Rector's Sermon - Sunday, October 12, 2003

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Job 23:1-9, 16-17	22:1-6, 9-10	Hebrews 4:12-16	Mark 10:17-31

   Upon first glance I suspect most would pick this boy out of the Cub Scout pack to rise to Eagle Scout. He was a charmer, bright, and a natural born leader. On the day of the hike everyone was ready, except this lad who had lingered behind to get a big handful of trail mix out of the storage jar. Over and over he jammed his hand in the jar and grasp a big fistful, but when he tried to pull his hand out of the jar, it always got stuck in the jar’s thin neck. He tried to do it upside down, sideways, quickly and slowly, but nothing worked. “Come on,” say his buddies, “We’ve packed trail mix with the lunch. Let’s go on the hike.” “No,” the lad cries in frustration, “I want just a fistful more. I know I can do it, just one more try, one more try.”

   I wonder if the lad with the hand in the trail mix jar did not grow up to be like the young man in the recent news who, when he was mauled and needed to go to the hospital for many stitches, was discovered to have kept a tiger and alligator in his apartment. It probably began innocently enough. It was exciting to have a little baby tiger cub. No one else he knew had such an exotic pet; same with the alligator. A dog and cat were just for average folk, but to have a tiger and alligator, that was really something to be proud of. How superior and smug he must have thought when he saw his neighbors. The cub was small as a kitten at first, grew gradually, but then reached 600 pounds. Then without warning it pounced. Sooner or later, the alligator would have done a similar thing. In a real sense, the young man was as unusually bound and imprisoned by his pets as the pets were unusually confined and imprisoned by him. He was lucky not to have been killed.

   The young rich man in today’s Gospel was a very likable person. He was very polite to Jesus and obviously sincere. Jesus sensed that he took his obligations seriously and was a good person, not a phony or hypocrite. Jesus wanted him as a disciple, and the rich man wanted to follow, but something very strong held him back and he couldn’t move.

   I don’t think the point of this passage is that all who follow Jesus should sell all that they have. Certainly the early church did not believe so. On the other hand, it is all too easy to let Jesus’ words slip past, without catching us. It is often suggested that after the rich man turned down the invitation of Jesus, he went away downcast and sad. I wonder if for the first time he had a hint of how confined he was. I picture the young rich man, looking over his shoulder at Jesus until he is out of sight, with a dull, but deep pain of regret. In his old age did he ever have dreams of an adventure, a challenging journey that might have been? Do we ever let our possessions of one sort or another weigh us down? We think we control our environment and we are proud that we make so many choices, but in reality often our choices and lifestyle control us more often than we would like to admit.

   Sometimes the Gospel can uncover or let a freedom come into our lives that we had long forgotten or had never thought possible. I would not claim that being a person of faith is easy or light these days, but carrying the cross can be a whole lot lighter than dragging some of the unnoticed, virtually invisible assumptions with which our society burdens us. There are all those past images and expectations we must live up to as well as be aware and on guard of all the suspicion and mistrust on others. When I hear the story of the rich, would-be disciples, I think of Marley’s ghost in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, light, almost transparent in soul, but heavily weighed down and bound by money boxes, ledgers and chains of the past.

   I wonder if that image was not related to the subsequent lesson Jesus was telling the disciples. There were no scout troops back then, and certainly none of Jesus’ hearers could have conceived of people in small high-rise apartments keeping large wild animals. Yet Jesus’ warning is as fresh today as it was in first century Palestine. Possessions can take hold of us, and are like wild animals that are never truly domesticated. They may seem tame and controllable for a while, but as they gradually grow, sooner or later the captors become the captives, and we can be badly bitten, if not devoured.

   And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.