October 14 2014 Pastor Jacqueline
Hines *Mark 10.17-31, Psalm 22.1-15
“Marriage is a Mission, Greed Is Ghastly”
You have heard the
expression, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” Still in matters of the
heart, we tend not to hold back. We often give our all to love, so we can
receive it all. It is true that the more we give, the more we get. But, when we
realize that that is not true one hundred percent of the time, some of us
become desperately disappointed, denigrated, and doggedly determined to never
let it happen again. No one wants to be a loser. We do understand that we
cannot win them all in this life, but we persist in trying.
Perhaps a certain young
man thought of himself as a real winner when he knelt in true Middle Eastern
style, approaching the great rabbi Jesus. [slide # 1 man bowing before Jesus] It was all
over town that Jesus was offering a way to have eternal life, everlasting life,
and this young man was wise enough to seek good things for himself, even if he
had not experienced eternal life or could even comprehend it, he believed in it
and he was willing to take a chance that it was worth his while to invest in
it.
It is wonderful to know
what is good and to make every effort to get all the good we can. For the more God
gives us, the more God entrusts us to be a blessing wherever and whenever God
guides us to be a blessing. Our marriage to God is a mission, wherein God is
constantly pouring love and everything good into our lives, and we dare not
hold it too tight, lest it become like sand. The tighter we hold it, the more
it spills. [slide # 2 mission/generosity]
Our mission is to pour into the lives of others, as God assigns us. Greed is
ghastly – despicable, disagreeable, distasteful…Greed reveals my heart not
totally trusting in God, a heart afraid that if I am left with nothing but God,
God will not be enough. Greed, perhaps, reveals a lack of appreciation for the
blessings I have and a lack of hope that God will provide what I need, even if
it is not what I want. Greed reveals my longing for some other love – the love
of stuff and status – even though I have pledged my allegiance to an all-loving
God. Greed is ghastly, despicable, disagreeable, distasteful…
The young man was smart
enough or perhaps impressed enough to compliment Jesus. He called him good
teacher, but Jesus pointed him to God. [slide # 3 player pointing to God] Perhaps Jesus
was like those football players who make an amazing play and while everyone is
excited and tells them how good they did, the player points toward Heaven,
letting the crowd know that it’s is not about their being good, it’s about God
who is good.
Jesus was known around
the region as a good teacher. In every age, there are those who when we hear
their names, we think of their sermons, their books, their programs that we
call exceptionally good. Jesus was known as a good teacher.
Jesus gave this student
a very significant and affirming piece of information. No doubt the young man
did not have to take notes, he would remember for the rest of his life what
Jesus was about to say. “You know the
commandments, Jesus told him.” Every serious student appreciates knowing that
the teacher notices that they are smart. In fact, students remember every word
their teachers and those in authority say about them. “You know the
commandments,” Jesus said to him. Knowing the commandments is not something
that Jesus could say about every student.
At the same time that
Jesus was giving him kudos for knowing the Ten Commandments, [side # 4 good job] Jesus
had some lessons for this student to learn. Jesus listed only gave him credit
for six of the ten. It was the last six, the six that direct us how to relate
to other people: honoring mother and father, do not murder, no infidelity, no stealing,
no lying, and no fraud (which is coveting to the point of cheating). Intentionally,
Jesus left out the first four commandments, those commandments that deal with
how to relate to God: no other Gods, no idols images, no taking God’s name in vain,
and honoring the Sabbath.
How is it that we can
have good relations with our neighbors and not with God? Isn’t it one and the
same? Perhaps in some ways, doing right by our neighbor reflects our right
relationship with God. In another since, we do right by our neighbor because it
pays off immediately. The chaos in our neighbor’s house can easily impact our
own house. It is worth it to have good relations, to be nice, to share and
care. If we smile at our neighbor, our neighbor smiles back then all is good.
If not, we know the rules for working things out until all is good again.
God is more patient and
merciful than our neighbors. If we make God our top priority, if we make things right with God first, then
our priorities will be in the good order rather than upside down. It is not
easy to give our all to God. It [slide # 5 God is top priority] is not easy to surrender our loved ones, our
dreams, our comfort, or our money. C.S. Lewis wrote that Christian charity is
neither Christian nor charity unless our giving “cramps our style” and causes
us to sacrifice some needs as well as luxuries. And that sort of giving, he
added, is just the starting point of the Christian Journey, not its end.
One Christian talked
said “When I get my check at the beginning of each month, the first thing I do
is give a tenth to God. Then I pay my bills. If there is anything leftover, I
spend it on myself.” Of course, giving to God is not always that simple for
there are crises and overbearing economic restraints to take into
consideration, but he has the basic idea, and we all do well to count our
blessings and pray for God to guide us.
We all have different
perspectives of what God has before us to do. You may have heard the story of
three people looking at a tree; One may see the tree as so many boards and feet of valuable lumber worth so much money.
The second sees the tree as so much firewood to be burned, to keep a family
warm in the winter. A third may see the tree as a masterpiece of God’s creative
art, given as an expression of God’s love and enduring strength, with a value
far beyond its worth in money or firewood. We all see a vision of what God has
before us and if we are willing, we can be the church united, with one purpose,
one goal, one vision, to be and do whatever the father, son, and Holy
Spirit stirs us up to be and do. For,
without a vision, God’s people cannot be the church, passing the baton on to
our neighbors, our family, our friends, or our children.
I heard one of the
men of God of Bethel say this week – “The world is in such chaos, but I am not
concerned about myself. I am concerned about my grandchild.” That Bethel father’s
heart is like the heart of God and if we all are just as concerned about the next
generation, we will be willing to ask God to guide us to not only to see the
chaos that surrounds us but to see God’s will and to be willing to follow where
God leads us, to surrender our all and put our all in the hands of an almighty
God – our loved ones, our dreams, our comfort, our gifts, our talents and our
money. May it be so today! [
slide # 6 giving God our whole heart ]
No comments:
Post a Comment