubly doomed!  Perhaps I should have preached on divorce after all!

The young man says to Jesus – “I have kept all the commandments given to Moses since my youth – I’ve been a good boy.  I have never done anything which would displease God”.  Surely he is an A* candidate for eternal life.  At the end of the passage, the young ruler cannot bring himself to give everything away and follow Jesus and so consequently he disappears off the pages of the bible never to be heard of again.  Jesus has one last thing to say though, which can only add to our discomfort “How hard is it for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  Indeed it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”.  Yikes, most of us are indeed doomed it seems!

There have been many interpretations of what was meant by “camels going through eyes of needles” and it has been suggested that it could refer to one of the narrow gates at Jerusalem where a camel heavily laden with possessions would find its way blocked because of the squeeze or pinch point unless the goods were removed; although there is no evidence for the existence of such a gate: another interpretation is that the Greek word kamilos for a rope was misspelt and that the true analogy is that you cannot thread a rope through the eye of a needle.  Whatever the origin, the meaning is clear – a near or actual impossibility.

That really doesn’t help us though does it? 

I said earlier that the young man disappears off the pages of the bible but, if you will indulge me, I’d like to put him back in again later on in Luke’s gospel – into the next chapter in fact, Chapter 19.

The first part of Chapter 19 relates the story of Zacchaeus who you will remember was the chief tax collector – therefore a collaborator with the Romans and by his description a person who cheated and swindled his countrymen out of immense amounts of money which he kept for himself.  He was a thoroughly despised individual.  We also know, from his description, that he was quite short in stature. Knowing that Jesus was coming to his home town of Jericho and wanting to see what all the fuss was about, he climbed a sycamore tree for a better view.  As Jesus passed that place he looked up and told Zacchaeus that he must get down, go home and prepare his house for Jesus to dine and stay with him.  Immediately, Zacchaeus was humbled as a sinner and agreed to give away half of his possessions to the poor and pay back four times as much to everyone he had swindled.  Judging by his immense wealth he would probably still have some left over for a comfortable life.

Now let’s imagine that after these two incidents, the one with the young ruler and the one with Zacchaeus, the young man and Zacchaeus happen to bump into one another at the Camel & Needle wine bar in old town Jericho.  Each relates their meeting with Jesus.  Can you imagine the conversation;

Zacchaeus: Yes I met him when I was up a tree – no don’t ask me why I was up there, let’s just say that I always have to try and find the front seats at the arena! Anyway, he looked up to the tree and invited himself to my house for dinner.  I wanted to dance in the tree there and then!  Me, a terrible sinner! At dinner I realised what a horrible person I’d been when he started to talk to me.  I decided then and there that I couldn’t and shouldn’t go on sinning like that so I offered to give away half of my possessions immediately to the poor and needy and pay back four times what I had swindled out of the people.

Young Ruler:  Hang on a minute, did you say HALF of your possessions?

Zacchaeus: Yes that’s right although with the four times payments back to those I’d swindled it was a bit more than half.

Young Ruler: Well, I met Jesus and asked him how I could have eternal life and he told me to give EVERYTHING AWAY – not just half.  How can that be fair?  You were an absolute swindler too from what I’ve heard

Zacchaeus: A bit more than that, a swindler to the power of seventy seven I’d say, a master swindler.

Young Ruler: – But I’ve been so good in my life, never broken any of the commandments, I go to the synagogue every Sabbath, tithe and also run the camel train to the market for supplies for those who don’t have a camel.

Zacchaeus: – I’ve always wanted to be good like you and now I feel that I can be that different person – I feel that I can do all those things which I found so difficult because Jesus has shown me a new way.  So why couldn’t YOU do what he asked you to do?

Young Ruler: - I guess the difference is that Jesus was asking me to stop being me; to be someone or something different and I just couldn’t do it.  I don’t think it was the money in itself but I didn’t really understand what was going on – what Jesus was actually saying to me – to be different, be more like Him and giving all my money away was a way of showing that change.  You, on the other hand, sought him out and wanted to change and you showed it by changing your life big time.  I guess I haven’t understood that until now – after meeting you.

Do you think he might still take me on if I went now to him and told him what I now understand?

Zacchaeus – Yes I’m sure he would.  It sounded as though he really liked you and wanted you to follow him.  There’s always time to change.

 

It is interesting that with the notable exception of Zacchaeus, the poor and needy always seem to get the blessings of God whilst the rich, wealthy and influential struggle.  I think that in the passage which was read this morning, Jesus is emphasising that the trappings and lifestyle which often accompany wealth sometimes make it difficult to understand the sacrificial nature of giving.  Zacchaeus must have sacrificed a lot to give away half of his wealth.  He was despised, unloved and to humbly go to all those whom he had swindled and say sorry must have been truly difficult – in a similar way that restorative justice can often be harder on the criminal than community service or a jail sentence.  Just imagine the humiliation he faced.

The young man was equally being asked to make a sacrifice.  Perhaps the only sacrifice he could make. At face value, it does seem very harsh and unfair but when compared with Zacchaeus’s sacrifice maybe we can see it for what it is.

How much do we love God? That’s the question.  He loves us unconditionally yet we often fall short in our love for him and our service to him. Being Christians isn’t easy.  We are required not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk. When we don’t w e are often labelled hypocrites. That was what Jesus was asking the young man to do. Walk the walk – put his fine words of piety into action.

As we leave this church today let us each of us, during this period of stewardship and beyond, ask ourselves and God through prayer about what sacrifices we can make to show our love.  It might be giving more money, it might be a greater devotion to his word, it might be the use of our skills and talents which we have so far not used to their fullest extent. We are not called upon to give everything away but we are called upon to sacrifice our greed, envy, mean spiritedness, or selfishness and give our life for him who gave his life for us.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, it is so hard for us to find the source of our true wealth in you.  Fragile beings that we are, and so insecure when we take faltering steps outside our identity that is meaningful only in the eyes of the world.  We know that it is not all about money, Lord; but about our willingness to offer you freely anything that occupies the central place in our lives and therefore excludes you.  Give us honesty and courage in our consideration of this matter, Lord Jesus, that we may, like Zacchaeus, have cause to dance in our trees.

Amen