A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, October 11, 2009
Mark 10:17-31
I can’t quite get over this man’s question. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure if it’s his words or if I just don’t really understand what he’s asking – but I can’t really get over this man’s question, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s not a trick question. It’s not a hostile question like the Pharisees would ask. It’s an honest question. It’s an authentic question that requires an honest answer. Maybe that’s why I’m stumped by this question. I don’t hear many authentic questions like this one. Not lately. Not while our politicians argue with each other about healthcare. Not when our neighbors ask pointed questions about marriage equality. Too many questions I hear are looking for a particular answer where there’s only one right answer. Maybe that’s why I’m tripping over this question. Or maybe it’s because I was brash enough to ask a similar question.
Last week, I drove down Shore Road to sit at the bedside of a dying woman whom many of you have loved. I held her hand and asked: “What comes next?” I wasn’t asking about anything in particular. There’s no right answer – only the answer that mattered most to her. And so, she told me that the pain would disappear. She would be at peace. I asked her what that meant. She shook her head and said she didn’t know.
When I hear this man ask about inheriting eternal life, I think of Barbara shaking her head and saying she didn’t know. Both questions capture the frustration of feeling like we should know the answer – but we don’t. We don’t have the answers. And so, we shake our heads and say we don’t know. Sure, we know the commandments as Jesus reminds this man. We’ve kept all of these things since our youth so that we should know what to do or how to act – but so often we don’t – and so we shake our heads and shrug.
Still, we want to know. We want to know how to inherit eternal life. We want to know what comes next. We want to know how to move on. We want to know how to do good. But, if we’re really honest, we just want to know how we’ll manage to get out of bed tomorrow morning. So, the question falls upon our own lips, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
It’s not a trick or a hostile question, but wow. It’s a really hard question to wonder so bravely about what will come next. He’s trying to figure it out for himself. It’s not something – like a silver teapot or a chunk of money – that will be passed on to him by a loving relative. It’s not a thing at all. This man is trying to figure out how to enter into what comes next. So, you know what Jesus says. You know that Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing. He has to go and sell everything he owns which is certainly a huge challenge – but I think the greater challenge is this question this man bravely asks: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
This is the big question we ask when death comes. When death comes, we reel with these kinds of questions. How could this happen? Why this person? Why now? And, as this man asks Jesus, how can we move on from here? It’s not a trick question or even hostile one. It’s just a really hard question and what makes it so hard is that we don’t know the answer. We don’t know what will make it possible to move on anymore than we can know what comes after death. We’re just full of questions – with too few answers.
Like most of us, this man is looking for an answer. He’s looking for a good solid answer. He’s not looking for anything too complicated. He just wants to know how to live a “morally integrated” life. This is how he will move on. We don’t know what happened or why he needs to move on. We don’t know why he’s asking this question – but we do know how badly each of us desires to move on. Whether it is death, depression or heartache, we can each hear this man’s question and understand the impossibility of wanting to squeeze a camel though the eye of a needle. We want to move on too. No matter how impossible it seems we want to be able to enter into this next thing – whatever it may be.
However, Jesus is Jesus and so there aren’t any easy answers. It’s just not his style. Still, he offers an answer that seems pretty specific. So, Jesus says this man lacks one thing. To live a morally integrated life, he must go sell all that he owns. And in this, it seems that Jesus has just given us the universal “get out of jail free” pearl of wisdom. If you’re depressed or grieving or struggling with addiction or trying to rebuild a relationship with your son or just can’t find enough will to get out of bed in the morning, sell all you have. Sell it all. Give the money to the poor. You’ll be free from your pain. All will be well.
Except… except that it won’t work. It won’t heal you. It won’t free you from your pain. It just won’t work because this pearl of wisdom was intended for an ancient Mediterranean audience. And in that particular worldview, there is just enough. That’s all there is. There is just enough. No excess. No more. No less. There is only what there is. There is only enough for right now. In this understanding of the world, the “only way to get ahead was to take advantage of others.” That was the only way to gain any wealth. You take from others. You deny them their share of this limited good. And so, if you seek to live a morally integrated life, if you dare to ask this question, what you’re really trying to figure out how to live in this balance with your self, with your neighbor and with the world.
I tried to explain this to a church member last week. This particular member felt that she could never do enough. And so, I asked her: “what is enough?” She stumbled like most of us do. No, that’s not true. She looked shocked. She didn’t know what I meant by this question. We live in a world where there is always more. More to do. More to see. More to accomplish. We don’t accept that there is only what there is. We always think there is something else. There is always more. And yet, as much as we seek more, we fail to see that it all matters. If we dare to believe that all things are possible with God, in a world where so much is out of balance, we have to believe that everything matters.
A local author recently published a book by this title, Everything Matters. It wasn’t about poverty or healthcare. It was just a work of fiction that muses on the same wisdom that Jesus offers in the Gospel: Everything matters. Sitting in the coffee shop that day, when this church member looked so shocked, I wish I had had these words from the end of the book to offer her. I wish I had copied these words on a slip of paper and offered them to this woman that thinks she can’t do enough. Even if the words come a week later, I hope she hears this truth when this fictional protagonist that figures out that every thing does indeed matter. At that moment, this fictional guy hears this voice, the voice that says:
It’s our contention that in this version of things you have in fact done plenty. Plenty. You want to talk about could have? How about this: We gave you infinite options, and you could have easily chosen to live in a world free of both comets and cancer. You could have sidestepped those heartaches, and certainly we would not have blamed you. You chose instead to suffer every same calamity and anguish …
Listen:
Everything ends, and Everything matters.
Sitting in that coffee shop, I wish I could have said it with the same certainty I could muster for Barbara in saying: Everything ends, and everything matters. We want that camel to fit through the eye of a needle and we have even more questions about how that might possibly happen. We don’t have many answers. But, really, all we need to remember is that everything matters. It’s enough. No more. No less. It’s all enough.