B, Ash Wednesday - Genesis 3:14-19 "You are Dust, and to Dust you shall Return"

Genesis 3:14–19 (ESV) “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.  I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’  To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.’  And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’”

Air, water, and fire, return all things back to natural elements.  From the moment we create things on this earth, they are returning to what they once were.  The houses people have built since time began have returned, and are returning, to the earth, through exposure to air, water, or fire. 

The goods we place in our homes will also return to primary elements.  Some quickly, some slowly, but nevertheless they are returning.  Even plastics, glass, and porcelain return having been produced with fire, return with the help of fire and pressure over time!

All metals eventually revert to their mineral compounds through the process of corrosion and rust, so that they become dust once again.  Having this in mind we travel in vehicles not putting too much trust in our means of transport.  A very sobering thought to contemplate when we’re at thirty-eight thousand feet, looking at a metal wing, slowly returning to the ore of the earth, keeping us aloft.   Or, sailing on a metal ship, in a salty brine knowing that eventually rust, must make metal, into mush!

It’s not just things we create, that are reduced to rust, dust, a mushy mash, or blackened ash.  All things given to us in this creation will die and return to he who created it with his Word.  

Following a garden and kitchen waste recycling truck yesterday, it became obvious to the nose that air and water were working on returning things, we live on in creation, back into compost and dirt.  Another sobering thought occurred to me, as I drove behind that truck, that I too, in the fullness of God’s time, will be returned from flesh, blood, and bone, back into air, water, and dust.

In a short time, you will receive the mark of the cross on the forehead with ash and hear the words, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

These words are the words of God to Adam, who having listened to Eve and Satan disguised as a serpent, did not heed God’s call not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

As a result, not only does Adam return to dust; Eve does too!   All animals that carry the breath of life from God, return to the earth.  All of creation groans as a result of humanity’s pleasure.  And so, all the things in which we seek pleasure, are being tested by air, water, and fire.

The ash we receive on the forehead reminds us of this!  The ash used is the ash of palm fronds.  Traditionally the palm branches used on Palm Sunday, are returned to ash with air and fire, to use on Ash Wednesday.  The Ash adheres to the moisture on the skin of the forehead.  Moisture that is continually leaving the body, which one day will work with air to make us compostable material in the earth.  If not, some will return to ash and dust through cremation’s fire.  Either way, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week.  The ash of the Sunday palm branch not only leads us to remember our mortality, but that of the man Jesus Christ.  He is the New Adam!  The immortal Son of God born into his own creation as a mortal, the Son of Man. 

From Ash Wednesday we look forward to Holy Week, to see what Jesus put aside as the Son of God, and what he endured as the Son of Man.  We see our pleasures, in the face of Adam and Eve’s pleasure, in gaining a knowledge of good and evil.  And we realise the suffering we endure as a result of treasuring the pleasures of what we seek and know, more than the pleasure of knowing God and being known by God.

But we also look to Holy Week and see Jesus’ good pleasure in being led to the cross amid the pain and suffering promised to Adam and Eve from their original sin, and all the sins that followed.  Right the way to today to the deceptions of your pleasures within, and all those around you tempting you because you are without!

We look to Jesus’ death, burial, and descent into hell.  Where, having been pierced by the sword on the cross, water and blood flowed from his flesh!  Where, in the grave, air did not take effect on Jesus’ flesh.   And, where in hell, fire was not fatal for the Son of Man, the Son of God.

We look to Easter Sunday, to the resurrection of Jesus from the grave, trusting that it is the Father’s, the Son’s, and the Holy Spirit’s good pleasure, to work their holiness for you in the events of Holy Week, and Easter.

We also look forward from Ash Wednesday to the day of our death, to our burial or cremation.  Hearing the fulfilment of God’s word, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return”!   And we remember our sin!  The sins we have done, and the sins from which we struggle to be undone.  We see our being, in need of renewal and resurrection, our mortality in need of immortality!

God calls us to look beneath the temporary decaying clothing God gave Adam and Eve to cover their sinfulness, saying, “‘Yet even now,’ declares the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;  and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”  (Joel 2:12–13 ESV)

During Lent some find it healthy to forgo some of the pleasures of this life to focus on the pleasures of God and what was done to save us from the decay caused by our pleasures.  This is a rendering of one’s heart, through fasting, hearing God’s word, and meditating on it. 

Going without in the forty days of Lent, leads one to be tested, and having been tested, produces repentance, as one quickly sees in our failures, Jesus’ being tested for forty days without sin.

Ash Wednesday calls us to see Jesus raised from the dead, victorious over sin, death, and the devil.  In Jesus we see flesh without failure, without fatigue, and our flesh in the future.  We see our mortality made immortal through Jesus’ pleasure to fulfil our Father’s will!

On Ash Wednesday we see the only way is Jesus’ way.  In him the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to pleasure’s temptation of good and evil.   This leads us to turn back to God our Father in repentance and thanksgiving. 

Ash Wednesday helps us to remember and return to the Lord our God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

In Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, our Father in heaven promises to relent and repent over all your evils!  Amen.

A, Easter 6 - John 14:12-21 "The Spirit of Truth"

John 14:12–14, 15-21 (ESV) “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

For the best part of two thousand years, the church has struggled to understand what the love is,  into which God calls us.  And, to know the Holy Spirit and his function in our lives, in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. 

Love has been misunderstood, and the Holy Spirit has been buried, time and time again, as one looks back through the history of the Christian Church.  This should not surprise us, as the forces of evil confront us and seek to suppress what love truly is and what the Holy Spirit seeks to do for us.

It also might surprise you that Luther’s battle in the Reformation centred on the misunderstanding of love which stood at the heart of the mistaken function of justification and righteousness before God.

Because righteousness and justification were being wrongly centred on what the individual did before God, the Holy Spirit was then the forgotten third member of the Trinity.  But more on that in a moment.

Firstly, love; how does one love God?  How can you love God?  The gospel reading begins with Jesus saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Then ends, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.  And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  (John 14:15, 21 ESV)

This call to love, seems like a riddle.  The Israelites and Jews could not keep the commandments which are summed up in loving God, with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind, and loving one’s neighbour as oneself.  (Matt 22:37-39, Deut 6:5, Lev 19:18b)

In fact, this is the reason for Jesus coming!  He came to love God and love humanity because under the Law the Jews couldn’t.  He found the Jews and the rest of humanity debased, and rebased us, by doing what we could not do, he perfectly pleased God by keeping the Law, and made atonement for humanity by dying for our sin.  He did not sin, yet he suffered to save us from our sin.

Despite this, the church struggled to stand under this love, to understand this love, and many throughout history and still today think the order of salvation is that Jesus died and now we must obey with self-focused good works.  They forget, “we are his (God’s) workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

The love to which God is calling us is a love that always comes down in creative, and re-creative power.  It finds the unlovable, and those incapable of love, and loves them.  This love is a receptive love, and it has to find us because, like the Jews, we cannot love God or our neighbour as ourselves!

So now we return to the third member of the Trinity.  God sends the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, because he knows without him, Jesus’ death and resurrection, would have just faded into history, and been forgotten, and so would our opportunity to ever love God.

Yet having sent the Holy Spirit, the church struggles to receive and submit to the Holy Spirit, even though he is the only reason, generation after generation remember Jesus in the first place! 

Instead of recognising we are recipients of God’s love, generation after generation, have sought to climb up to God, through the “greater good” and love him.  This type of ego-centred love crept into the early church through Greek thinking.  From that, the grace of God is turned about so it becomes a man-made method of salvation.  Jesus came and did the right thing, and now through his example, we too must do the right thing, and climb up to God.  However, this only returns a person to a law that one cannot perfect.

Jesus names the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of truth”.  The Greek biblical word for truth is “that which is not hidden”.  The Holy Spirit is he who reveals, he is God who unhides and opens our eyes and ears to the reality of God the Father and God the Son.  He also puts in plain sight who and what we are before God, as sinner, and as saint.

One may have claimed ignorance before Jesus ascended and sent the Holy Spirit.  In Acts seventeen Paul proclaims to the Greek thinkers of Athens, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31 ESV)

In other words, Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, gives one the opportunity to be returned to Jesus’ righteousness and victory over death, from self-designated good works.  These are the works one does to earn their righteousness before God.  Or works that fail when seeking to climb up to God and love with a love that desecrates his holiness. 

This does not please God because it’s not in accord with his plan of salvation, and once seeking entry into God’s presence through partial goodness, Jesus’ death and resurrection is treated with contempt.

Added to this, once goodness is elevated to holiness, then love becomes presumptuous, conceited, and full of vain glory.  The Holy Spirit is no longer allowed to uncover the truth.  There is no longer need for God’s love in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, and the Spirit’s call to repentance.

But what pleases God is when we turn from our own efforts and trust in him:  in the resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, who gives faith and gathers us in faith. 

God is pleased and glorified when we daily drown our human spirit, with its knowledge of good and evil, and trust in Jesus Christ, having been given a knowledge of him by the Spirit of Truth, as he wills us, and returns us, time and time again, to hear God’s Word.

Finally, I draw your attention to the verses just prior to the Gospel reading for today.  Jesus proclaims  something quite peculiar.

He says, in John fourteen verses twelve to fourteen, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”  (John 14:12–14 ESV)

So, the believer does the works of Jesus because he goes to the Father and the Holy Spirit comes to uncover Christ within.  We pray as Jesus prayed for others, we help others as Jesus helped others, we bear our cross as Jesus bore his cross.  And we do so only because the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father, and God the Son to bring us to the Father and the Son.

But this is not all!  Jesus says, “whoever believes, does greater works than him because he is going to the Father”.  What are these greater works?  In Greek, these are mega works.  How can we do greater works than Jesus?  It seems incorrect, but Jesus said it, so it’s not!  What are these mega works?

One might ask themselves what Jesus did, which we could not do?  The answer is to be perfect and holy in a God pleasing way.  But in addition to this he suffered and died to atone for our sin, even though he did not sin.

Jesus doing no sin is the hint!  The greater work that Jesus could not do, because he was without sin is to confess sin and ask for forgiveness.  We certainly need the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to confess and ask for forgiveness!  This is because it costs our human spirit its pride, to allow the Holy Spirit to uncover the truth of our sin, which reveals us as debased and unholy before God.

Confession and seeking forgiveness are so counter cultural to human nature.  Every child since Adam hides sin rather than confesses it.  Since the beginning, the devil has been making us guilty because of our sin, telling us our sin is too great for God to forgive.  Or he tells us our sin is not really that bad and to ignore what God says in his Word about sin.

Yet, the beauty of the resurrection is that despite the debased nature of every human being, we now have access to God, without fear of desecrating his holiness, or being annihilated by his holiness.  The Holy Spirit may allow us to feel guilt, but only so we rush to the cross in confession asking for forgiveness.

This work is a mega work of God the Holy Spirit in us, as it demonstrates faith in God, when we are led to turn from ourselves, to do the works God has prepared in advance for us to do. 

In addition to this, it also justifies God sending his Son to the cross, it justifies Jesus’ suffering and death for our sin, it justifies the work of the Holy Spirit, leading Jesus in servanthood as the Son of Man.  It also glorifies the Holy Spirit in raising Jesus from death and raising us daily, so we can die to self and live in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and in the peace of God our Father.

Having been forgiven, we love God in sincere appreciation for what he did and continues to do.  So much so, the Holy Spirit makes us bold enough in our death of self, to risk ridicule and loss of name in proclaiming to others our sin and why God has forgiven us.   Amen.

C, Post-Pentecost 20 Proper 25 - Luke 18:8b, 9–14 "Postures of Faith"

Luke 18:9–14 (ESV)  He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus sets the scene for this parable.  The scene is set with the final words of his last parable, the parable of the faithful persistent widow, who never gives up crying out for justice.  His final words are, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8b ESV)

Jesus then sets the scene with the arrival of two men at the temple.  He, the Son of Man, allows us to take his place to see if we find faith on earth through the parable!  In it we get to examine the faith posture of the two persons who have come to the temple in Jerusalem.

Temple worship is set around the daily atonement sacrifice for the people of Israel.  Jesus gives us his privileged position of hearing the faith of the pharisee and the tax collector.  Who are these two characters? 

One is a socially acceptable individual in the person of the pharisee.  This is a good person in the eye of the public, a law-abiding citizen, or a good bloke one might say!

The other man is a socially objectionable figure in the form of the tax collector.  He is a bad person, a rogue, a scoundrel, a lawbreaker, an extortioner, an enemy of the state, or one who works against the common good!

Against the background of public thanksgiving for the daily atonement of sins, through the priestly sacrifice of animals on the altar, to take away the sins of the nation, Jesus gives us the privilege position of hearing the private prayers of both men.

The pharisee’s posture is opposite to that of the tax collector.  I, I, I!  I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. I, I, I!

The tax collector beats the heart of his sinful being, from within where his extortion, unjustness, adultery, and unacceptability breeds loneliness, contempt of self, separation from God and from others.  He cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  Or literally, “make atonement for me, one who misses the ability to atone for myself!”

In this parable Jesus gives you a front row seat in finding the faith of these two. 

It’s obvious to us that the faith of the tax collector was firmly grounded in the fact that he was a sinner and could not atone for himself through acting good or bad.  No!  This was no act of false humility,  appearing bad to be good, or good to be bad!  He knew if his sin was to be atoned for, he needed an act of mercy on God’s part.

Whereas the pharisee, had great faith too!  However, his faith was in himself and what he did, separating and placing himself apart from those whom he thought were below him.

Now that Jesus has given you access into the hearts of the two, which one are you in this parable?

Scene two!  As we ponder who we are in the parable, the Holy Spirit paints a picture of you in this congregation.

When you got out of bed this morning, what were your thoughts about coming to church today?  “Do I really have to go?”, you may have asked yourself!  “I hope such and such is not there today!” Or, “I hope others are there, I don’t feel like it’s church unless such and such is there.  I, I, I, yet again, you hear!  I want more modern songs, I want more older hymns, I want, I want, want!  Jesus looks on, “will he find faith at church today?”

Perhaps your soul longs for the courts of the Lord, you love to dwell in the hearing of his Word, receiving the forgiveness of sin as you confess and receive absolution, and the reception of Jesus’ body and blood for your life and salvation.  But as you do, you receive resistance from others who seek to hinder you from coming to dwell in God’s atonement through word and sacraments.

And maybe you have come to observe.  You think, “Good sermon, good service pastor, THEY really needed to hear that! 

Or weighed down by the weight of your sin, you think, “If only I could stop doing that thing or stop acting this way, I would be a better person.”  Maybe you imagine,” If I was more like that person over there, I would be more acceptable before others — before God!” So, I’ll act humble or a certain way to appear as someone different.

There are those who live as if their goodness is too good for God, and there are those who believe their badness is too evil for God.  But then there are the faithful who focus not on their good or evil but on Jesus Christ, knowing they’re sinners — being forgiven, and they’re seated amongst likewise sinners — being forgiven. 

Together they collectively beat their chests and cry out for mercy.  They look for knowledge outside themselves for the atonement of their sin.  In the knowledge of Jesus Christ, they cherish and find the means of freedom from themselves.

They live with a steadfast struggle, feverishly fighting the pharisee within.  The old man within, seeking resurrection again, after sins have been forgiven.  He seeks to turn the repentant tax collector within, into a pharisee.  Going out once again to maintain separation from those from whom they are glad they are not like. 

Jesus watches on, as we picture ourselves in the parable, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The reality in our knowledge of Jesus Christ is that we all have within us another tendency to be both a pharisee and a tax collector.  That is, we practise a good or bad faith in oneself, rather than practising faith in God for our atonement.  

We come as sinners each week and there is a real temptation to leave as pharisees and return as pharisees next week.  Such is our human nature we are tempted into a posture of prayer and practise saying, “God, I thankyou that I am not like that pharisee, as well as the tax collector.”

With a Holy Spirited knowledge of Jesus Christ, in submission to God’s Word, revelation of our sinfulness and the covering of sin in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can pray,” I thankyou heavenly Father that being like all others you have saved and redeemed me a lost and condemned person.”

You and I can serve both the pharisee and the tax collector, knowing that without Jesus Christ we suffer from self-righteousness and unrighteousness.  Or put it another way, without Jesus Christ we die from the sin of believing we are not sinners and from the sins we know we cannot put right. 

We can lovingly serve the pharisee and the tax collector knowing that without Jesus’ love, we are the pharisee and the tax collector, the law faker and the law breaker, the socially acceptable hypocrites, and the socially separated undesirables.

Scene three!  As we leave this place and travel towards the cross in our lives.  Do you stubbornly set your face towards knowledge of your good and evil?  Or do you purposefully set your face towards knowledge of Jesus Christ, as he did towards you and the atonement of your sin when he resolutely set his face towards Jerusalem? 

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Jesus quite clearly says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14b ESV)

Scene three plays out on the stage of eternity.  In fact, the old covenant temple worship, the new covenant worship of Jesus Christ, have been prerequisites for our re-creation and our eternal recreation with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Son of Man will come once and for all, but he also comes to us now.  The faith he seeks in us is the humble willingness to be served by this Son of Man, to have faith and trust in his faithfulness, despite the pharisee and tax collector within. 

He calls us to humbly run the race in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our haughty human spirit which fails to follow in the strength of Jesus’ seemingly weak walk to the cross. 

Running in the Holy Spirit has its victory in the Son of Man’s exaltation from servant to the King of Creation!

This Son of Man is also the risen Son of God who serves us with the Holy Spirit, who fights the good fight within and with the world without our work or worry. 

Jesus Christ, both Son of Man and Son of God, in true humility, is now exalted at the right hand of the Father.  Likewise, our true humility will see us, in the eternal third act, exalted with Jesus Christ in eternity.  Amen.

B, Pentecost 20Proper 23 - Mark 10:17-22 "The Rich Young Man"

Mark 10:17–22 (ESV) And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.  You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and mother.’ ”  And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”  And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 

Why did the rich young man refer to Jesus as good?  Jesus says, “no one is good except God alone”.  Was the rich young man so full of the knowledge of God that he knew Jesus was God, God the Son from eternity unto eternity? 

We know the young man was full of earthly riches and not so full of the knowledge of God, despite his proclamation that he had fulfilled the Laws from the commandments that Jesus lists.

Notice the commandments Jesus lists!  All are from the second table of the Law.  In the same account recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew also includes Jesus referring to the summary of the second table of the Commandments, saying, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself!”

The rich young man may have loved his parents, and his neighbour, and fulfilled these Commandments.  However, Jesus initiates an invitation of love by looking at the man, loving him and then invites him to follow him. 

It all sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  Oh! By the way, you need to sell all that you have first, and then give what you’ve been paid to the poor.  Jesus answers the young man’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? You must sell your life to get eternal life then you will get treasure in heaven, that’s what you must do!”

The answer the rich young man received was not a good answer.  The good teacher gave a bad answer.  One wonders what the fellow meant by “good”?  All his good at keeping the second table of the Commandments, was not good enough. 

We can only imagine what the fellow was thinking as his face dropped and he went away sad because he had great wealth in his goods. “The good teacher has told me to sell all my goods, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea, perhaps the teacher is not so good after all.”

What Jesus said was not lost on the disciples either.  They were amazed by his conversation with the rich young man. But we are told they were even more amazed, exceedingly astonished in fact, when Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25 ESV). Gob smacked they asked, “then who can be saved?” (v26)

Jesus is tearing up the script from two thousand years of Jewish practice.  The young man rich in his law practise experienced it.  Even the fishermen disciples could understand the implications of what Jesus was saying to them.

We hear in the text a familiar phrase, “Jesus looked at them.”  He looked at them just as he looked at the rich young man and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27 ESV)

Only God is good.  Salvation is only possible with God.  What one does is not good enough.  So, what do we make of what Amos says to the Israelites…?

Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:14–15 ESV)

We know the remnant of Joseph, the Israeli kingdom of the north, did not seek good but continued doing evil in the sight of the lord and were exiled into captivity by their northern neighbours.  Comparably, the rich young man appears to be seeking to do good and not evil, but Jesus seems to tell him different!

But Jesus was not being contrary to the Law of the Ten Commandments, nor is his call for the rich young man to sell all that he has and follow him any different from Amos’s promise that the God of hosts will be with the Israelites when they seek or worship good rather than evil.

Jesus is good. He is God the Son. Only God is good, so following Jesus is good.  The young man’s question is quite stupid and foolish when you consider that gaining an inheritance is not something one does.  Rather, an inheritance is given or bequeath after death. 

But although it is stupid and foolish, it gave Jesus an opportunity to teach a fundamental fact that only God is good. In fact, the young man’s expression that Jesus was a good teacher was indeed a prophetic truth although he didn’t realise it when he asked his idiotic question.

If only he had followed the invitation of this Good Teacher.  Jesus would have led the young man to the cross and he would have received a rich inheritance through Jesus’ death.

Speaking of idiotic, Peter, the archetypal blunderer, after all the amazement of the disciples at knowing there was no way they could pass a camel through the eye of a needle, pipes up and says, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” (Mark 10:28 ESV)

We have heard this from Peter before, but this time Jesus doesn’t tell Satan to get behind.  Satan would be overcome and put behind soon enough at Jesus’ death at the cross and resurrection to life.  Jesus waits for now, but at his trial he needed only look at Peter, as the cock crowed. 

But here Peter’s insistence that they had left everything to follow Jesus, flies in the face of Jesus looking at them and saying, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27 ESV)

All things are possible for God! Despite Peter falling away at the cross, Jesus Christ, the Good Teacher reinstated Peter through his death on the cross.  Peter received Jesus’ resurrection love, the forgiveness of his sin.  The impossible was made possible through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

When Jesus looks at you what does he see?

When Jesus, the living and active Word made flesh discerns the thoughts and intentions of your heart, what does he see?   When you hear his call to pour out the richness in which you trust, all the idols you trust in for your life, like the rich young man, we might be tempted to walk away in despair, or, the opposite, become haughty and look down on Jesus and his Words of life.

Nevertheless, you are encouraged in his word. Despite being exposed for what we are, by the Word of God, just as the rich young man and Peter’s motives are also revealed by the Word of God, God calls you to follow him. Why? Because only through Jesus, our Great High Priest, the impossible is made possible!

Hear God’s encouragement in Hebrews chapter four…

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  (Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV)

So, we hang onto the goodness of God, the goodness of Jesus together with the Holy Spirit whom both lead us and teach us in the Word of God and in the Sacraments that make and continue making us holy.

Let us pray.

Lord God, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.  Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!  Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.  Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.  Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.  Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!  (Psalm 90:12–17 ESV)

We ask this in Jesus’ name, trusting the Holy Spirit continues his holy work within us, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.