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Once
there was a woman who awoke in a medieval village. How she got
there, and where she had come from, she had no idea. All she knew
was the simple fact that survival was unbelievably challenging.
Even though the environment was pleasant enough, time after time enemies
would appear and attempt to eradicate her. Sometimes they were
fierce beasts, griffins or dragons and the like. Sometimes they
were powerful men and women, wizards or knights or soldiers, or evil
witches. They all shared the common desire to take her out.
Somehow she survived, grew stronger, even came to
thrive. Somehow the right weapon would appear at just the right
time, or she would conceive of a new and surprising tactic for survival
and triumph. No matter how much time passed by, however, it never
occurred to her that she was simply an avatar in an on-line game,
watched over, guided, and protected by an unseen player logged onto the
net from a personal computer.
As Christians, we hold that the reality in which we
dwell is far greater, far more complicated than we can ever realize on
our own. Though we are more more autonomous than an avatar in a
computer game, reality is more vast than the portions of reality with
which we are familiar. Unlike an avatar, we are free to choose our
course, as our daily lives unfold. However, there are
similarities. We believe that whether we know it or not, we are in
a living relationship with a higher power whom we call 'God' ...
'Yahweh', to be precise. Our God loves us, watches over us, cares
for us, provides for us, and guides us, to the extent we will
allow.
Since we are in an actual relationship with the God
who not only created us, but everything that exists, our freedom is not
absolute. God has expectations of us. Some of those seem to
be built in ... we just know that it is dreadfully wrong to murder one
another, take unfair advantage of one another, deceive one another, and
so forth. We may argue about the details, but we seem to know that
the God who created us is intensely interested in our conduct.
As Christians, we also believe that God has revealed
his expectations in greater detail through the Bible. The Ten
Commandments, for example, teach us to honor our creator, and to be in
right relationship with one another. Yet God's expectations are
far more comprehensive than the Ten Commandments. The Bible is
well over a thousand pages long!
Take a look at what God asks of us in the lessons
for today. The prophet Amos, in God's name, calls upon us to "Seek
the Lord and live". God's prophetic word demands that we not
profit by 'trampling on the poor ...' Nor are we to "afflict the
righteous" or 'take bribes'. On a more positive note, Amos
continues by inviting us to "Seek good and not evil, that [we] may live"
... Furthermore, we are to "Hate evil and love good ..."
The passage from Hebrews is more informative than
demanding, but through it God invites us to "approach the throne of
grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help
in time of need ..."
Taken as a whole, much of the Bible spells out God's
challenging expectations of us in great and repetitive detail.
God's word is powerful, "living and active, sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing ... it is able to judge the thoughts and
intentions of the heart ..." Who among us can comfortably stand
before God's Word? Speaking for myself, week after week I am
challenged as I stand in the light of the Word of God.
Yet the time came when the Word of God became human,
and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth as brother John reminds us
in his gospel. Amazingly enough, we have accounts of the living
Word of God, wandering around Palestine, interacting with the people of
that day.
One of those people happened to be a very good
man. There are such creatures! Some people just seem to fear and
love God enough to follow God's commandments, just because that is the
right and best thing to do. They neither get sucked into the trap
of rebellion against God, nor attempt to behave well enough to reap
their reward, even though they would much rather be outrageously sinning
in their own preferred way. This particular man had actually
followed the commandments. He had a good heart. And yet,
apparently, he was not absolutely sure he had pleased God.
Meeting up with Jesus, he understood that this was a teacher with real
truth. A question came to mind. "Good teacher, what must I
do to inherit eternal life?" In other words, 'Have I done
enough?' That question is not unknown, even among us.
'Well, what about the commandments?' Jesus
replied? 'No problem' he responded. 'Done those since I was
a kid!' 'Anything else?'
Jesus looked at him in the way described by Hebrews,
piercing him more sharply than a two-edged sword, getting to the heart
of the matter. 'There is one thing' Jesus said to him. "go;
sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ... then come, follow
me ..." 'Whoa! Wait a minute! You ask too much,
sir!' And he went away sadly.
Notice please this was a specific invitation to a
man whom Jesus had looked at and therefore knew completely.
Selling all we have and giving the proceeds to the poor never became a
standard requirement for all Christians. His possessions, his
wealth, were what prevented him from following Jesus. There are
other roadblocks.
What can we learn from this incident? First of
all, I think that we are each invited to stand before Jesus inquiring,
"What do you ask of me?" The Spirit of Jesus, the Living Word of
God, will look into each of us just as deeply, and just as lovingly as
Jesus looked into the heart of this rich young man. I truly
believe that each of us will receive the very same invitation ... "come,
follow me!" Will we let go of anything that holds us back?
Or will we turn sadly away, unable to surrender ourselves completely?
Secondly, I believe the saying about the camel also
applies to each of us, not just to the wealthy among us. It is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for us to
become what we need to be to truly follow Jesus into the kingdom.
For us mortals salvation is indeed impossible, but for God, for God all
things are possible.
Let us turn toward Jesus, hearing his invitation,
seeing his hand outstretched to us in invitation, feeling his deep love
of us. Let us eagerly take his hand and walk with him ever more
deeply into the kingdom. Amen.
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