Readings: Amos 5.6-7, 10-15; Heb 4.12-16; Mark 10.17-31
I want to begin by saying Thank You to you all for welcoming me so warmly into your midst here in Hampstead! You are a wonderful congregation! Talented, committed and hard-working! A most lovely community to be part of! Also one where it was a surprise and pleasure to me, to find my brain is stretched!
Thank you particularly Stephen! And thank you, too for inviting me to share in your ministry!
I would like to extend the same thanks to my friends who have come from Oxford, to celebrate with me – also talented, committed and hard-working! Thank you for supporting me as together we forged new things for St Michael and All Angels in Summertown! And thank you also to friends from Harrow who helped to forge me as a priest!
It is the greatest of privileges to spend one’s life enabling our community to know and experience the love of God, the mercy of Christ; to walk with individuals on their spiritual journeys. Thank you.
Last but far from least, thank you to my family for being here today! Particularly to my sister and brother-in-law who have just taken me on the most wonderful journey, walking the Camino to Santiago! It is every bit as stunning and magical an experience as those who have done it many more times than once have told me! Watch out – everyone wants to do it again!
And thank you to Andrew for sharing your 60th birthday with me!
Perhaps our gospel this morning is a manifesto to cheer Jeremy Corbin! ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ ‘… Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.’
This is an extraordinary story. Not only in its conclusion! First a young man, Luke calls him a ruler, runs up and kneels before Jesus. A profound gesture of submission to Jesus’ authority. It would surprise us today and it was certainly not usual for Jews to offer such obeisance to anyone! Likewise, though perhaps not so odd to us, ‘Good Teacher’ was an utterly unknown form of address in Jewish society. So strange Jesus comments on it rebuffing the suggestion it contains, that he Jesus has achieved moral perfection! And rejecting perhaps too, the flattery within such an address.
In response to the continued suffering of God’s people, the Pharisees came a new much stronger belief in a life after death – eternal life. Life where the righteous would be rewarded for their right living – as was patently not the case in their earthly lives. Across the known world there came to be a common belief in a final judgement – and a strong desire to emerge on the right side of that judgement! To inherit the rewards of obedience to God’s commandments! Hence our young man’s question – surprising perhaps from one who is rich, one already receiving much reward! Jesus refers the young aristocrat back to the Law! Commandments he knows well and has faithfully followed! Yet he knows something is missing from his life. The spirit in which we conduct our lives is vital to our well-being. As Paul says in his famous hymn to love, 1 Corinthians 13, we may do all that is good, but if we do it without love, without charity, without a deep concern for the well-being of the other, then what we do is worthless! Strong stuff! What this young man lacked was a deep generosity of spirit, a real interest in and care for his community, and for those beyond his immediate circle. Jesus perceives he can only make his obedience to the Law heartfelt and life-changing by risking all, giving away the trappings of his life which accord him status, such that what is left, is indeed, real connection with his fellow human beings whose life he now shares. Then Jesus tells him, ‘Come, follow me.’
This proves to be too much – as I guess would be so for most of us here this morning! Jesus’ disciples also think it’s too much! Far too much! For then as so often now, riches were seen as gift from God, a sign of God’s approval – and poverty, the deserved punishment for sin! Lack of effort at least! Jesus’ closest friends are astounded by what he is saying! Even more astounded when in response to their astonishment Jesus makes a further declaration: rather than sign of God’s blessing, riches make it difficult, very difficult, to enter the Kingdom of God! Not surprisingly, the disciples then ask: Who can be saved? Can anyone be saved? Emerge on the ‘upside’ of judgement? Jesus’ response continues the enigma of so much of his teaching: For human beings this is an irreducible conundrum – but for God, all things are possible!
We may not be up to Jeremy Corbin’s rigorous frugal life-style, but God’s grace will save us nevertheless! This is indeed the gospel of Christ in which we rejoice!
However, before we heave a sigh of relief, Jesus doesn’t finish here! We may be saved for eternal life, but our meanness of heart does have consequences here and now.
Generosity breeds generosity. Self-importance which seeks to focus the light and energy around us on ourselves, will in reality leave us with very little, leave us last not first. And that difficult rigorous question remains: how much of ourselves, of our wherewithal, status as well as money, how much are we prepared to give away? How many asylum seekers will we welcome? As many as want to come? Twenty thousand? None perhaps? Our country just doesn’t have the resources! Probably in church this morning, few of us would say ‘None’, but probably neither would most of us agree with Jeremy Corbin that any and all may come. The decisions to be made are appalling and difficult.
How much should we spend on the good life? A good life which it is right and proper, God’s desire, that all of us aspire to! Aspire to just reward for all who generate our wealth; justice in international relationships; mercy in our care for one another.
So, should we vote for Jeremy Corbin, seen by many – and by some here, come as saviour of our failing society?
Well, as Christians we should certainly be voting for his aspirations, international peace, the well-being and ‘flourishing’ of all! Alongside which, we might feel his very ‘freedom’ from power to date has afforded him a political innocence, and led him to hold deeply unrealistic ideas about how to get there! How to manage a nation’s economy such that all have opportunity to prosper is no simple matter! Though a matter dividing families right now!
What would Jesus make of Jeremy Corbin? A man born into middle class wealth who has given it up to live alongside those without privilege? I think Jeremy Corbin does indeed – unintentionally challenge our attitudes and practice as Christians!
The evil in our world is very often perpetrated by people who have themselves suffered violence of various forms; endured poverty: material, social and emotional deprivation and abuse. The evil they practice in response becomes an ethos, and the drive to practice particular evils may become a ‘spirit of the age’. Infesting group culture, such evil may even come to be seen as right and desirable! The will of God! As in various witch-hunts and pogroms down the centuries in Europe. As in the seeming inability of young British Muslims today to see the evil of the teaching and practice propagated by ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
So where does ‘capitalism’ and the building of wealth stand in this order of things? There was plenty of cruelty and evil practised around Jesus. He passionately denounced injustice, mixed with the poor and outcast. And, his friends included those with money and status. Not a few of his disciples owned and ran businesses. 0Hence their shock at what he is saying! Wealthy women financially enabled his itinerant mission. The young man in our story is one of only two people of whom it is directly said in the gospels: Jesus loved him. The other being Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha. Also a family of some means.
Jesus sternly warns us not to sit in judgement on one another. We all have our unique talents to contribute. We are all limited by our own dereliction, and the derelictions of others in our lives. The choice about how we live is ours to make in each new situation. We may choose to be moved by generosity of spirit – or choose to close ranks for fear of losing out. For good or ill the choice is ours. And no, it’s not an easy task to walk the middle way.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we build our own happiness in the choices we make. Nevertheless, for God all things are possible. Jesus is making eternal life here and now reality for us. Amen.