Addiction Affliction

Sermon for October 11, 2009 Proper 23 Text:  Mark 10:17-31 Title:  "Addiction Affliction" A.  Have you heard the story of the jeweler who happened to be seated on an airplane beside a woman wearing an enormous and brilliant diamond ring?  After starring at it for a while, his curiosity got the better of him.  He said to her, "I couldn't help but notice your beautiful diamond.  I am an expert in precious stones.  Please tell me about that stone."  She replied, "This is the famous Klopman diamond, one of the largest in the world.  But there is a strange curse that comes with it." Now the man was hooked. He asked, "What is the curse?" The woman frowned as she said, "Mr. Klopman."   So it is with possessions.  They can sparkle in the eyes of the possessor like a brilliant diamond.  But one can discover that they just might come with a curse.  Acquiring possessions can become a kind of addiction that can take a person's life over. Have you ever watched the show "Celebrity Rehab?"  It's the story of 8 to 10 celebrities who have had their life taken over by one or more addictions:  booze, drugs, whatever.  They are under the care of Dr. Drew, a clinical psychiatrist and now TV star who runs a drug addiction center in Pasadena, California.  It's easy to get addicted to the program; over a number of weeks, the viewer is drawn into the lives of these people like they were best friends, as they struggle to overcome the particular addiction that possesses them.  It is horribly difficult for them, and some never make it.   Well, a desire to have can be an addiction affliction itself.  Possession obsession can cause us to live life in a way that places us at the center and God on the outskirts of existence.  Case in point:  the Rich Young Man, whom we meet in this morning's passage of Scripture.   B.  As the passage begins, Jesus and His disciples are continuing the long trip to Jerusalem, where the Master will acquire both the Cross and the Crown.  But before they had even gotten started, an apparently very eager man places himself in Jesus' path..  Kneeling before Jesus in a humble position of respect, this man clearly recognizes both His goodness and wisdom.   He addresses Jesus as "Good Teacher," showing that this man both respects and admires the Master.   The young man asks Jesus what he must do to "inherit" the eternal life he desires.  Here, eternal life is a synonym for being saved and part of the Kingdom of God.  But instead of directly answering this man's question, Jesus first hones in on the man's reference to goodness:  "Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone."  Jesus is not saying that He isn't good, but with these words He focuses the man's attention on the One who is the source of all goodness, His Heavenly Father.  To find eternal life, one must look to the Father, and to the indescribable grace He offers to all humanity.  The commandments quoted in verse 19 include, in order, numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 5.   Although this story appears also in both Luke and Matthew, Mark is the only one who quotes Jesus as saying, "Do not defraud."  This unique addition is believed by some Biblical scholars to be a restatement of commandment number 10 ("You shall not covet"), while others see it as an extension of number 8 ("You shall not steal").  Who knows?  But this discussion is off the point of the story.    After Jesus recites these commandments to the man, he swiftly insists, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."  Now, Jesus' eyes tell the whole story here.  In verse 21, Jesus' eyes focus on this man with true compassion, and we get a sense of Jesus' regard for this man whose questions seem so sincere..  Later on in the story, in verse 23, Jesus' eyes become steely as He looks around to summon the other disciples to listen to Him with a single glance.  And finally, in verse 27, Jesus once again looks at the disciples with both strength and compassion as He acknowledges that all things are possible with God.  We can see by watching the eyes of the Master that He is filled with both compassion and a desire to help everyone grow spiritually.   In light of Jesus' feelings of compassion for the young man, He states that the man lacks "one thing." But he actually gives him two commands.   First, the man is to go, sell what he has and give it all to the poor. Second, he is to come and follow Jesus - a path that will lead him to the eternal life he seeks.  Now everything comes crashing down.  This man is no longer enthusiastic but "shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions."  Now, in Jesus' day, riches were generally assumed to be a sign of God's favor.  To actually give up what God had blessed him with to find eternal life with God was illogical and incomprehensible, at least to the mindset of the day.  The rich young man judged the cost of eternal life too high and sadly left.   Once he had departed from the scene, Jesus and his disciples were left alone to discuss the matter further.   Being saved and possessing an abundance of riches are in disturbing tension with each other. Author and historian Clovis Chappel wrote that when the Roman city of Pompeii was being excavated, the body of a woman was found mummified by the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius.   As you may know, this very famous volcanic eruption occurred in the 1st century, taking the resort city of Pompeii, built precariously on the side of the volcano, completely by surprise.  Excavations have revealed much about Roman culture, because destruction came so fast that everything was preserved by the storm of volcanic ash that engulfed the city.  This woman's position told a tragic story.  Her feet pointed toward the city gate, but her outstretched arms and fingers were straining for something that lay behind her. The treasure for which she was grasping was a bag of pearls.  Chappel said, "Though death was hard at her heels, and life was beckoning to her beyond the city gates, she could not shake off their spell...But it was not the eruption of Vesuvius that made her love pearls more than life.  It only froze her in this attitude of desire." The rich young man was possessed by possessions.  There was no room left for the grace of God in his life.  He trusted in his own resources, and not the resources of the Almighty. But it wasn't just the young man who was puzzled; the disciples were "perplexed" at what Jesus was saying too.  Jesus reiterates how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom.  He offers the mind-sticking image of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.  Such a statement has fascinating church scholars for generations, who find this saying hard to swallow, coming from the lips of the man who loves us enough to die for us.  Some scholars have speculated that Jesus was referring to a certain gate near the outer wall of Jerusalem that was very narrow.  This gate, known as the "Needle's Eye" in Jesus' day, would certainly have been hard for a camel to get through it.  But Jesus' point is more radical than that.  He is clear -- it is impossible for men and women to save themselves, whatever their financial state.  Only through God is it possible to be saved.   This section concludes with Mark's casting the disciples in an uncharacteristically positive light.  Peter reminds Jesus that the disciples have already done exactly what Jesus had asked of the rich man - given up everything they had and followed him. In effect, Jesus agrees with Peter by promising that for all the things his disciples have given up for his sake, they will receive back "a hundredfold."   C.  Now what are we 21st century believers to make of this story?  As always is true in Biblical study, there are certain contextual clues we should take note of before we apply what Jesus said to our own situations.  First of all, we should notice that everything that occurs here occurs within the shadow of the Cross.  Notice how the passage starts out: "After Jesus was setting out on a journey…"  The journey was taking the Master to Jerusalem, and to His death and Resurrection.  Mark wants us to keep the Cross on the front burner of our minds here, and interpret everything Jesus says in the light of this event..   The second clue we should notice is that the rich man asks what He must DO to inherit eternal life.  Jesus immediately directs the man's attention to God, by whose grace salvation is available and only available.  The man didn't have to do anything to gain salvation.  Or perhaps more specifically, what He had done had not earned him eternal life.  He had performed the Jewish Law to the best of his considerable ability, and had successfully kept all of the law.  But he still knew something was missing; he still sought eternal life.  What he never realized was that he could do all that is within his power to do and never improve his relationship with God.  No one can earn his or her way into Heaven.  The more one tries, the more one focuses on the self and the less one focuses on God.   What the man had to do – and what we have to do – was to surrender something; namely, the riches that were keeping him from having a spiritual relationship with God   Our last clue is a word clue.  When Jesus addresses the disciples, He calls them "children."  The astute reader remembers that a couple of chapters back, Jesus used a child as a sermon illustration, telling His followers that they must trust their Heavenly Father as a child trusts his or her earthly parents.  By calling His disciples children, Jesus is reminding them (and us) that the childlike trust in God is pivotal in understanding what He is trying to teach.   Now, about this young man; Jesus' eyes tell us that He loved this seeker.  Jesus knew the fellow was sincere in his quest for eternal life.  He was a model citizen, a promise keeper and a truth seeker. He didn't use his wealth to oppress the poor. He didn't go on a phony TV show and pick a wife out of a lineup of gold-diggers. He didn't squander his money on worldly trinkets or immoral pursuits.  But Jesus knew that the man still had a problem. The Master tried to diagnose and treat that problem with His challenge: "Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me".  Don't make the mistake that just because this fellow had to give up his wealth, that all Christians have to do the same.  It's not the wealth that got in the way.  It was the addiction..  Money, in and of itself, is not necessarily destructive, - in fact, a steady cash flow is essential for the work of the Church throughout the world.  So it's hard to pinpoint money as a necessarily dangerous addictive substance. But clearly, there was something here that had the rich man hooked. The problem is not that he had wealth, it's that he trusted his wealth more than He trusted His Lord.   Remember the context:  Jesus is on the way to the Cross.  God gave us His only Son so we might know eternal life.  The man sought the Law to give him such eternal life, but it was a fruitless struggle.  Salvation is only available by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  And we must trust the Lord as children trust their parents to know the saving and life-giving grace of God.  The rich man had to give up the possessions that defined his life. Jesus challenged the man to make an exchange, to drop what limited him in exchange for what freed him so as to open up to a wider and more meaningful life.   And so it is with us.  What must we root out of our lives that may hinder us from following Jesus?   Maybe it's an addiction to work.  Maybe it's an attitude that says 'I can pull myself up by my own bootstraps.'  Maybe it's an addiction to a bad attitude that never really loves others.  The only addiction affliction we can have is addiction to God.  That must be our first priority. In her book A Practical Guide to Prayer, Dorothy Haskins tells about a noted concert violinist who was asked the secret of her mastery of the instrument. The woman answered the question with two words: "Planned neglect." Then she explained. "There were many things that used to demand my time. When I went to my room after breakfast, I made my bed, straightened the room, dusted, and did whatever seemed necessary. When I finished my work, I turned to my violin practice. That system prevented me from accomplishing what I should on the violin. So I reversed things. I deliberately planned to neglect everything else until my practice period was complete. And that program of planned neglect is the secret of my success."  May we begin the process today of defining what has us in chains, and releasing them to the Lord, so we might know His freedom and His peace.  Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com

Men and From God, But So Are Women

Sermon for October 4, 2009 Proper 22 Text:  Genesis 2:18-24 Title: Men are From God, But So Are Women! A.  Gutzam Borglun liked to think big.  He was the man responsible for designing and sculpting Mt. Rushmore, to honor the four presidents depicted there in solid granite.  But he also sculpted on a much smaller scale.  The lifelike head of Lincoln that prominently presides over the Capitol Rotunda in DC is also one of his creations.   Borglun cut this particular work from a large, square block of stone in his studio. One day, when the face of Lincoln was just becoming recognizable out of the stone, a young girl was visiting the studio with her parents. She looked at the half-done face of Lincoln and her eyes registered wonder and astonishment.   She stared at the piece for a moment then ran to the sculptor. "Is that Abraham Lincoln?" she asked. "Yes" he responded, kneeling over to talk to the girl.  "Well," she answered, "How in the world did you know he was inside there?"  The opening 2 chapters of the Book of Genesis present a theological view of what is inside us.  Or, to be more precise, these chapters tell a story of how people are defined and shaped by their relationships -- the relationship between God and creation, humanity and nature, men and women, and husbands and wives.  The careful reader will notice that chapter 1 relates an account of Creation from one perspective; chapter 2 relates the Creation story from quite a different perspective.  Technically speaking, they represent different strands of tradition, each of them telling a different but related truth about God's sculpting of something-ness out of nothingness.  We should read each chapter from the perspective of what they have to tell us about God's relationship with both nature and people.     Chapter one teaches us that God creates and sustains all existence by His Creative Word.  It teaches us that God chooses not to be alone, but wants to be intimately involved with the welfare of humanity.  We learn from chapter 1 that God has created the Universe to be orderly (it was made in six days, or cycles), to be life-sustaining, to follow natural laws, and that this orderliness witnesses to a Creating and Sustaining God.  And finally, God made humanity to be the pinnacle of Creation (the rest of Creation is "good", man is "very good").  God made man to be in His image, to be in relationship with all the rest of Creation.  When the Gospel of John opens by declaring that Jesus is the Word of God, he is harkening back to Genesis 1, and is in effect saying that through the atoning death and Resurrection of the Lord, our proper created relationship with God, distorted by sin, lost through Adam and Eve, is restored.   Chapter two tells us about ourselves.  We are sculpted by a personal God out of the dust of the earth.  But we are differentiated from the rest of Creation because we have the very Spirit of God breathed into us.  We are able to relate to the Almighty Creator in a unique way.  God created man to be in joyous, fulfilling relationship with His Father God.  Such a relationship is like Paradise, and is allegorically called Eden.  God desires us to have an intimate and satisfying relationship with Him.  But then there is a problem. B.  It is God who recognizes and defines the problem.  "It is not good that the man should be alone."  We should notice that in the first creation story, every time God finishes another day creating order out of chaos, He describes the creation by saying "it was good," When God finishes Creation, complete with man who is made in the image of God, the divine describes it all as being "very good."  But here God says that something is "not good." The problem with this paradise is its emptiness - the man God created needs companionship.  In verse 19 God seeks to remedy this through the outpouring of a series of new creative energies.  God once again uses the "ground," as the raw material for creation.  While these new creatures share with the human a basic commonness of being, these late arrivals do not receive the additional gift of God's "breath of life." Nevertheless, they all do receive the gift of life from God's own hand.   As all these living things come together after their creation, God's first act is to establish them in relationship with the man. The man names each of the creatures brought to him, giving them both their character and their identity.  In the OT, the name of a person or thing identifies a characteristic of the person or thing.  For example, the name "Jacob", (he was quite a character whose story will come up later on in Genesis), means "cheater", and that is exactly what he did.  He cheated his brother out of both his birthright and his father's blessing, both of which were his by tradition to have.  In the Book of Exodus, we find out that God's name means "I Will Be With You!"  The name tells you the character of the named.  When a person names something, it also shows that this person has dominion over that thing.  Man names all the animals, signifying that he is in charge over God's creation.  But none of them fulfill the requirement of a "helper" or "partner" to the man.   Now the use of "helper" is not meant to reflect any kind of subordinate role on the part of the woman.   The word implies both equality and complimentarity in relationship.  We should notice that since naming gives the man power and makes the other creatures subordinate to his will, his partner could never be named by the man, since to do so means they couldn't be in partnership.   So rather than molding yet another separate creature out of the dust, God establishes that the man and this new creature will share a commonality of being. The woman is not created separately or given a separate name that would place her on a lower rung in the hierarchical ladder of creation.  Physically she and the man are composed of the same stuff - they share the common elements of earthly dust and divine breath.  The man is placed into a deep sleep before God removes the rib.  This is not God hiding a mystery from the man; rather, it is to demonstrate that God is truly and creatively doing a new thing.  The man himself reveals the equality of their relationship in verse 23.  The integrally connected partnership of the man (Hebrew "ish") and the woman (Hebrew "ishshah") are reflected in their shared name.   Little wonder the man exclaims "At last!" when God reveals the woman's presence to him.  Adam exclaims, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," a phrase which indicates kinship of character.  The emphasis is, once again, on the "one flesh" concept - the basic sameness, the equality of these beings which were both divinely separated in order to be divinely joined as one in covenant with each other.  The last verse, "Therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh," says in its own way that the relationship between husband and wife creates a new family identity, separate from that which they enjoyed as part of their former relationship as children with mom and dad. C.  This passage makes three points that we should pay careful attention to:  1.  First of all, we should notice that God bends over backwards for the sake of human fulfillment.  Now if you have ever heard the notion that the OT is a testament of God's wrath and the NT is a testament of God's grace, then I am about to blow a hole in your theory!  The simple fact of the matter is that God's grace and love towards people is painted large all over the pages of the OT.  Did you notice how God related to the man in these verses:  "God said, 'It is not that the man should be alone." (verse 18); "The Lord God formed every animal…and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the  man called every living creature, that was it's name." (verse 19); "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to come upon the man, and He took one of his ribs…and He made a woman (as a partner)" (verse 21).  The tone of these verses is not that of a wrathful, vengeful, fear-inducing God.  Our God cares about each one of us.  He didn't want Adam to be lonely.  And our God loves us so much that he shares with us His dominion over the earth.  God allowed man to name and therefore define the character of each animal, even though Adam had nothing to do with their creation.  And God wanted humanity to live in joy and harmony.  That is why He created woman as a partner for man.  God cares about us.  He isn't distant and removed from us.  He is as close as our very breathing, and He wants us to know joy and peace in relationship with Him and with His creation. There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read:  "Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you.. Your Father."  On Saturday, no less than 800 children named Paco showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. Isn't it good to know that our Lord is there waiting for us like a loving Father, when we repent of our sin and come home, like the prodigal child?  Isn't it good to know that God is on our side, and that nothing can change that?  The Lord is in charge, even if it doesn't seem like it.  And He wants the best for His children.  He grieves when we grieve, and longs for relationship with each of us so He can bless us. 2.   Secondly, this passage teaches us that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman.  Scripture is very clear on this.  We don't condone same sex marriages or holy unions.  The Anglican Church is a refuge for believers of every denominational stripe who believe that the Bible rejects the notion of blessing same sex relationships.  My former church is still struggling with this notion.  Now I don't have time today to open this can of worms.  But I do want to be clear that it is important that we combine this point with the previous point, to be clear about who we must be as Church.  We reject sinful behavior of any kind, whether it be in the context of same sex relationships or in the context of heterosexual relationships.  We also reject the sinful behavior of lying, stealing, gossiping, defrauding, or otherwise hurting another person in violation of Scripture.  But we never reject the sinner.  Because all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God.  And all of us are saved and transformed by the blood of Jesus.  God loves even the sinner, and good thing, because that includes us all!!  The church must never reject the sinner; we must only be clear about what is sinful.  And we always must be clear that the grace of God can heal and transform.   3.   And lastly, this passage teaches us that men and women are to relate as co-equal and complimentary partners within that covenant relationship.  This has been made obvious in this morning's Scripture passage.  It is a sad commentary to note that over the years, the Genesis account of the creation of woman has been used to put women down.  But nothing could be a more inaccurate interpretation of the Scripture.  Man and woman are created by God to be complimentary partners.  Complimentary means we don't have to have the same gifts, but your strengths fill the gap left by my weaknesses, and vice versa.  And partners mean we walk together through life, not one behind or ahead of the other.   Actually, the Genesis passage gives pretty good advice for married couples.  It makes clear that marriage is a covenant, where two partners join together because the whole is greater than the sum of the two.  Being in covenant doesn't mean we don't have disagreements.  But we do have an understanding of how we choose to relate to each other for the good of the relationship.  And perhaps most importantly, a good marriage is one that has God in the middle.  God created us to be in covenant together, and God will help us bind and nurture this marriage covenant for the sake of the spiritual growth of the couple.   I can't think of the marriage covenant without thinking of marriage counseling.  I remember on one occasion when the couple's conversation with me turned to a review of the marriage vows.   I stressed to them that we enter into marriage of our own free will, and promise to love and to cherish one another.  I asked them if they were entering into marriage of their own free will.  The husband-to-be looked over at his fiancé, and she responded, "Go ahead and say 'yes'".   God calls us to live in fulfilling relationship with Him and with each other.  When things go wrong, God is there to bring healing and wholeness through the community of believers called the Church.  When things go right, we find the "peace that passes understanding in Christ Jesus."  Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com