All Things Are Possible

Mark 10:17-31

October 13, 2024

 

            Our family loves Disney Pixar movies, and Brent and I especially love the Inside Out movies. When Inside Out 2 premiered in theatres a few months ago, we made sure to go see it on the big screen. And in preparation for that event, we rewatched the first Inside Out to refamiliarize ourselves with the important details of the first movie and be eager and ready to enjoy the sequel.  

            If you are not familiar with these movies, I’ll give you a brief overview. They both center around a young girl named Riley. In the first movie, Riley is 11 and she and her parents leave their longtime home in Minnesota to move to San Francisco. Riley suddenly must cope with homesickness and the sadness and longing for what is left behind that comes with it. In the first movie we meet Riley’s core emotions which live in Riley’s headquarters – or better known as her brain. The core emotions are Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Joy is the leader of the emotions, and much of the movie is spent in Joy learning the lesson that Riley needs to be able to feel all her emotions to deal with the changes that life brings. Joy believed that if Sadness was present, then she had failed Riley. But Sadness needed to be there too..

            In the second movie, Riley is now 13. She has adjusted to life in San Francisco. She has friends. She is once again playing on an ice hockey team, which she loves more than ever. Things seem to be going great until one night puberty arrives. And if you remember when puberty arrived in your own life, you can imagine the shock that came with it. The headquarters are suddenly updated for the new emotions that puberty brings, but the original core emotions don’t understand what is happening. The new emotions are Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment, and most importantly, Anxiety.

            Anxiety shows up, literally carrying her emotional baggage, and asks where she can put her stuff. She introduces herself to Joy in this way, and this is my paraphrase.

            Look, Joy, you help Riley feel happy. Fear protects her from the scary stuff she can see. But I protect her from the scary stuff she can’t see. I plan for the future.

            As the movie progresses, Anxiety takes control of headquarters, leading Riley to make some bad decisions and ultimately experience a full-blown panic attack. Anxiety planned for the future so completely that she messed up the present.

            I plan for the future. If there was ever a simple way to describe anxiety, that’s it. We all have some anxiety to some degree. You can’t live and not experience it. But severe anxiety can become debilitating. Not only are you worrying about things that may be happening in your life right now, but you also spend a lot of time worrying about the future, worrying about the things you can’t see but can imagine that might be there.

            I know that this passage from scripture and a Pixar movie aren’t necessarily relevant to one another, but when it comes to anxiety I see it full-blown in this passage. It’s hard not to imagine that the man who kneels before Jesus is experiencing anxiety. I’ve always wondered about that. Clearly, he is anxious about something. Clearly, he is searching for something or someone. He must be worrying about what will happen when he dies, which is why he asks this question of Jesus. He wants eternal life, but he isn’t sure that will happen. So, when he sees Jesus he runs up to him, kneels before him, and asks,

            “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

            Jesus responds with some questions of his own.

            “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

            Then Jesus goes on to ask him about the commandments. You know them, right. You know what they are. And the man responds that yes, he does know them. And he has been following them faithfully since he was a boy. At this point, you would expect Jesus to respond with words of comfort. As in, well, if you’ve been following them your whole life, then you’re fine. You’ve got this. Stop worrying. Stop feeling so anxious. It’s all good.

            But that’s not Jesus’ answer. Instead Jesus says,

            “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

            It’s obvious that this is NOT what the man wanted to hear. Sell everything I own? Give the money to the poor? Follow you? No, sorry Jesus. I can’t do that. And he walks away from Jesus, grieving. The reason that we often refer to this man as the rich young man or the rich young ruler is because Mark describes him as someone who has many possessions. He must be very rich. And his response to Jesus shows that he is not ready to part with his possessions or his wealth.

            Commentators have pointed out that this was probably not the best way for Jesus to recruit a new follower. It would have made more sense – at least to those gathered around Jesus and to us – if Jesus had just encouraged the man to give a hefty donation to a charity, put his possessions in the safekeeping of a trusted friend, and then follow him. Ease him into it. You don’t have to give up everything right away. Just a little at a time. But that wouldn’t have been Jesus, and that is not what happened.

            But there is a detail in Mark’s gospel to which we need to pay attention. Mark is usually sparse on details, so when he has one that the other gospels leave out, it’s especially important to note it.

            When Jesus speaks this shocking and upsetting response to the man, he speaks it with love. Verse 21, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him …”

            Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and then he said, you lack one thing. With all that the man owned, he was still lacking, and Jesus could see it, even if the young man could not. Jesus loved him, and because he loved him, he didn’t sugarcoat that truth that the man needed to hear. In that context, and in ours, wealth was seen as a blessing from God. Surely this man was blessed because he was wealthy. He must have lacked for nothing. But Jesus saw something that others could not. Instead of being a blessing, the man’s wealth may have been the one thing that got in his way when it came to God. Yes, the man had followed the commandments to the letter since he was a boy. Yes, the man lived the life he was expected to live. But this man was still anxious. This man was still lying awake at night worried about the future. This man was still missing something, and when he saw Jesus, his intuition must have told him that this wandering Rabbi would have the answers he sought so earnestly, so desperately.

            And Jesus loved him. And his love for him meant telling him the truth. Jesus’ love for this man was a love that was, as one commentator wrote, incisive. It cut out what harmed so that the healing could begin. But this man could not hear this – at least not in this moment. And my question is, could we? Could we bear to hear Jesus tell us to give up the one thing that means the most to us? Could we bear to hear Jesus proclaim to us that the one thing we consider to be a blessing to us is really what gets in our way in following him, in being in relationship with him, in being in a deep and abiding relationship with God? I don’t think I could. Maybe you couldn’t either.

            In past sermons on this passage, I’ve tried to manage these words of Jesus. Look, Jesus meant what he said about selling everything, giving the money to the poor, and following him, but we do the best that we can. It’s not possible for us to live up to this standard, but we should always try. And while I meant that and I mean it still, it seems to me that there may be no good way to manage these words of Jesus.

            I find it interesting that people who take the bible literally when it comes to other passages seem to stop it taking it so literally when Jesus says something like this. Well, that’s probably not what he really meant. I’m sure this is another example of Jesus speaking in hyperbole. He’s exaggerating to make a point. He’s exaggerating to get through to this guy.

But what if Jesus meant exactly what he said? What if Jesus understood that this man’s real anxiety came down to what he owned rather than what awaited him in the life after life? What if Jesus wanted him and us to understand that letting our anxiety plan for the future is the antithesis of trusting God?

            Look, here’s the thing, I’m not going to leave here today and sell all that I own and give the money to the poor. I’m not. And I suspect that y’all won’t either. But I am going to leave here thinking about this passage and with these words of Jesus resounding in my heart, my muscles, my bones. And I’m going to have to live into the tension and the dissonance between what Jesus calls us to do and who Jesus calls us to be and my actual response.

            But I’m also going to leave here with hope, in spite of myself, because we don’t know the end of the story. We don’t know the end of this man’s story, do we? Maybe he couldn’t do what Jesus asked him to do that day, but maybe on another day he did. Maybe he joined that band of disciples. Maybe he stood at the foot of the cross. Maybe he waited in an upper room. Maybe I will too. We know that what we cannot do, God can. We cannot be good enough, right enough, faithful enough to earn .. anything. It is impossible for us. But for God, all things are possible, and that is the good news. That is our hope. That is our grace. That is our salvation.

Thanks. Be. To. God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.