With God all things are possible: even the changing of your heart to let go of all things and follow Christ in love for God and neighbor.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 28 B
Text: Mark 10:17-31

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Do you dare to ask God to change your heart?

That’s your question today. For weeks now in our Gospel readings we’ve walked between Jesus’ predictions of his suffering and death and we’ve heard Jesus call us to follow in drastic terms: Take up your cross. Lose your life. Be last, not first. Serve everyone else. Chop off whatever trips you up from following. Sell everything you have, give it away, and follow.

But hard as those actions are, drastic as they sound, impossible as they might seem, Jesus gives great hope today: Whatever seems impossible for us is possible for God.

So – do you dare to ask God to make the impossible possible?

If you hear “take up your cross, lose your life, let go of everything,” and don’t get nervous or anxious about what that would mean for your life, hoping for unchallenging ways to understand Jesus’ description of the path of Christ, you might emerge from these weeks of Gospel readings unscathed. But probably not faithful.

That’s our great challenge. We’ve learned to hear Jesus’ drastic calls and put them in a box called “Sayings of Jesus” that we occasionally open, but only to admire them, not be challenged by them. You could go through these thorny bushes of what Jesus says it means to follow him and avoid ever getting your clothes caught on the branches. You can hear Jesus and not be changed, or concerned about your life.

The rich man today didn’t take that option. He heard Jesus exactly as Jesus intended, and knew he was being asked to let go of everything he owned if he wanted to follow. No exaggeration. No metaphor. And he had enough integrity to say “I can’t follow you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

If you dare, things will change. This man knew that.

We make Jesus’ calls comfortable by imagining Jesus is talking about getting to heaven with God when we die, not about this life. We hear Jesus say today it’ll be hard for rich people to go to heaven, rather than hear him call you and me to let go of all we have to follow him.

Today Jesus is clearly talking about God’s reign now, in this age. The disciples left family and friends, their homes, their fields and work, for the sake of following Jesus. Jesus says they are receiving all that back in abundance right now, in the community of those who follow Christ alongside them. All the family, home, wealth, and work they need they have in each other.

But that’s why following Jesus is hard for people with wealth. Like us. The more you have to lose, the harder it is to let go.

When we shift Jesus’ clear words from this life to the next, we utterly change the intent of God coming among us.

If the Triune God’s only goal in Christ was to end the power of death and bring all whom God loves into life after death, God could have done that any way God wanted. God created the universe.

But if the Triune God’s goal in Christ is to draw all whom God loves into relationship with God and with each other, a relationship of love that transforms lives and the creation, then God had to finally become one of us, speak our language, show us a face and a voice we could hear and trust and learn from.

Even in today’s Gospel Jesus promises life with God after we die. It’s just a separate thing from his call to lose everything to follow him. It’s a question of who can do what. Only the crucified and risen Christ can give you and me life after we die. You and I can do nothing to make it happen. We can only trust Christ’s promise to do it.

But only you and I can live the life of Christ here, in our lives, today, and so change the world. Learn to love God and neighbor with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So what do we do with today’s call?

The question might not be whether today you divest all of your retirement, or sell your house, or take your Social Security check, and give it all away. We could argue that if everyone sold everything and gave it away, who would grow the food, make the homes, if everyone has nothing? The question really is whether you listen to Jesus with enough seriousness that his call makes you squirm. Causes you discomfort. Makes you wonder if you are actually being faithful.

So, you could start to ask, every day, what you hold that keeps you from loving God and neighbor fully. It could be everything. But start somewhere. It might be wealth that holds you back, and you decide to give away a lot more than you have before. It might be habits that harm others, that you decide to change. It might be ways of thinking, prejudices, fears, you try to get rid of.

But you and I would do better to share the integrity of this man today and walk away if we’re not willing to consider what we need to lose, let go of, cut off, for the sake of God’s Good News reaching all.

But also remember: God makes what seems impossible possible.

You and I hear these calls and know it’s going to be really hard to know what to do. Even harder to have the courage to try. Hardest of all, to fail and have to start over again.

But, do you dare trust Jesus’ word and ask the Triune God to change your heart? To make possible in you what you think is impossible? Because God will. The Spirit is in you right now, pulling you as you hear Jesus’ words, waking you at night with calls to love and care for your neighbor. God’s ready and willing to change your heart and so change your life. If you don’t walk away in sadness but give God a chance, you will find all you need to follow Christ faithfully. Even with stumbles and sins along the way.

And remember this, too: Jesus loved this man, even as he called him to risk everything.

Even as he walked away. Jesus loved the disciples even when they struggled on this path.

And Jesus – God-with-us – loves you as you are. You are God’s beloved child, a precious gift in God’s eyes. The God who loves you says, “Follow me. Let go of what keeps you from it. Even if it’s hard. And let me make it possible for you to do it.” That’s the joy of this path.

And that’s what God’s reign is all about. God’s beloved children living in love with each other and God, learning to let go of all that prevents that love, to embrace losing everything for each other in order to find everything in each other. So the whole creation can be healed.

Do you dare to ask God to make you a part of this?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Because of Christ, we don’t claim to have it all together – we trust God has it all together and we are simply living in God’s love for all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 26 B
Text: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Mark 9:38-50

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Joshua and John had a problem with God’s behavior, not other people’s.

Joshua claimed to be upset at Eldad and Medad for prophesying in the camp. They were the only two of the 70 chosen to receive God’s Spirit who didn’t go to the Tent of Meeting as instructed.

But God told Moses to gather 70 elders so they could be given a share of the Spirit that Moses had and so ease Moses’ burden. And God sent the Spirit on all 70. Joshua’s problem is with the God of Israel who poured the Spirit into those two.

John claimed to be concerned about this unknown person casting out demons in Jesus’ name. He was unauthorized and needed to be stopped.

But Scripture says God drives out demons, not human skill. John’s problem isn’t with this guy, it’s with the God who answered his cries for deliverance.

We’re learning Jesus’ servant path, the path of self-giving love, in these three chapters of Mark we’re focusing on most of these autumn weeks. Today’s lesson is, if your concerns are with God being overly generous with the Spirit to others, maybe don’t complain to God’s Son. Or to God’s Spirit-filled servant, Moses.

This is another thing Christians have struggled with forever.

We’re not alone. Lots of people of faith – whatever their faith – find it challenging to see God blessing people who aren’t part of the in-group. Humans seem to want to accept God’s love and gifts ourselves, but once we feel we have that, to roam the outer boundaries making sure others are kept out.

But if we’re to learn something today from God, notice that the Triune God doesn’t care one bit about Joshua’s or John’s concerns. God’s giving the Spirit to all 70 and that’s it. God’s driving out demons afflicting God’s children, and that’s it.

So maybe that’s the real lesson today: whatever control you think you have over God’s work in the world, you don’t. God will do whatever God wants to, whether you and I are on board or not.

But there’s more to this lesson as we seek to be shaped to Jesus’ path.

Moses and Jesus agree: you and I don’t get to tell God where to send the Spirit. But both turn on their trusted, beloved followers, and say: you’ve got a bigger problem than you know.

Moses tells Joshua not only is he not upset at Eldad and Medad, he wishes God would pour the Spirit on all God’s people. You’re worried about those two guys going off-book, Joshua? My dream is that everyone is Spirit-filled. How will you control that?

Jesus dismisses John’s concern that this is an unknown person, and says if they’re doing good in Jesus’ name, leave them alone. But then he turns to John and the others and says, “If any of you put a stumbling block in front any of these folks who trust in me, you’d be better off tying a millstone around your neck and jumping into the sea.”

Jesus’ fear is more that John might have done something to hurt the faith of this poor fellow, not that his credentials are murky.

Can you imagine our witness if we took Jesus and Moses to heart?

If we rejoiced when we saw God working in others – whoever they are – instead of worrying about their credentials? How much blood and anger and violence have been poured out by people of faith killing or hating or rejecting other people of faith because they believed different things?

God’s Word says if God is sending the Spirit into the world, you don’t control where that goes. So if you see the fruits of the Spirit Paul describes in your Jewish neighbor, or your Muslim colleague, that’s God’s issue. If God’s Spirit moves in Hindus and Buddhists, and even in atheists without their knowing, what say over that do you and I have?

Moses longs for all to be Spirit-filled and speak God’s prophetic word. Jesus believes that if people are doing good in God’s name, that’s a grace. What if we embraced that?

God’s not asking us to tolerate others who differ from us. Toleration is insipid, weak sauce. The Son of God and Moses speak of longing to experience God in whomever we see, even if they follow different rules or beliefs or if we don’t know them.

But if you can’t yet rejoice that God is in another, for God’s sake – literally – at least don’t harm their trust in God.

That’s Jesus’ deep concern. God-with-us has no interest in our theological purity, and rejects our need to classify some as in and others as out. But God-with-us absolutely forbids us hurting another’s faith.

What if we always made sure we weren’t putting any stumbling block in the way of others’ trust in God? That our highest concern wasn’t getting our theology right and making sure everyone else did, it was protecting and nurturing the faith of all those who trust in God, whatever their faith. And, in an age where those who claim no faith are more known to us than before, maybe we should make sure we don’t do anything harmful to those siblings, either, even if we think they don’t have faith we can trip up.

That’s the servant path Jesus calls you and me to walk. The Church hasn’t been good at these lessons in, well, forever. But Jesus is always hopeful some of us might learn and live them.

This doesn’t mean the Good News that we trust about what God is doing in Christ doesn’t matter or shouldn’t be shared with the world.

The Bible is clear that your life is to witness to God’s love in Christ, your love of God and neighbor, the fruits of the Spirit you bear, are meant to lead people to know God’s love for themselves.

You and I just can’t tell God whom to love or whom to fill with the Spirit. We can’t claim anyone is outside of God’s embrace. And you and I absolutely can’t cause others to stumble in their faith. God’s love in Christ as we trust and live it forbids that.

It is precisely because we follow the crucified and risen Christ and trust in God to bring life to the world that we leave all of that life in God’s hands. Because God’s unauthorized and overly-generous love is the only reason you and I have hope, too. Would that all God’s people knew this!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen