Year B

Mark 10:17-31

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

God Has Not Forsaken Us

I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel that I live in a world where no one is in charge and I’m powerless to act: natural disasters are prevalent, striking people that for the most part already struggle in poverty. Men and women everywhere are angry lashing out and expressing their frustration with fists, mean speech and guns. Our sense of order and meaning seems to be slipping away with so many sick and dying from Covid. Maybe, you also feel like me and sometimes think God has forsaken us and find yourself searching for the kingdom of God? In the face of circumstances like these, we need God to take charge.”

Meaningful action on our part feels impossible and for us “mortals, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible”. Even in the most hopeless situations, we know from what we read in scripture about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what we experience in the church’s word and sacraments and from each other that God has not forsaken us and we can see God’s love and power.

The author of Hebrews clearly believes in a living God who speaks and acts within the present world, a God whose word is living and active. This is a God who knows us intimately: “Everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we have to give an answer.” This is a God who expects us to respond faithfully to our salvation made possible through the cross of Christ; a God who has entered into our human world, full of brokenness, pain, and the temptations of the flesh-sympathizing with our weakness. And although God’s word exposes our shortcomings; through Jesus, our sympathetic high priest, we can approach God boldly and find grace and mercy in times of need.

For the author of Hebrews, a deep concern was the grim reality of persecution, and it was the setting for those who read what he wrote. Hebrews challenges us as it did those early Christians to be faithful to Christ, no matter what the cost. We are warned about becoming too comfortable with this world and its values. And we are reminded that we are pilgrims on the way and that we are to live in the light of the values of that eternal kingdom. As we walk this pilgrim way, Christ meet our needs and through him, we have access to God in prayer and worship, and we are a part of a community in this together. Christ was tested, Hebrews tells us, just as we are and we can take comfort to know that God was with Jesus and therefore, is not absent from us even in the most difficult and challenging circumstances.  

The reading from Job and Psalm 22 take the understanding that God is with us even further by reminding us that a relationship with a living and active God does not mean we have to be stoic in the face of hardship or suffering. In fact, it is precisely trust in God that leads us to express our complaint and lament when God seems absent, seeming to ignore our pleas. We hear these words of trust in the words of Job. Job continues to be faithful despite all that Satan does to him. But the absence of God seems real and puzzling to Job. Job longs for an experience with God to present his case. But Job only experiences the absence of God. This puzzlement reflects a trust that the God, who liberated the Hebrews from slavery, the God who saves, should be present and helpful in the midst of his suffering. Job’s arguing with God is an act of deep faith. God never leaves Job and in the end God does vindicate Job’s suffering.

Yet, this absence of God is not an experience limited to Job. We hear ourselves and others saying “Where is God when I need God? If Job reminds us of this, the psalm does so even more powerfully because the opening line “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” is the very question found on Jesus’ lips as he hangs from the cross. The cross reminds us that Jesus indeed is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses.” When he is mocked and scorned, when he is suffering horribly, God seems to be absent but the apostle Paul reminds us in his letters, that in the light of Christ’s sufferings, the good news of the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, we know that nothing—not injustice, suffering, not even an overwhelming sense of God’s absence—can separate us from God’s love.

We serve a living God who discerns “the heart’s thoughts and intentions, and desires to comfort us, to be with us when we express the yearning of our hearts.  Though the wealthy man in our gospel passage today is not exactly sure what his heart is yearning for other than “eternal life,” it does seem he is searching for the kingdom of God…and is chest fallen, maybe even feels the absence of God when Jesus’ answer is not to his liking. He thinks the way to qualify for his inheritance is to keep all the rules, to do all that is required. Religiously faithful and financially successful, he finds that there is something more that he needs. Jesus senses what the barrier is to the man coming into a fuller relationship with God and his heart goes out to him.

The disciples are astounded when Jesus says it is hard for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God because wealth was seen as a blessing from God. Therefore, if one did well then one must be in good with God. Suffering and poverty were seen as curses for one’s failures and the absence of God. Wealth was the reward for living a good life. Theologian and author Frederick Buechner has said that the trouble with being rich is that since you can solve with your checkbook virtually all of the practical problems that bedevil ordinary people, you are left in your leisure with nothing but the great human problems to contend with: how to be happy, how to love and be loved, how to find meaning and purpose for your life. The tragedy, of course, he says is that the rich are continually tempted to believe that they can solve these problems with money as well.  

The rich ruler claimed to be seeking meaning for life and wanted to have a relationship with God that bought purpose and reason for being. But his inability to let go of his wealth made it evident that he already had chosen his priorities. Wealth was his master as it is for all of us at times. Yet, this gospel text is not mostly about Jesus laying impossibly heavy demands on his followers. No, it is about God and God’s saving power. We cannot save ourselves; only God who is living and active and knows our weaknesses, gives us mercy and grace to help us give up our lives to follow Jesus. God’s action in the world should inspire and empower our own action. What seems impossible, in Christ is truly possible and knowing this should empower our actions.

We may feel overwhelmed by the evil and injustice we see in our world and are tempted to settle for complacency. Yet, God’s living and active word reaches through our texts today to wake us up. Even when everything we see seems to point to defeat, God’s loving intentions for creation are unstoppable. God is not absent even in the most difficult and challenging circumstances but invites us, to call on God in distress like Job, to approach God boldly and find grace in times of need and like the young man in Mark’s gospel, to give up our comfortable attitudes that become barriers to faith and discipleship.

It is Christ who calls us to leave all we have and follow him. It is indeed costly discipleship, so costly that it will cost more than our possessions, money or relationships, it cost Jesus his life. Grieving the impossibility of this task, the man in Mark’s story, leaves but the God who brings new life out of suffering and death makes the impossible possible, and empowers us to impossible faith, and to living into Christ’s call to costly discipleship.