What Must I Do?

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What must we do? Take out your bulletin. Take a few minutes and write down somewhere on the bulletin – perhaps on the cover -- three things you think you must do to “inherit eternal life,” to live in God’s realm. This is for yourself only, so you can be honest. [Give the congregation two or three minutes to write.] So what must we do to enter God’s realm? Do we have to follow every one of the Ten Commandments? Do we have to observe all 650+ prescriptions in the laws of Moses? Do we have to leave our families and our livelihoods to follow after an itinerant rabbi? Do we have to be crucified upside down like Peter? Must we be thrown to the wild beasts in Rome’s arena like Perpetua and her companions? Must we spend our lives as contemplative anchorites like Julian of Norwich? Will I be welcomed more warmly into God’s realm if I am a spell-binding preacher like “golden-mouthed” John Chrysostum or Phillips Brooks? Do I have to found settlement houses like Vida Dutton Scudder, or enter a convent or monastery? Must we all forsake the kingdom of thingdom, close all our accounts, sell our houses, and live as homeless beggars? Will any of these actions gain us entrance into God’s realm?

What must I do to inherit eternal life? We’re still in the gospel of Mark, and we’re still on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus and his friends. In preparation for his leaving them, Jesus has been instructing his closest friends in what discipleship involves. As we’ve been overhearing these conversations, we’ve learned, with the disciples, that we must truly understand what kind of messiah Jesus is. We must accept that he is a suffering messiah who will die a criminal’s death on a Roman cross. We’ve learned that those who wish to lead a community of Jesus’ followers must be servants of all. We’ve been reminded that we must respect the sacred commitments we’ve made to our life partners. We’ve learned that we must become spiritual children who acknowledge their vulnerability and their dependence on God alone.

Now, we come face to face with a shocking reality: in order to be able to accept God’s love, in order to truly live as spiritual children, we must relinquish our sense of self-control. We must let go of all that we place ahead of God, all that encourages us to trust our own possessions, powers, and abilities instead of God. How could this be? People of Jesus’ time, both Jews and Gentiles, believed that the rich especially enjoyed God’s favor. Wasn’t the rich man in today’s reading especially blessed by all his possessions? It’s painful to watch this scene play out. Can’t you see the look of shock and disbelief as this powerful man hears Jesus tell him to give up all his possessions, to let go of everything that had given his life meaning, to set out in a different direction? Can’t you see the tears running down his face, as he turns away from Jesus?

What must I do to inherit eternal life? Change is painful. Letting go is painful. Deciding to let go of our prized possessions, beliefs, attitudes, habits, or voting patterns, and trusting God to lead us into new life is difficult. Perhaps the man in this story “went away grieving,” because, as most people think, he knew he couldn’t do what Jesus had asked of him, and he wept because he was turning his back on an opportunity to change his life. Or perhaps he had decided to follow Jesus, but he knew how hard it would be to see the furniture crated up and carted off, the silver and china sold at auction, the silk and wool robes given to the relatives, the art work donated to the local synagogue. The tears would surely flow again and again.

Entering with Jesus into God’s realm is not easy. Letting go and following God’s leading is difficult. Taking that first step into new life, letting go of old ways of living, is often so painful that we put off doing what we know we must until our lives become unbearable. Attending that first AA meeting: can you imagine the guts it must take to stand up and say, “I’m Bill, and I’m an alcoholic.” Letting go of the past and taking those first steps toward wholeness is so difficult: making that first appointment with a marriage counselor, calling your physician about a mysterious symptom, returning to school, coming out to family and friends, sitting down with strange people, visiting a nursing home, hearing a call to ministry, or, as it was for this man, intentionally and honestly examining our use of our resources.

In our culture, letting go of some of our control over our resources can truly be painful and difficult. Money is the last taboo for us. It’s hard for us to admit that “where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” It’s hard to acknowledge that for most of us our bank statement reveals more about what we truly value than any other document. “Rich or poor, it’s nice to have money,” my mother used to say, but the hard spiritual truth is that our bank accounts will not save us. Make no mistake: we are not called to a life of destitution. Rather, Jesus is asking the rich man and us to see our money not as a measure of our self-worth, not as ticket to heaven, not as means of separating ourselves from others, but as a tool, as a means of benefiting others, especially the least, the lost, and the left behind of our society. What is your money doing? Who besides you is benefiting from it? Does your wealth help or harm the poor? Are you giving back some of your wealth to God?

What must I do to inherit eternal life? Ultimately entering God’s realm is about living a new and transformed life. Our lives are so busy and stressful, we might reasonably wonder, “Then who can be saved?” How can I possibly live up to what God expects of me? Where can I find the time, the nerve, and the resources to take those first necessary steps toward God? In our story, the rich man actually did something right: he came to Jesus! Coming to Jesus is actually the first step of a spiritual transformation that helps make all the other changes possible. When we spend time in Jesus’ presence, in worship, in reading the gospels for ourselves, or in private prayer, when we join ourselves to a community of people committed to Jesus, when we bear each other’s burdens, then we are giving God’s spirit time and opportunity to work in us and to gently lead us into the new ways of living that bring us farther into God’s realm. “With God, all things are possible,” Jesus reminds us. Buoyed by that hopeful word, we can trust that God is already at work within us, recreating and transforming us, giving us the courage to live into the changes that God has already begun in us.

What must I do to inherit eternal life? Ultimately, nothing. You can’t do anything to merit entry into the kingdom. We are do not merit the kingdom because we are just, honest, merciful, and generous. We are all only there by God’s free gift in Christ. If the rich man learned nothing else from his encounter with Jesus, he surely must have realized that he could not buy his way into heaven. He could only gratefully accept Jesus’ offer of a new and changed life. As Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, “No matter what we do, none of us earns eternal life. We can keep the commandments until we are blue in the face; we can sign our paychecks over to Mother Teresa and rattle tin cups for our supper without ever earning a place at the banquet table of God. The kingdom of God is not for sale. It never has been; it never will be. The poor cannot buy it with their poverty and the rich cannot buy it with their riches. The kingdom of God is a consummate gift.”

What must I do to inherit eternal life? The way may be difficult, we may hesitate to take the needed first steps, we may fall off the road and have to wait for Jesus pick us up again, and we may even face the cross. But we can take heart that we have Jesus to accompany us on our journey. We can trust that, despite our own shortcomings and sinfulness, we have already been graced by God and showered with God’s love. Will we too go away grieving because we cannot let go of all that holds us back, cannot bear to change our lives? Or will we let Jesus’ love lead us into the only life worth living?