Lack a Do

 Mark 10:17-31

I love what we do with sermon writing because sometimes it all hinges on a word. Either one we haven't noticed before or one we have a question about. This week in our Call series a verse from Philippians about rejoicing in the Lord always was tied to the word gentleness and it made me think more deeply about how joy is tied to gentleness. Today we have the young man who comes to Jesus and in our lectionary group online the leader asked about why we feel we have to do anything to become loved by Jesus. Because it is noted in the scripture Jesus looked on him and loved him. It is one of those few places where this story says this. It's not in Matthew's version or Luke's only in Mark do we have this phrase of Jesus looking on him and loving him. Before anything else there is love.

What do we lack? It isn't hard to see, just look around you. The Episcopal Church has been in decline for years and this past year hasn't been any different. All of the main line churches are in decline and we know the Catholic church is following in this trend as well. It gives us all a trip down memory lane complex when our churches were full. Or you know the old picture, the one taken with so many people in it you can barely make out whose who in it. Oh for the good old days. And we sit back and wonder what we can do to recreate those times. What can we do? See here we are forgetting this scripture.

We seem to forget all the scriptures about Israel being chosen because she is the smallest, the least, the last choice. Because small and least and last has something to teach us about the Kingdom of God and about faithfulness. This is good news, good news we can be faithful to. Good news we can discover and spread out into the town of Cape Girardeau. So how do we follow Jesus?

Think of it in this way. My favorite stories are the C. S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia and in the book Prince Caspian everyone has forgotten Aslan the lion who saved Narnia long ago. They think he is a myth, a story made up. The children Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy who were in Narnia the first time are back, and they are thought useless cause they are children and not the older kings and queens of Narnia they were when they left. So everyone, Peter and Prince Caspian being at the forefront, rely on themselves to fix the problem of becoming irrelevant and extinct. They think they can fix it by doing what is their own best ideas and they forget Aslan, they forget to follow as Lucy is beckoned by him on the way. They trust themselves only and what they can see. Are you getting the picture?

I think our whole faith journey is a lesson in this. What it means to surrender and follow Jesus. Sometimes it is in taking a huge leap of faith. The good news is if we are faithful in following, in giving as much as we can we receive more than we can imagine. The emphasis is not on what we lack or what we can do, it is in following the way Jesus gave. Which means spreading a good news of healing to a world in need of it. It is in giving away food, clothing, shelter, parts of our building in which we receive. Before the pandemic when I'd take a ride home to Maine I'd pass through all these tiny towns with tiny churches and the ones who you'd see were spilling out from their doors and onto the streets. Clothing closets, book clubs, singing outside, going and following and spreading the news that doesn't divide but helps heal a broken world.

This is where the focus of following lies not in Average Sunday Attendance, not in how much funds we have on hand, but in helping this world which is hurt to heal. We are called to follow. Following Jesus takes us to the sick, the lost, those on the margins and standing with them. Opening our doors when they need shelter. Opening our hearts when they need to hear joy or to share their sorrows. Think of a church which cared more about offering hope than about fixing the broken...well fill in the blank. This community which spills out onto the streets is one more in line with following than the one which fills the pews. The Eucharist is meant to send us out, not back to our comfortable homes, but out into a world which needs good news. A world which doesn't know or see the kingdom of God and needs it to be shown visibly. L

et's do this and follow a Jesus risen and alive, not the dead things of the past. Because we are meant to be the people who follow and give it all to a hurting world which needs the love of God poured out to all.