Amos 5.6-7, 10-15 & Mark 10.17-31- Avoiding the potholes
We’re getting towards the end of Trinity season. As we do so, our readings pick up in pace. They become more urgent and the words are more... shall we say, the authors don’t mince their words. They have something to say and it’s urgent. Soon we will be face to face with the King of heaven, and we are to get ourselves ready, shipshape and shaken down for this ever so royal visit.
I would be no good: I don’t do formal very well. When the king comes, it’s highly likely I won’t have the nice clothes one might expect to have to wear. In other words, I am not likely to have my heart and soul sorted out by then. But if you have a similar thought in your mind at that, and you too wish to find a possible solution to that challenging problem of how to be ready for the arrival of the King of heaven, come the day of Christ the King, listen on- there is an answer right at the end of today’s message. Oh yes!
So, we read the bible reading from Amos today, and we go, sheesh, that’s hard! And then we listen to the gospel, and we go, oh I know this one, um, seems a bit hard if I think about it, what can I do?
Yeah it’s tough stuff now. The man that came to Jesus came with a nagging problem. He wanted to be sure of how to get into heaven. He needed to know the answer, because he didn’t feel he had sorted himself out either, and was probably worried about how to get himself ready in time.
Jesus turns to the Law, the 10 commandments, and asks this man to follow them. You know them: Don’t murder, its not nice to murder; don’t steal, doesn’t look good your cv if you do; and so on.
The way Jesus recites them and reminds the man of his obligations, the more it feels a bit like avoiding potholes on the road when cycling a bike.
Avoid the pot holes and you will be fine, says the law. Certainly if we are riding a bike, hitting a pothole can mean anything from a puncture to a broken wheel-rim, or even worse, a fall in front of oncoming traffic. It is GOOD to avoid the holes of life. And in some ways, it is not too hard. Weave a bit here, keep your eyes open and you’ll reach your destination in one piece. In many ways it is the easier way of being Good, to avoid something that is obviously Bad. And Jesus calls upon the law on purpose, because he has a task, and that is to show that just avoiding the bad, that is keeping oneself on the right side of pure, is not what makes you Good. And Jesus even prefigures this by saying to the man, ‘Why do you call me good?’
What Jesus does next is to give the man a new task. The man himself had been avoiding the potholes of life for many years, he even felt quite accomplished in it. But he had this nagging feeling that something was missing. Something wasn’t enough. He didn’t feel qualified for heaven somehow.
If he had dug down a little beyond his own self interest in making sure his own meat-sack body was going to get into heaven, he may have realised that somewhere inside things such as his moral compass may have been turning this way and that, as if having been brought close to a discomforting magnet that twisted the needle and was making him aware of its existence within his heart for the very first time. He may have been avoiding the potholes to stay pure for his own eternal backside’s sake, but had he morally acted for the best interest of others?
This is what Jesus does next. And introduces him to the idea that it isn’t just about avoiding the potholes, it’s about what else you do on the journey too.
Returning to our cycling analogy, if we’ve avoided a nasty hole in the road, we might want to turn and check to see if our companion has also spotted it. We might wish to consider the pace we’re travelling at so they can enjoy the journey as much as we. We may wish to fall into conversation with them, or when we see them getting fatigued, figure with them where the lunch stop is going to be, so as to encourage them. There is so much more going on on this cycle-ride than you alone merely avoiding nasty potholes.
Jesus, knowing that the man had been handling things mechanically and without having applied his heart to himself and real people, loves him. That is so telling. We’re told how Jesus operated from his heart, almost as if to give us the answers to the problem the man presented. And Jesus brings to the man a task of the heart, something that is specific to this man alone, in this moment of time, to show just how Goodness really worked. And it was hard: Go, give everything, for others’ sake. Go, divest yourself to your very core, so that others might live.
The image Jesus is using could be likened to a nice warm winter coat. We need a winter coat now don’t we. It’s getting chilly. We put our coat on and we go outside and although we still feel the nip in the air, we feel secure because of our nice warm coat. The image Jesus is using is a little bit like taking that coat, and letting it drop from our shoulders, so someone else might use it. And when we think on how cold we would feel for doing that; phew, yes, it is very hard to give of ourselves really, isn’t it. To divest ourselves, may not mean coats or even giving away our things, but is about taking the very core of our being, and ensuring it is, as far as humanly possible, willing to give for the welfare and wellbeing of another.
Just take any one group of people that you might feel a disdain for, - and there’s no way any one of us can sit here and say there isn’t anyone. We all have agitations about someone or some group or other. I know so, because I hear what people say over coffee in the hall!- So, just take any one group of people that you might feel a disdain for, even in a slight little way, and consider beyond your feelings, what humanity that person or group of people have; that they are human just like you; hurting and in need, just like you, and you might have the means to sometimes meet those needs; and you will see just how hard and yet necessary it can be to not just avoid the potholes of life.
Our old testament reading spoke of a whole national culture that was undermining people who were in need, and looking to its own privileged needs alone and, it gives stark warning. The prophet who wrote those words, Amos, foretold the overrunning of the nation where its leadership and capable people would be ripped away from their land and taken into exile far away. And historically we know it happened.
So learning to live with the heart, aware of others and their needs, even when some of those people will really challenge us for their even existing, is something important in the task of being Good.
Lastly, knowing that some of us are probably feeling a little overwhelmed at what being Good actually involves, let us go back to the beginning of this man’s conversation with Jesus:
‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’
‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone!’
No one is Good. It is the impossible task.
None of us are the pure individuals good enough to qualify for heaven: we are all messy tots in need a darn good clean up.
It isn’t that we need to be qualified for heaven by trying to attain to some weird sense of purity. Goodness, no, that’s a route that will quickly lead us to poor mental health. We have been attended to by the one who knows how to divest themself, in that God attends to us, wipes our messy face, makes us sit up well, and ushers us to his table by her invitation, and not by our effort.
Grace allows us to step into eternal life. And grace, once it is received... it makes us want to let others experience what little forms grace we can show to them. And all of a sudden, we are doing the Good things.