Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost 2024
Church of the Ascension, Knoxville
Mark 10:17-31
Psalm 90:12-17
The Right Rev. Brian L. Cole
Several years ago, my friend, The Rev. Dr. Lauren Winner, who teaches at Duke Divinity School, told me about a particular practice of reading Holy Scripture. It is called dislocated exegesis.
Now, dislocated exegesis, that’s a 20-dollar phrase. Dislocated exegesis doesn’t just roll off the tongue, and I am not sure how advisable it is to bring up the term at a social gathering.
But what it means is this—where and when we read Holy Scripture can greatly affect how we hear and interpret what we are reading.
Read the gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus but do so in the parking lot at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville where our state’s Death Row inmates are housed.
Read the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead but do so in the ICU at UT Medical Center.
Read the Tower of Babel story or the story of the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost and many tongues being spoken in response but do so in the middle of an English as a Second Language class.
Or this Sunday, and this day’s Gospel lesson. Today, in Knoxville, Tennessee, on a beautiful fall morning, we are so close to towns along the Tennessee/North Carolina state line where persons have lost everything they own, including their lives.
They did not willingly give up possession and follow Jesus. With little to no warning, a hurricane somehow devastated Southern Appalachian Mountain towns. One minute, you are in your house with all your worldly possessions. The next minute, your worldly possessions, including your house, are all washed away.
So, as we reflect on this morning’s gospel lesson, and our response to it, let us not try to do theological reflection on other people’s pain. As a parish church, as a diocese, as people of God and citizens in a civil society, let us do all we can to make our East Tennessee mountain neighbors whole.
In St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is met with a man who we understand to be a sincere seeker after Jesus. We do not think of him as a performance artist, one of those figures we sometimes encounter in the gospels who are trying to trap Jesus, to outsmart the Christ in a sacred quiz bowl.
Assume the rich man is sincere. He is asking Jesus a question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to be real and lasting in the story of God?
Assume, too, that Jesus is sincere in his response. Keep the commandments. Do the right thing. Love God and love neighbor.
The rich man tells Jesus he does those things. Assume the rich man is earnest, sincere, striving for goodness.
Then, notice what happens next.
The lesson says that Jesus loves the man. That puts the rich man in rather rare company in the gospels. Jesus meets countless persons through the gospel stories. And in all those accounts, it is rarely said about someone that Jesus loved them.
But this man, this rich man, is loved by Jesus. In our modern understanding, we might also say that Jesus really sees the man and sees, even, into the man’s heart and soul. He sees a man who wants to follow, who wants to know the key to the spiritual journey.
Assume that Jesus can see the man is earnest and that the man is distracted. He is distracted, burdened by his possessions. For the man, his wealth is not a gift, not a sign of God’s blessing upon him. For the man, his wealth is a burden, a distraction, a false idol that he believes will save him, and keep the storms of life far from his door.
So, Jesus says, lose them. Lose your possessions, give them away, and follow me. Follow the One you cannot lose. Follow what will last, what is real, regardless of the external circumstances in your life.
Then, notice that the man walks away. Jesus does not send him away. Jesus invites him to stay, to follow, The man, however, is not able to receive Jesus’ invitation. So, he sends himself away. He chooses to leave.
It is worth noting that we do not know what happened to the rich man. We know on this day that he walked away from Jesus. We do not know, however, the rest of the story.
At the end of the gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus speaks of persons being first and last. He speaks of a great reversal, where those who were last are now first and those who were first are now last.
But first and last, last and first, if I am following how Jesus orders things, everyone is getting in who seeks, who wants to follow.
Teach us to number our days, says the Psalmist. Teach us to measure what is real, what is lasting, what will endure. For so many things we possess, no matter how much we value them now, at some point, they will have no value, they will have no meaning. They will not save us.
What saves us is that we belong to God. We belong to the One we believe made us. In the gospels, Jesus tells us that he has come to be with us and will not lose anything that God has made.
God has made everything, we believe. So, Jesus is promising to save all of us. First and last. Last and first. It is not a matter of who is in and who is out.
It is a matter of a great reversal. With patience, with time and humility, God will find room for you.
But God won’t find room for you because you know someone. God won’t find room for you because of how pious you are, how righteous, how accomplished.
God will save you because God made you. And God did not make you to condemn you and send you away. That is what we often do to each other. That is not what God does to God’s creation.
I am with you this morning because I noticed on my calendar that I was not scheduled to be at any parish church in East Tennessee today. That was odd, I thought. So, I called and asked if I could visit Ascension today.
You all were gracious and let me come and preach.
Then, I looked at the gospel lesson.
Who would want the bishop to come and preach about the rich man walking away from Jesus during stewardship season? No wonder no one invited me today.But I am here today, not to give you some sacred shakedown. I am not here to ask for your credit card number or your bank’s routing and account number.
I am here today, because, like you, I need to be saved. I need to have Jesus see me and love me and invite me to follow him.
That means I need to be open to hearing what Jesus says to me. He is inviting us to follow. He is not trying to trap us or trip us up.
But he does want us to let go of those things that will not save us. He does want to us to hold on loosely to those things that we can lose, that can be washed away in the blink of an eye.
He does not want us to confuse what will save us with what will simply entertain us for a moment, for a season.
And he does want to remind us that anything given in this world is intended to be used in such a way to give glory to the God who made us and sustains us and abides with us, in this world and in the next.
First, last. Last, first. God intends to find us, to keep us, to save us. So, why not avoid all those distractions and follow the Christ in this present moment?