21st Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

Several years ago I went on a short backpacking trip with my dad and son up on Mt. Rainier. We’d gotten some kind of special permit; I don’t remember the details, but it allowed us to hike cross-country, off the established trail. And there was one afternoon we ended up in what, I think, was the most serene place I’ve ever been in my life. It was a kind of small meadow. But the alpine grass (or whatever it was) was really short – it was dense and smooth (if you know what I mean). It was like walking on some kind of surreal green, sculpted landscape. And meandering through this meadow was a stream – absolutely crystal clear, fed straight from the glaciers. The water was flowing, but slowly and smoothly and silently. In fact, the whole landscape was hushed. Reverent, almost. It was magical.

And yet, my memory of that place and that moment is tinged with sadness because – even while I was in the midst of experiencing it – I could already feel it slipping away. I knew it was but a moment – a moment I couldn’t keep. And the knowledge of that future reality was already pulling me out of the present. And I wasn’t wrong. In fact, it all ended even sooner than I thought it would. The mosquitos soon descended upon us so thickly that we had to spend the rest of the afternoon in our tent. All that beauty was out there, and there we were, huddled in a tent. It had already been taken from me – it was already of my past.

It’s such a sorrow that so much of our human experience is like this.

Always within the moment of “now” lurks this awareness and anxiety, “But what comes next?” And, coupled with that: the fear that “what comes next” will be worse and that we’ll be unprepared or unable to face it.

What comes next? The mosquitos come next. Or our children will struggle with something severe and threatening. Or I’ll get cancer. Or I’ll lose my memory or my house or my spouse. Or there won’t be enough money to get me to the end. There is no end of bad things that can happen. And, in one way or another, some of them most certainly will.

So we do all we can to protect ourselves from all those potential threats. We hoard and protect. We need IRAs and pension plans and insurance plans of every sort: health insurance and car insurance and life insurance and long-term care insurance. And, because it’s all a vast for-profit industry, behind the scenes, our insurance providers wage endless lawsuits to make sure someone else is paying out. And it’s spiraling out of control – this endless industry of fear.

And even if we’ve kept enough to keep us to the end, still it is not enough. The fears persist: “But what about the other side?” Will I be saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life? What rules must I keep to appease the gods?

And the church – insomuch as it’s a human institution, governed by the same human fears – has long been ready to wed itself to this same industry of fear, peddling its own version of for-profit, long-term care insurance. Heaven itself became theirs to sell – such a brilliantly simple business plan. After all, the threat of hell is an endless free resource. It’s like bottling tap water. It costs nothing at all to those who control the tap. And, so long as the church can keep convincing the people that it speaks for God and operates on God’s behalf, it could threaten hell with one chalice, then offer salvation with the other, for a price.

For centuries, this was precisely how the church functioned. The selling of indulgences was a literal way of buying one’s way out of hell. It was this abuse, in fact, that spurred Martin Luther and – what would become – the Protestant Reformation.

But long before the church had grasped hold of the keys of heaven, there was Jesus himself who entered this world of fear and said, “Fear not. The kingdom of God is at hand. Right now. With me. So, come with me and I will show you.”

And that’s just what he proceeded to do.

And where was that kingdom to be found? In every place, in every occasion, in every relationship – in this life – where Jesus gave himself and of himself to bless the other, freeing them from all the things that frighten us, that make us vulnerable and unsafe. He freed them from demons, freed them from sickness, freed them from punitive, legalistic theologies.

Faith, for Jesus, was entering now into all that is true of God and what God values. And, if there was any question about what this God was like, his message then – and our message still – is, “Look to Jesus.”

For us humans, with our insatiable yearning to make sense of this life and the wonder of this creation of which we are a part, we have this gift of Jesus. He is the best witness we humans have to conceive of God’s character. And, he is the best witness we humans have to perceive of our true humanity. And so we trust in Jesus: “fully human, fully divine.”

Is God, the creator and source of all being, more than we can see in Jesus? Yes. Certainly. God must also be God of the waters and God of the air and God of the alpine grasses on the mountain slopes. And, yes, my spirit can rightly revel in this God who is God of All. But, inasmuch as I do not know what it means to be water or air or alpine grass, the best I can on that front is to respect that they, too, are God’s creation; they, too, have a relationship with God that is just as real and just as dignifying as our own.

But I am human. And I have Jesus. And he is our anchor as we navigate this life of wonder.

And what this Jesus tells us, again and again is: “Look at me. The Kingdom of God is here, right now, with me,” which is why he taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Which is not to say Jesus didn’t believe in the afterlife. Clearly, he did. And if his resurrection and ascension showed us anything, it was that resurrection and ascension are real and we have every reason to hope in them when our time comes. But the fear of “What next?” was never his priority.

Trust in God’s love for the future. And walk in God’s love in the present. Walk in love with one another and God will be with you. And you will know the pleasure – and the joy and the freedom – of the Kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven.

But make no mistake: this is a choice. And a costly one, at that.

What’s fascinating to me in this story of Jesus and his interaction with the man seeking eternal life, is that Jesus’ instruction to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” seems almost secondary to his main instruction which is, “Come follow me.” Typically, when exhorting people to give to the poor, the motivation is the welfare of the poor. And, absolutely, that is true-Kingdom-of-God motivation: people are suffering and you have the resources to do something about it. So be like Jesus. Do something! Give to FISH and Harbor Hope and Food Backpacks. Absolutely.

But here, that’s not Jesus’ principal line of reasoning. Here, his focus is on the man himself, and that which stands in his way from following him. And for this man – as is the case for many of us – what stood in the way was his wealth and (presumably) the security it provided.

The man wanted a religion that would assure him of salvation in the life to come, while trusting in this life in the assurance of wealth, to which Jesus says,

“I’m sorry. That’s not the way it works in the Kingdom of God. What you’re seeking – in this life and the next – is to save your life, your life alone.

“Let go. Let go of what you are trusting to feel safe. Let go and follow me and I will give you life now – a life vastly better than the one you’ve left behind because it will not be your solitary life that’s been preserved unto itself, like some specimen in a jar. It will be a true life – a shared life – of community, of relationship, of blessing one another. It will be a life of love which simply cannot exist so long as you’re seeking to save yourself.

“Let it go, right now, and follow me.”