October 14, 2012 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus Page 1 of 5 Proper 23B RCL Job23; Ps 22; Hebrews 4; Mark 10:17-31 October 14, 2012, 2012, St. John s, Sharon The Rev. Adam T. Trambley I Have Decided to Follow Jesus Jesus is on the road. A man runs up to him. He is a good man, a pious man, an Eagle Scout, a board member of the Greater Galilee YMCA. He kneels at Jesus feet asking: What must I do to inherit eternal life? Keep the commandments, Jesus says. Just what I wanted to hear, he thinks. Like every guest on Dr. Phil, he s waiting to be told that he s doing everything right already. Everyone else thinks he is, and he really wants to be good. One more thing, Jesus says. Sell everything you have, give the money to the poor and come, follow me. I can t do that. I have too much. It s too hard (Anyway, I already tithe to the synagogue.) I can t sell The gold-plated Rolex sundial Uncle Jehosephat gave me for Bar-Mitzvah Or the silver goblets we got as wedding gifts Or the I Love Caesarea Philippi shot glasses from our honeymoon. Never mind the three vineyards I want to give to my grandchildren Or the gold talents hidden in the ground for our retirement. What would I tell my wife? Or my kids? Or the guys at the office? Poor soul. Walked away grieving. Jesus loved him, you know. He wanted him to follow joyfully. A little more faith, a little more love, a little more compassion and his fear could have turned to joy. One more thing sell everything you have
October 14, 2012 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus Page 2 of 5 give the money to the poor, and come, follow me Yeah I can sell everything and give it to the poor! Hey, honey, no more dusting, or cleaning, or cooking for the daughters-in-law. We re going on a road trip. But first, this table can go and help the family down the block after their fire. these pans are needed at the women s shelter. the money from the embroidered dress robes can feed the lepers outside the city for a month. our 401(k) can endow the new Samaritan orphanage. Dear, is anybody poor and desperate enough to take the ugly tablecloth your sister gave us? What about the plates from your aunt Jezibel? So much to do, but so exciting. Who knew we could use what we have to touch so many lives! We are so like the grieving man. We rarely see the joy and the grace in Jesus call. We see what we have and we see it as only good. But we don t see what it could do for someone else and we don t see how dangerous wealth can be for us. How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. (And he means the big humped animal and the small thing we sew with.) Why so hard? Think about it. The kingdom of God is where all God s people spend eternity together, unless they can t stand it. We know that people who hate God, who hate their neighbors don t want to spend forever in heaven with them.
October 14, 2012 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus Page 3 of 5 But just how do we who are wealthy live over the course of forever with those who were poor. What do you say at the heavenly banquet to the person who watched their daughter die of starvation the same day you had two steaks and more items than you care to remember dipped in the chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral; or what do you say to the person who spent life maimed from an illness that could have been prevented if they had money for a vaccine while you spent a thousand times that at the hospital treating symptoms that could have been prevented with better nutrition choices and a bit of exercise; or what do you say to the family who had to walk for miles to get clean water after their well was contaminated by flooding caused by changing global weather patterns while you drove a low-gas mileage car for half-mile errands on beautiful days. Do you think we who are rich could live with ourselves facing such people in the kingdom of God day after day after day forever? Do you think the poor would let us in? Better luck getting a camel through the eye of a needle. For us, impossible, says Jesus. We can t get in, and we wouldn t want to. Not for God. For God, all things are possible. God forgives us, which removes our own shame and guilt about all we have done or not done so we can sit down with our brothers and sisters and not immediately pull the tablecloth over our faces God makes us his children, which means we are seated at the heavenly banquet at the children s table, and people know we are his guests. God also makes the poor his children, forgiven, healed, made whole. Swept up in the power of the resurrection, they also will want nothing more
October 14, 2012 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus Page 4 of 5 than to celebrate with God and all God s children forever, including, incredibly, us. God gives us his Holy Spirit, so that we begin even now to yearn for the coming kingdom of God in its fullness. To have the courage to do what is right instead of what is easy. To have the wisdom to do what is godly instead of what is human. To have the love to do what matters for others instead of what is merely for ourselves. To leave everything, whether houses, brothers, sisters, parents, children or stuff, and follow Jesus. Knowing whatever we give up now is returned a hundredfold. Knowing whatever we won t give up is a hump painfully pulled off as God squeezes us through the needle s eye. We receive everything back in this life with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. We give up everything take up our cross and follow Jesus. even losing our life to save it. For nothing is impossible with God. This ditty we are singing is set to an Indian folk song. The words were written by a man who knew what it meant to give up everything. His decision to follow Jesus cost him his possessions, his children, his wife, and even his life. The story starts in the middle of the 19 th century when Welsh missionaries went to spread the gospel to India. Missionaries came to the region of Assam in the north, bringing the good news of the peace, love and hope in Jesus Christ. In one village made up of a tribe of headhunters, one family converted to Christianity. When the village chief called on him to renounce his faith, he
October 14, 2012 I Have Decided To Follow Jesus Page 5 of 5 sang When his children were threatened, he sang Though no one join me, still I will follow. After his wife was executed, he was given one last chance to renounce his faith. Instead, he replied, The cross before me, the world behind me, and they killed him After he died, the village chief was so overwhelmed with the power of his faith, that he converted and brought the entire village to Christianity. Later, an Indian missionary, Sadhu Sundar Singh, put the words to the hymn. It was included in hymnals in the 1950 s and became a regular feature of Billy Graham s crusades. What an unnamed convert in India gave up was returned in this life, even as he was leaving it, in new members of his Christian family both in his village and throughout the world. He received it with persecutions, but the increase a hundredfold came nonetheless. We know in the age to come he has also received eternal life with both his immediate family and the extended Christian family he has received as a result of his witness. Let s join this Indian martyr, giving it all up for the kingdom of God, and following Jesus. Sing with me the first verse of his witness one more time.