Disagreement is scary. Working through differences is hard. It’s so much easier to just walk away, as that rich man did. It’s what people do when things get hard. One bump in the relationship, and we give up.
So I find it truly ironic that this man is seeking eternal life. Because what is eternal life, except very, very, persistent love? We don’t know how to do that. So when we go looking for eternal life, it’s we who need to learn. According to the Gospel of Mark, it’s not our business to earn eternal life. Certainly “being good” won’t do it. God has it under control. I realize saying that is not good for church attendance, but I regard anything else as spiritual malpractice. Do not worry about your eternal life. Worry about practicing liking it when you get it. If we attend to the love commandment, we might actually know what to do with that eternal life when we get it.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
November 25, 2018
Persistent Love
Mark 10:17-31 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” 20He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “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.” 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It 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.” 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
28 Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
In our reading, Jesus and his followers are setting out for a road trip. A man comes running up to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What do we know about this man? Only that he has many possessions. But we can infer from the man’s question that he really doesn’t get Jesus or his mission. He’s got his daily planner and it says: workout– check, prayer– check, meeting with investment manager– check, confirm eternal life– check. Something is wrong with this picture. This man’s religion is all about being good– very good– and following the rules and getting the right answer every time. And Jesus’ answer is: “Wrong question.”
“Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” says Jesus. I love that Mark reports that, and I can’t imagine how hard it was for Matthew and Luke to copy Mark. All the man meant by calling Jesus “good” was a social nicety. Jesus isn’t having it. He’s undermining the idea that “being good” is what makes us right with God, because if Jesus isn’t good, who can be? Being good is not our goal. It is a possible side effect of relationship with God and trying to follow Jesus. But this guy is good at being good. To him that’s what religion is about. He’s so good at being good he wants extra rules to show he can be extra good.
Jesus doesn’t give him any rules. Jesus offers him a relationship, a challenging one. “Sell all you own and give away the money; then come, follow me.” Oh, the man was not expecting that response. He can’t even imagine doing such a thing. Can you? So he’s sad, because he can’t be good enough. And he just walks away. So much for relationship. I wonder, did he even notice– those beautiful words – Jesus looked at him and loved him? Did he even notice? Did he consider telling Jesus, “Whoa, I don’t know if I can do that. But can I tag along for a while anyway?” No, he just walked away.
This man represents every person who is itchy and unsatisfied with life, knows that their relationship with God isn’t what it should be, but doesn’t want to admit that they might have to change. Is not willing to hear something new, to accept the challenge to do something different…transformation. His particular stuck point was that he had too much stuff. None of us have that problem, right? But that was not the real problem. The problem was that when he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do what Jesus asked, he just gave up and walked away, without even bothering to continue the conversation. When he didn’t know how to do what Jesus wanted, he gave. He didn’t even try to return Jesus’ love.
Love is the basis of our religion, and the subject of much misunderstanding. One of the few rules Jesus gives us in the Gospel of Mark is: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it! That’s all we have to do– ha!
According to our Bible, God loves us with a persistent love. Don’t get the message? Let me try again. Blew it? I forgive you. Come on home. Mad at me? Let’s talk. The cross is our symbol of persistent love: Jesus went to death and beyond to show us that nothing we do can separate us from God permanently. “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And God longs for us to return that love.
Love: what is it? It is not a feeling. Love is a verb, a way of being and acting that allows God’s love and power to flow in and through us. It isn’t always easy to love. It isn’t easy staying in relationship with people who challenge us, push our buttons. Sometimes we can’t do it. I think God understands. Sometimes we just need space from people we do not know how to be around. Or maybe… we need space in our own hearts, a space that God makes, free of judgments and demands and baggage from the past, so we can receive the challenges of relationship without running away or getting our buttons pushed quite so badly. How do we make this space for love? It is a skill. It takes practice. It takes persistence.
I was listening to peoples’ plans for Thanksgiving last week, and I heard a lot of complicated ways that people were trying to show up for those they loved. Having thanksgiving breakfast with the kids on the first Thanksgiving after a marriage collapsed. Having a buffet so that loved ones who don’t get on well can eat at the same table in the same house at different times. Spending the night in close quarters with the young relatives who love us so well that we are overwhelmed. But we go anyways. Creating friendsgivings so people who don’t have family to eat with know they are loved.
If love is our central calling, let’s learn how to do it well. And then be persistent in practicing that art. That means showing up even when it’s hard, even when we know we will disappoint, or we’ve been disappointed ourselves. This is making amends. It means having empathy about what the other person might be experiencing, and what might be getting in the way of the other person showing care to us. The shorthand for that is: trust their good intentions. Give them the benefit of the doubt. We can put more value on being in relationship than doing it right.
Love can be studied scientifically. John Gottmann is a relationship researcher. He measured eye movements, electrodes, hormones, everything he could think of, to try to figure out what made relationships work, because he didn’t have a clue– he’d failed at two marriages. He came with an open mind to the subject. Now he can predict with great accuracy whether a marriage relationship will persist, based on a short observation of the couple in question, when they’re talking about a hot topic. He speaks of relationship masters, those couples who have long and happy marriages. First and foremost, they act like good friends, with affection and admiration for each other. They do fight, but they seldom make it personal. They seldom attack each other. And they make up well. Making up is a skill that can be learned. When these couples interact, they have five times more affirming interactions than negative interactions. These are seldom extravagant gestures. A small pat on the shoulder when passing the person’s chair. A bid for attention, “Hey, look at that!”– a little togetherness. A thoughtful nod, a smile. Five times more affirming interactions than negative interactions. Persistent love doesn’t take people for granted.
Gottmann can also identify couples who are likely to divorce. They have just slightly more positive interactions than negative interactions. Which proves what we all already know: in a relationship, negative interactions hurt more than positive interactions help. What qualifies as a negative interaction? It’s not always what you think. He reads it from the body language respose of the receiver. You can probably guess some things. The worst kind of negative interactions Gottmann calls “The four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse.” They are
Criticism: “What’s wrong with you is…”
Defending: “No, that’s not it!”
Contempt or superiority: “You obviously can’t…”and
Stonewalling: (I’ll just ignore them, because I’ll probably get angry if I engage..)
Even ignoring a little bid for attention counts as a big negative. “Hey, look at that!” No response. When someone’s bid for attention is rejected, seldom do they try again. And so we drift apart. Persistence is required, if there is any hope of turning a relationship around.
Disagreement is scary. Working through differences is hard. It’s so much easier to just walk away, as the rich man did. It’s what people do when things get hard. One bump in the relationship, and we give up.
So I find it truly ironic that this man is seeking eternal life. Because what is eternal life, except very, very, persistent love? We don’t know how to do that. So when we go looking for eternal life, it’s we who need to learn. According to the Gospel of Mark, it’s not our business to earn eternal life. Certainly “being good” won’t do it. God has it under control. I realize saying that is not good for church attendance, but I regard anything else as spiritual malpractice. Do not worry about your eternal life. Worry about practicing liking it when you get it. If we attend to the love commandment, we might actually know what to do with that eternal life when we get it.
It’s hard to notice jokes in the Bible. We take it too seriously. But I think I found one today. 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. That’s just an entertaining way of saying: impossible. It is impossible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Hearing this, the disciples are confused. In one strand of the Jewish tradition, being rich meant that God had blessed you because you had done right. That’s not how Jesus tells it. It is impossible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Hearing this, some of us are nervous, because we have 401K’s and investments. Are we rich? We are far richer than the refugees who are seeking shelter among us. “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” If we are practicing the love commandment we can take that for granted. Wealth and status are barriers to our relationship with God, because wealth and status allow us to turn relationships into transactions, to buy what we need and to ignore people who can’t do the same. “What must I do to ‘inherit’ eternal life?” The man was trying to turn the love of God into a legal transaction.
Jesus didn’t browbeat him. He did say, out of the man’s hearing, “Camel through the eye of a needle.” Commentators have tried to soften the analogy. One way they did it was claiming there was a gate into Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle” that a camel could barely squeeze through. No, not true. The word might not have been “camel.” This is true. The word might have been “cable” the kind of cable that moors a ship. Not a rope; a full-on cable. Camel, cable, in both Greek and Aramaic they are only one vowel away. So Jesus might have said, “It is easier for a cable to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” But that’s not as good a joke, is it? Excuse me, Jesus, did you say camel, or cable? And he just raises his eyebrows at you, and laughs.
Overeager Peter says, “We left everything to follow you, right? We’re good, right?” Now Jesus smiles, and says, “Yes, you’re good, Peter. And you will receive everything, including persecutions!” A full life, the good and the bad. That’s our reward for following Jesus. Abundant life. And, by the way, eternal life, whatever that looks like, the persistent love of God.
Peter and the disciples did persist. After one notable lapse, they stuck with Jesus. And they kept being challenged, and they kept learning that following Jesus is not about being right, or doing right, or believing right. Following Jesus is about being in relationship, giving and receiving love, even when it’s hard; letting go of anything that gets in the way of that. That love heals, and forgives, and sees every person as beloved, valued by God. None of us is very good at this, but Jesus isn’t asking us to be good. He asks us to follow, to keep trying. He wants our persistent love.
Persistent love. You’ve got it. Let’s try doing it. Amen.
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