The Wisdom of Steadfast Love

Sermon from March 8, 2020

Mark 10:17-31

         Well, here we are in this second week of Lent and it feels like we are being tested during these forty days as we have lost a precious hour of sleep last night. Hopefully, we can remedy that with a holy Nazarene nap after the service. Now what is interesting about having to spring ahead this morning is that one of the central themes for today’s scripture is this idea or concept of time. Yet even though I say that it probably comes as a surprise because the scripture never really comes out and speaks about time. Time is the issue that is kind of hiding just beneath the surface.

         This weeks scripture though does build on last weeks scripture. As you may remember, last week we began by stating that we were going to look at these forty days of Lent as a pilgrimage, a journey that we are on together where we are marching to Zion. Our destination which is found in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews where we are told that we have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festival gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. This is such an amazing picture of our resurrection hope, this great festival, of feasting and worship, of celebration and life. This is the joy which is set before us which is the reason we can endure the cross, the joy that was the reason Jesus endured the cross. Yes, Lent is the time when we do focus on the cross, the cross that Jesus bore for us but we must not forget just why it was that Jesus endured the sorrow, the anguish, the pain of that time and that was so that one day heaven and earth might be united together in love. You see we do not suffer merely to be seen as being somehow better than those who don’t but rather we endure the suffering because this is the road which leads to a greater future than we can even imagine. This is the road we are on this Lenten season. And as we said last week, each Sunday is a time for us to pause on our journey to see just are we really following Jesus as he is walking this road to the cross? Our scripture is our guide to keep us true to the way of Jesus. Last week we began where the journey should obviously begin which is in our hearts. As Jesus taught us, what pollutes us, makes us unclean in the eyes of God is the evil within our hearts, the evil which pours our of our hearts and flows into our lives. So we can never have this attitude that our world is an evil place without also remembering that this same evil is within each one of us. This is how all of us begin, first with the realization of the pain and hurt that the evil of this world brings into our life and then a deeper realization that we cause that same pain and hurt to others because of the evil that is within our hearts. It is easy to see how the image of the people of Israel being slaves down in Egypt is an apt picture of our condition for as Jesus teaches us those who make a practice of sin are in fact slaves to sin. This sin comes because we listen to our inward voice of our desires, desiring what is good to eat, what is good for us to survive instead of listening to the voice we were created to listen to which is the voice of God alone. Yet all is not lost because when we cry out in our slavery to God, God hears our cry and God speaks and in that moment when we hear that voice and respond this is when the chains fall off and we begin  the good life.  The good life is when we hear God and know that our God is one God and we are to love our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul or life and with all of our strength, all of the resources God has so richly given to us. So, loving God with all of our heart, hearing his voice, listening to his voice instead of the inward voice of our desires this is how we cleanse our hands of evil and purify our hearts and it is these two requirements that are needed if we are to ascend Mount Zion.

         Our story from Mark for today begins with what appears to be a compliment given to Jesus by a man who comes running up to him and throws himself at the feet of Jesus. Yet, what we have to keep in mind is that the society Jesus lived in was one where honor, the status that one held in the eyes of their peers was of utmost importance.So, when the man calls Jesus “Good teacher”, what he was really implying is that yes, Jesus was good, but his being good made everybody else look not so good. In other words, behind the compliment there hid just a little bit of envy. Envy is what in Jesus’ day was known as the evil eye because the evil within a person caused them to take what they saw with their eyes and twist it to always being about them.  So, right from the beginning of his encounter with this man I believe that Jesus perceived a fundamental flaw within the heart of this man which needed to be addressed. Jesus in response to this man’s challenge to his being a good teacher diffuses his accusation by stating that God alone is good, a goodness that no one could ever challenge.

         Now, what this man desperately desired from Jesus was an answer to his question as to what must he do to inherit eternal or everlasting life. So, as I said earlier, there is in this conversation a real element of thoughts about the future. In the Old Testament the term eternal life or everlasting life is only found in the book of Daniel, the twelfth chapter, where Daniel writes “ And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever.” So you can imagine that someone like this rich man who is somewhat obsessed with his own honor would not want to end up being one those who ended up in shame and everlasting contempt. No, he like I hope most people wanted to be certain that he would be crowned with everlasting life. Yet, Daniel doesn’t really explain to us just what exactly does this idea of everlasting life mean. The term “everlasting” or “eternal” though obviously speaks about time, a time where the past and the future fade into the background to leave only life in a constant present moment. Daniel does state though that those who awake to everlasting life will be wise. Now, we shouldn’t use this as an opportunity to believe that the not so wise people will not be with us in eternity as much as we might hope this could be true. No, what Daniel is giving us here is a clue as to those who will awaken to everlasting life that they will be people who possess wisdom. So what just is wisdom? Well, in the second chapter of Proverbs we read that it is God who gives us wisdom and from his mouth we receive knowledge and understanding which goes right along with what we learned last week. When we receive God’s wisdom then we are told that we will understand righteousness, justice and equity, or fairness. These are the standards by which we as people live with each other. So, wisdom is receiving from God instructions on how we as people are to live together and obeying those instructions.Now, wisdom also has a bearing on our future because if we make wise decisions today it will affect the outcome of our tomorrow. And since we know that wisdom comes from God and God is unchanging then we can also know that if we obey God, making wise decisions then we know the outcome of those decisions is certain and therefore our future is certain. So wisdom then is the one constant in a world full of change and if we have wisdom, this one unchanging foundation, then we have something on which we can stand to face what we can all agree is an uncertain future.

         Now, in spite of scripture being pretty clear as defining what it means to be wise and that the wise are those who will receive everlasting life, this rich man has doubts as to his ultimate future; this is why he has come to see Jesus. Jesus asks the man if he knows the commandments, “Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother.” It is right here that we need to go slow, and read carefully because when we do we should realize that Jesus has recited a very unusual set of commandments. Jesus didn’t recite the Ten Commandments where the people of Israel were to have no other gods, nor were they to make any graven images, nor take that name of God in vain. Jesus also makes no mention of the importance of keeping the Sabbath and instead of beginning his list of commandments with honoring his father and mother, Jesus instead ends his list of commandments with this one. And one more thing that is unusual is that in his list of commands Jesus tells the man that he is not to steal, he is is not to bear false witness and he is to not defraud. There is only one place in scripture where these three are spoken of in this manner and that is in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, which is a chapter which begins with God telling the people of Israel that they should be holy as God is holy. What follows this profound statement is just what does it mean for God’s people to be holy as God is holy and what this holiness is is summed up in the command to love our neighbor in the same manner that we love ourselves. This means, as Moses teaches us in the rest of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus that in our dealings with our neighbor we do not steal, we do not defraud and we do not lie. This is what Jesus quotes in his response to the rich man concerned about inheriting eternal life. In fact, all of the commandments Jesus recites deal with personal relationships and none of them address one’s relationship with God which if you think about it is kind of weird. Yet, if we remember what we discovered about wisdom, wisdom is given to us from the mouth of God and what God teaches us about is righteousness, justice and equity, all dimensions of our relationships with each other. We learn further about this wisdom of God in the third chapter of Proverbs where we read “my children, do not forget my teaching but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” Then we come to what is perhaps the most essential part of wisdom because we are told “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart;. So you will find favor and esteem in the sight of God and people.” What we cannot forget when we read this is that this phrase “steadfast love and faithfulness” is the very name of God. We first read about it when Moses asks to see God’s glory up on Mt. Sinai. There God hides Moses in the cleft of the rock and passes by him and in that moment God speaks his name to Moses telling him “ The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty…” So, the essence of wisdom is that our lives bear the very name of God, that just as God is known as being a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness we as God’s people are also in our relationships are to be known by these qualities. This is what it means for us to be holy as God is holy and this is the wisdom taught to us by a holy God, a wisdom that in the end will be our eternal life. This is what Jesus was getting at when he recited a list of commands which only dealt with our relationships with each other.

         Now, when presented with this list of commands that Jesus gives to him, the rich man assures Jesus that he most certainly has done all of these commands. Now, right here Mark records again a very unusual part of the story because he tells us that Jesus, looking at this man before him, struggling to have certainty about his ultimate future, loved this man. It seems like such a strange interjection at this point in the story but from everything we have learned up to this point it does make sense. Jesus knows that we bear are to bear the name of God, to have this name written upon the tablets of our hearts, and this name is steadfast love and faithfulness. So, here is Jesus, in wisdom, bearing the name of God, showing forth the steadfast love and faithfulness to this man before him. Jesus, in love speaks the truth to this man telling him “You lack one thing; go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; come and follow me.” Now, to understand just what was lacking from this man’s life, we get a better understanding from the version of this story found in Matthew’s gospel where it is the man who asks Jesus, just what it is that he lacks and Jesus replies “If you would be perfect, go and sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” When Jesus tells the man that in order to be be perfect he must do the following, what is meant by the word “perfect” is the idea of being whole hearted. Now when we here this phrase “whole-hearted” our ears should perk up because we know that what God calls us to do is to love him with all of our whole heart, with all of our life and with all of our resources. So, what Jesus is telling this rich man is that he is not loving God with his whole heart. No matter how this man perceives it, he is giving God a half-hearted effort. 

What is interesting about this idea of loving God whole heartedly is that in every incident in scripture where we learn about being wholehearted, it always follows people dealing with the uncertainty of the future. In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, there is a lengthy charge against any practices which people thought they could foretell the future and immediately following this is the charge that God’s people are to be whole hearted before God. You see, we are alright with God dealing with our past, setting us free from the evil that had enslaved us, the question is do we trust him enough to take care of our future? When we have uncertainty about the future then we will resort to the practices spoken against in Deuteronomy such as fortune telling to get a sneak peek as to what is ahead. Or, in a very similar manner, if we are uncertain about the future, we will store up treasures here on Earth. This is the very same temptation encountered by Eve when tempted by Satan in the Garden of Eden. When she saw the forbidden fruit she not only saw that it was good to eat she also saw that it was desired to make one wise. The wisdom that is being spoken of here is not godly wisdom but the worldly wisdom that says that this fruit is something I can store away so that my future is secure. This is how the animals secure their future; squirrels hide nuts and acorns, dogs bury their bones all in the hope that someday in the future when they are hungry they will have something to eat. So, this is the wisdom that comes from listening to our desires not the wisdom that comes from listening to the word of God. And this is where a person’s heart is torn in two because as Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” This is why Jesus tells the rich man that if he wants to be perfect, whole hearted not lacking in his devotion to God, then he has to show his devotion by bearing the name of the God he loves which meant that he had to be a person of steadfast love and faithfulness to those around him. How could he honestly say that he bore the name of God, being a person who loved with a steadfast love and faithfulness when those around him went without the basics because they had no one who would go with them through their hard times?

         What Jesus tells this rich man, that he must sell all that he has and follow him is nothing less than inviting this man to come and learn how to bear the name of God in his life, to come and learn true wisdom. Yet this should have come as no surprise to the rich man because the importance of the name of God was a vital part of the religious life of the people of Israel. The Temple was known as the place where the name of God dwelt among his people. The Temple is where the people would come to receive the blessing of God which was given to them through the servants of God, the priests.The essence of this blessing, found in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers is spoken by Aaron, the high priest over the people of Israel, saying to them “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Aaron was putting into words the experience of worship at God’s Temple, that here before the face of God, in the light of his protection, grace and peace they would know the certainty of God’s name, that God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness.  The result of this blessing then as we learn is so that the name of God will be borne by his people, they will be people who bear the name of God and thus God would bless them. This is what God had always expected to happen as his people came to worship him week after week. Yet in spite of this hope, God’s people continued to turn to worldly wisdom, seeking ways to secure their future in something other than the wisdom of God. They sought to secure their future through the accumulation of wealth or through the destruction of their enemies who were those who sought to take the wealth they were trying to accumulate. And we have to wonder why it is that bearing the name of God, being people who loved with steadfast love and faithfulness, why was this such a terrifying prospect as seen by the reaction of the rich man? The answer is that to love as God loves, to be faithful as God has been faithful, meant to live life with the greatest of vulnerability. To love with steadfast love and faithfulness as God does is to be exposed to the most awful of suffering and no one knew this more than God’s own people because they were the ones who time and time again had grieved the heart of God, causing God’s heart to break as they continued to love so many other gods but him. This is what made the cross where Jesus suffered so inevitable. Yet God in his faithfulness could not turn away but could only continue to love as he had always done. This love, to us, just does not seem wise; if anything it appears as the ultimate foolishness from a worldly view. Yet, as scriptures tell us, despite it appearances, steadfast love and faithfulness is wisdom because in the end, the future will simply be this: a life of steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the eternal life. To live secure in our future is to live this very life, today.  It is the same as in the days of the Temple only now our Temple is Jesus in whose presence we gather week by week and in the light of his face we experience once again his protection, grace and peace and we know that his name is steadfast love and faithfulness. And as we go, we bear the name of the God we have worshiped, being people of that same steadfast love and faithfulness using the resources God has given us, our strength, to love him by loving others as he has first loved us. So, when we love God with all of our heart, our past has been taken care of and when we love God with all of our resources our future is secure. This means that at last we have freedom to live fully in the present to the glory of God. Let us live out this truth today and always. Amen!