Sunday 13 October, 20th after Trinity: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, Hebrews 4:12-end and Mark 10:17-31
In last night’s quiz, we were asked to guess the word from its definition.
“Kudos” was one of the answers: teased with a definition meaning to receive credit or prestige.
The man who throws himself at the feet of Jesus today might be described as having a great deal of kudos: wealth and possessions, knowing the commandments and seeking to keep them.
He sensed that there was something missing. He longed for life; hungered for something more than what he had acquired. Whatever that niggle was, it brought him to Jesus.
He wants to know what he must do.
And Jesus didn’t just look at him. He loved him.
The searching and longing of that man is met by the loving gaze of God; by the one who sees us deeply and completely.
Such love is not only tender and compassionate but insightful and challenging.
He’s told that he lacks just one thing.
Maybe he was expecting that and did a mental inventory of his relationships and achievements, his work and his lifestyle - trying to figure out where the gap might be.
But Jesus isn’t talking about one more thing to do or obtain or accomplish. He is talking about ‘one thing’.
To be able to pay attention to what matters - being present to God and each other, living out this depth of peace, belonging and meaning; alive, connected, lost in something beyond ourselves.
Seeking is met with love; longing met challenge. It is as if Jesus is holding up a mirror to our illusions of self and security. The stuff this man controlled, isolated or insulated him; disrupting priorities and commitments.
This loving gaze is provocative: there’s truth and possibility; freedom and grief.
The one searching for that ‘one thing’ walks away.
The one offering that ‘one thing’ doesn’t force him to stay.
What is it that we would hold fast to - even if letting go of it would be for our own life and health?
Sometimes commentators try to explain away the challenge as being about exceptional circumstances or something relevant then but not now; we manage the shock of obstacles in our spiritual lives by conjuring them away.
For the man who threw himself at Jesus’ feet, he discovered the very things he regarded as his main accomplishment - the source of his status and ability to navigate the world - was actually a burden. It ceased to be a blessing when he hoarded it; built everything upon it.
What is the untouchable sacred thing we cannot let go of?
In the poem One Art, Elizabeth Bishop reminds us that the art of losing, of letting go isn’t hard to master. She invites us to lose something everyday - accepting the ‘fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent’.
She talks not only of those treasured items of sentimental value - a loved one’s watch - but those which reflect a life’s efforts and stability: houses and vast realms we thought were ours.
Even who we are and our relationships are things we ultimately let go of - ‘the joking voice’ as Bishop puts it, or a familiar gesture. Love for all its beauty also means letting go - but also allows space for return or reordering.
In response to the man’s question, Jesus offers life together; friendship, shared endeavour, saying ‘follow me’.
We too get to choose: to choose courage, vulnerability and companionship. Or to cling onto comfort, self-reliance and independence.
In today’s episode, the one looked on with love walks away with a sorrowful heart. In him we see part of the tragedy of our human condition - the tendency to love stuff, to love what we can acquire, more than life.
Mark’s account doesn’t gloss over this saying, but ‘Jesus doesn’t really mean that we should sell everything’. He leaves us with an open-ended story. The rich young man leaves - we don’t know whether he became more hard-wired to wealth as he aged or whether perhaps he found his way to the foot of the cross.
The unknown and unresolved ending of his story allows us to explore that invitation into loving obedience for ourselves: the love that lets go and the love that waits; the love that hopes all things; the love that is absent. A love which does not run out of possibilities, even when (especially when) things look and feel impossible for us.
God’s love in Christ knows and names all our hopes and desires, and also holds and accompanies us at those times when we feel lost, trapped or uncertain. There is delight and protection, strength and challenge in such love.
It is a self-giving love which leads us to life. The prophet Amos points God’s people in this direction too - life that was holistic and oriented to seeking the good. This life was not just about feelings but a practical commitment to do what was good and just.
Where we as human beings might see endings, God can bring forth a new beginning. When we feel thwarted by our failings, God’s love seeks the long game of bringing possibility and hope where we think all is lost.
For the writer of Hebrews, Jesus is at the centre of all things - the one who bears our losses and restores our life. He knows all our experiences of pain and sorry, the intensity of both our struggles and our hopes.
By the power of his Spirit, love and life are still at work in us - even in or especially in our weakness. God remains faithful to us in being with us. In God we live and move and have our being. Through him we grow in love, ordering our lives and priorities alone and together; learning what to let go of in order that we may embrace the gift of life.
It might not be clinging on to our kudos; but an openness to the other. This is love divine all loves excelling: Wesley's great hymn speaks of mercy and compassion; the love that enters every trembling heart with compassion.
A love that is working out a new creation in us; a love that draws us into wonder and praise, perfectly restoring us and our relationship to others. May we glory in this perfect love.
© Julie Gittoes 2024