Grace before and behind

Proper 22 B 2012
Amos 5:6-7,10-15; Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31


G.K. Chesterton, famous Roman Catholic author of last century, faced those who pointed out how distant was the life of the Church, comfortable and established, from the teaching of Jesus. Christianity has failed, they said. Chesterton replied that Christianity had not failed. Christianity has simply never been tried.

I think Chesterton probably agreed with gentle Mahatma Ghandi, who once said that he loved Jesus Christ but he was not sure if he had ever met a Christian. Remember that Ghandi lived in an India with plenty of English Anglicans in residence, and in charge.

We hear again the Gospel story of the rich man who wants to be, really wants to be, a disciple of Jesus. You would think that Jesus would welcome this man to his circle of followers—he’s enthusiastic, sincere, devout, a good-hearted soul. Since Jesus and his circle of traveling disciples needed financial support, we might call it “strategic” for Jesus to make it easy for this man to join the group. If Jesus were the average Episcopal rector, he would have paid an early newcomer call on this guy and invited him quickly to brunch! “Oh yes, the pledge card is right there under your plate!”

But no—Jesus would have flunked those seminars that teach clergy how to make it easy for newcomers to join your church. Instead, there is one more obstacle, one more requirement—“go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

How hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!

Today, if we are blessed, we hear these words as if for the very first time. For we church-people they are a shock. Jesus’ stark words spice up the bitter broth that the prophet Amos serves up: “O you who turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground…you trample on the poor.” In an uncertain economy, when all of us know people who have lost jobs, lost homes to foreclosure, his words have a chilling contemporary ring:

you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.

Truly “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Today when we hear these powerful, confrontational words, we can choose to shrug them off as words from an age not our own. Or, we can take shelter in the assurance that Amos and the Lord Jesus are speaking about someone else. They are talking about those truly rich people who live in another part of town (and we know where; it’s always a part of town other than our own). Or they are talking about truly bad and brutal people who obviously love their riches more than God and who obviously grind poor people’s faces into the ground. If we do any of these, however, we risk becoming disciples of the man in the Gospel who “goes away sad” after hearing Jesus. We risk concluding that the fierce, seductive teaching of the Bible and of Jesus is not really meant for us.

Or we can do something else.

We can lay bare our souls and lives to the Spirit of the living God and allow the Spirit to search our hearts and motivations. We can risk that we are the same as those disciples who hear the conversation between Jesus and the rich man and who react in horror: "Then who can be saved?" "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Look, we have showed up here week after week, month after month, year after year, Mass after Mass, Vestry meeting after Vestry meeting. We have served this church, we have given of time and talent and treasure. We have even served the poor at Brigid’s Table or Rahab’s Sisters. What did it all mean? Did it get us anywhere?

The answers come as freely as the challenges—“For God all things are possible.” “We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens”…who has passed through everything we have, who understands our fears and our questions and even our quiet failings. Grace goes before us, grace follows after as the Collect says. Those who leave their old life to live my new life on the road will receive richly, says Jesus. Life on the road is not one smooth journey. It has potholes and stops, wrong turns and falls.

But grace goes before us, grace follows after. Always we begin again. We begin again together with one another—the Church is a gathering of people who are not afraid to begin again. Only those who hear the hard words and dare to ask the hard questions and who wait to hear the hard answers will move more deeply into the life of Jesus, into the mystery of the Gospel. But grace goes before us, grace follows after.