Sermon for the Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost

Texts:
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15;
Hebrews 4:12-16;
Mark 10:17-31.

In gracious homes with manicured gardens, the people lived. Public spaces were well tended. Cafes were full of happy chatting customers. The markets were bursting with produce and lanes were lined with chic butcher shops. Things were going along so well.

And so, it was with loathing and disgust that the towns of Northern Israel heard the voice of Amos, one time herdsman and now, apparently, God’s spokesman. A so-called prophet. As if.

How could an untutored southerner have the nerve, the gall! Right here in the middle of the most splendid town in the best country on earth Amos was loudly, publicly criticizing them. But according to Amos nothing was good.

Righteousness and justice were commodities to be exchanged at a price. The courts had become an open market selling to the highest payer and so crooked that every judgment was full of holes. Wealthy folk forgave one another their loans while raising interest rates on the debts of the poor. Destitute people camped on the pavement at the city gates as passersby screamed at them to go somewhere else.

How could Amos say such terrible things about them? Surely God wanted them to prosper.

Yet here was Amos casting a vision of a crumbling order. When he could see with his own eyes how great things were.

Eventually Amos returned to his home in the south. He left behind only his legacy – as a prophet who saw the truth that everyone else was blinded to. Or chose not to see. Until their nation was erased a few short years later – courtesy of the neighboring nation Assyria.

The word of God is a sharp instrument. So said the writer of the letter to the Hebrews. Amos was certainly sharp with the people. Looking into their hearts, he located the source of their looming trouble not in greed, as is often assumed, but in their acceptance of evil and lack of concern for good.

The man who approached Jesus probably didn’t expect such a penetrating experience either. His question about how to inherit eternal life is completely understandable. When you have all you need in life, the soul’s estate is often the detail left for last. When there’s time and leisure to take up the most significant spiritual questions.

It is quickly established that this man has covered all his bases. He was respectful of the Rabbi Jesus. He could say with a clear conscious that he had kept God’s commandments since he was old enough to know them.

With a look of great love, Jesus observed that the man lacked only one thing. One thing! Jesus didn’t exactly say what it was though. He only said, sell up, give the proceeds to the poor then come, follow me. And though it broke his heart the man could not do this.

In both these texts, Amos and Mark, the Word of God opens up what is hidden beneath the surface. What did Amos reveal lying under the surface of daily life in Israel? What did Jesus reveal beneath the surface of the wealthy man’s circumstances?

In both situations, a certain assumption plays out. It’s that wealth is a sign of God’s favor. And God’s favor includes inheriting all of God’s blessings.

But wealth is not a blessing. At the same time, wealth does not incur God’s wrath. After all, Jesus looked at the wealthy man and loved him.

But wealth required vigilance. And it’s easy to become consumed by wealth by the fear of losing it. And there is the requirement of vigilance too, the need to safeguard its privileges lest they be stolen by the undeserving.

The scriptures do remind us that the love of money is the root of all evil. Amos certainly seems to be making this connection for the people of Israel. Their complacency in the face of the suffering poor is a miscarriage of God’s intention that Israel be a model of good faith to the world.

The gospel text seems to be speaking of another issue. For the people Jesus’s day and those of Mark’s community some thirty years later, following Jesus came came with significant risks. Christians were a persecuted minority. Publicly professing to be a Christian could jeopardize your position in the community, your work, your family. You could even lose your life.

The wealthy man was putting himself at risk for any of these outcomes. Was he willing to follow under these terms? Or was he a fair weather follower?

Taking the step of baptism is the entry into a whole new way of living in the world. It requires a kind of fearlessness that comes of a deeply committed spirit. It requires implicit trust in God.

Amos was challenging God’s people to live less out of a comfortable now. To trust that if they could let go of their privilege, a different but still good kind of future was possible.

Perhaps this was the one thing the wealthy man could not do. To part with all the possessions he had acquired, and to go forward in complete trust in God’s provision. This is the prerequisite to a life that is not bound up in time and space.

It comes down to this: God offers a life that is called eternal. An alternate translation is life-age-long. It is a span that has no boundaries we can describe. It is living in God. And if we trust God, we will find this life unendingly good.