TowerPod: St Mary's Marston Moreteyne and Lidlington
How to have treasure in heaven...
Hi, welcome to TowerPod from St Mary's Master Mortaine in Liddington, a weekly gospel message with a thoughtful sermon. Enjoy. 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?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good?" "No one is good, but God alone." "You 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." He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, 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." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 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." And the disciples were perplexed at these words, but Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For more tools, it is impossible, but not for God. For God, all things are possible." Peter began to say to him, "Look, we've left everything and followed you." Jesus 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, who 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. But many who at first will be last, and the last will be first. Heavenly Father, help us to listen each one this morning for the call of your Son, Jesus Christ. Around this time, not far off from St. Francis' tide, the feast of St. Francis, we bring our animals in thanksgiving before God for his blessing, and we did that this morning. We're inspired by St. Francis and his love of God and the animals. There's an amazing scene in the movie, Brother Son, Sister Moon. I don't know if you've seen it, where St. Francis, I love the theme tune of it, actually. St. Francis, son of a very rich cloth merchant, is being tested. He's standing trial in the town square before his father and the Bishop of Assisi, accused of giving away his father's rich, heavily dyed cloths to the poor. Like the rich young man, St. Francis is also at a point of testing of decision. What's he going to do? Picture the scene, the crowd around him looking on, watching for what's going to happen. As he listens to his father accusing him before the Bishop, I wonder what Francis is feeling. Is Francis spiritually in tune with Jesus? Is he aware that Jesus is looking at him, loving him? Does he sense the pull of his call? In a dramatic move that no one could have foreseen, Francis goes low. So low that he takes the high ground in the conflict. With the gasps of horror, he begins to strip off his clothes one by one. Clothes provided for him by his father, giving them back to him. Until he stands naked as the day he was born, laid bare, not just before the crowd, but before the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Now, with no claim from his father upon him, Francis declares, "I'm not your son anymore. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit. I'm now and born again." Is it that Francis has now become a sign of contradiction? Is he a judge now, if you like, shaming his father and the Lord Bishop? He reversed the test. He turned the tables. Who's on trial now in the eyes of the crowd? Is it his father who tramples on the poor, takes from them levies of grain, pushing aside the needy at his gates? Unlike the rich young man, Francis recognizes more crucially that this is a critical man, a moment of choice between two parts which lie open before him. He chooses God as his heavenly father, chooses to follow Jesus as his divine brother, and enters the kingdom of God in solidarity with the poor, and without even clothes on his back. He has in effect loved good and chosen justice in the gate. Francis and the rich young man were yearning for something more. Maybe they were prompted by an inner pain, maybe a lack of meaning and purpose. Who knows? C.S. Lewis, in the problem of pain, wrote, "If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us." Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We have all we want. It is a terrible saying when all does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full. There is nowhere for him to put it. "For as a friend of mine," says Lewis, said, "we regard God as an airman regards his parachute. It is there for emergencies, but he hopes he will never have to use it." Now God who has made us knows what we are and that our happiness lies in him. Yet we will not seek it in him as long as he leaves us any other resort, where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call our own life remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to him. What then can God do in our interests but make our own life less agreeable to us and take away the plausible source of false happiness? Jesus tells the rich man in the gospel, rich but not satisfied. His hands are full. No one is good, but God alone. And then he lists the commandments one by one, doesn't he? One keeping isn't enough. It won't make the cut to inherit eternal life. Being good and trying harder in our own strength isn't enough to save us from our sins. It's a kind of muscular Christianity, and it's a heresy. And then it says in the gospel, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him." What must it feel like to have Jesus's eyes looking at you, loving you? And then Jesus invites him to let go of his security as riches that insulates him from some of the pain of life, but not the deeper pain of lostness being distant from God. Invites him to bank those riches in heaven, and then come follow me. Many have longed for a direct invitation from Jesus to follow him and to be on his team. What an amazing offer. What an opportunity lost. What we may be seeing here is possibly someone who had the potential to have been one of the great apostles, like Peter or Paul or Mary Magdalene, lost to the church, lost to Jesus' team. The enormity of it. As Hebrew tells those of us who might be thinking we're never going to be good enough, we're actually not far off. The truth is we never will. We never will. We have Jesus as our high priest, who sympathizes with our weakness, has been tested like us, but came through without sin so that he could take us with him. First, day by day, as we follow him, being united to him, holding fast to our confession, i.e. trusting him and his work in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit to make us help us do it, and finally then when we die. So however weak, sinful, lost, far away even, self-reliant, hands full, and in control we are, today as we receive Holy Communion, we're a blessing. Or at some moment in this service that seems right to you in the day, let's, like Francis, go low. Empty our hands to go high. Approach the throne of grace with boldness, a holy boldness, yes boldly, so that we may receive mercy and find grace through Jesus himself, the one who looks on us with eyes of love. For with God, all things are possible. Thanks for listening to TownPod, I hope you enjoyed it. If you like it, please subscribe and share with a friend. Have a good week and see you next time. God bless. [Music]