Leaving It All Behind

Leaving It All Behind
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
October 15, 2006
Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Then Job answered: "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.
"If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!

Hebrews 4:12-16
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Mark 10:17-31
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 is 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 mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."

Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have 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 are first will be last, and the last will be first."

BEGINNING

I few years ago a moved into a new apartment. I had lived in the old one for nine years at the time of the move. I began to pack my things about five weeks before the move-in date in the new place. It took me that long. And I discovered in the course of that move just exactly how much stuff I owned. I could hardly believe it. I knew I couldn't move it all so I threw out a lot of things. Bags and bags.

And so much of it was just things I had picked up and not gotten rid of. Clothes I hadn't worn in years. Various items I didn't use. And plenty of keepsakes and mementos that I hadn't looked at in years. In fact, when I realized that I had somehow managed not to need the program from my college senior year torchlight ceremony in the 14 years since graduation, I realized that I could probably survive without it forever.

Now, I am a pack-rat, and have always been. But I don't think I am alone in letting go of things. We're very comfortable with our 'stuff'--and we like having it around. George Carlin wrote a whole routine on how your house is really just 'a place for your stuff.' I once went to the Marjorie Meriwether Post mansion here in Washington and Mrs. Post, the heiress to the C.W. Post Cereals fortune, had filled her house with stuff. Shelves and shelves of it in every room --even in the hallways. It's fair to say that her stuff was nicer than mine--Fabergé Eggs, expensive china, etc.--but it was stuff just the same.

We live in a consumer driven culture and it's very difficult for us to get away from the idea that we need things. One hundred fifty years ago, it would never have occurred to a product-maker to try to sell you another of the same item they had already sold you. That would imply there was something wrong with the original. Now, we all but accept the idea that everything we buy will be replaced by the "new and improved" version, and for reasons that we've never really examined, we all believe that we need this newer version.

We have a hard time letting go of our stuff.

THE TEXT

And so we can understand the plight of the man who runs up to Jesus and asks, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus reminds him of the commandments, to which the man responds that he has kept the commandments his whole life. And then we read:

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.

Now, it should be pointed out that this man was a good, righteous person. He had kept the commandments of God since his youth. He runs to Jesus and kneels before him--a clear sign of his enthusiasm and his desire to be a disciple of Jesus. We are even told that "Jesus... loved him". And yet, in the end, he leaves, "grieving"--sad, for he had many possessions.

It is a result that astonishes not only the man, but also the disciples. For Jesus continues by saying, "How hard it will be fore those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God! ... It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." The disciples were probably used to thinking of rich people as having been blessed by God--as many continue to think today. It is a teaching that leaves the disciples "greatly astounded."

REAL FAITH: LEAVING THINGS BEHIND

Material Things

It is an astounding teaching, to be sure. And has always been heard throughout the history of the church as a radical statement. Famous figures in church history, such as St. Antony, St. Benedict, and St. Francis all heard this passage read in church and then promptly gave away all their material possessions and became monks.

And certainly the text is about material possessions. In fact, the possession of material goods is part of the age old sin confronted by Israel and the Church throughout its history and is still with us: idolatry.

The prophets of the Old Testament preached against idolatry not only because people were praying to idols when they should have prayed to God, but because idolatry was about putting one's trust in material things rather than in God. The prophets reminded Israel that when Israel forsook God for idolatry, the gap between wealthy and poor increased, justice in the land decreased, and the people came to ruin.

It is no less true for us today. We place entirely too much faith on the things we own, the possessions we have. We place trust in money. In Roth IRAs. In the stock market. In technology. In cell phones. In clothing and fashion. In big screen TVs. In TiVO. In large houses. In gated communities. In weapons. In all kinds of stuff.

And yet, none of it can save. Our trust is ultimately misplaced when we forget that useful tools for our work, petty enjoyments and diversions, are just that. They cannot offer us life, they cannot make us whole.

Marjorie Meriwether Post had a mansion full of stuff. But it turns out in the end that she is as dead as billions of other people, who died with considerably less. For all her possessions, she fell to the same fate that awaits us all.

And yet, we continue to place our trust in the things we can own, the stuff we feel we have to buy, our material goods until our obsessions with them become so complete that we can no longer truly turn to God with the same sense of abandon that Jesus calls us to. We, like the rich man, become too attached, and cannot imagine our lives without the things we own.

Non-Material Things

As important as it is to remember that material possessions cannot save, there are other things we hold on to that get in the way.

We hold on to our preconceptions and attitudes. Mostly about ourselves. We imagine that we are unable to be loved, or that we are undeserving of being loved, or that we have some other failing that keeps us on the outside. And so we have a hard time accepting that God loves us, that God has forgiven us.

We hold on to our anxieties and doubts. We never journey forward out of our comfort zones into those new realms where God is calling us. We doubt that we're capable of making change in our lives, forgetting all the while that God is capable of working the change in us.

We hold on to our fears ; fears that separate us from one another, fears that keep us bound by the chains of prejudice and bigotry, the divide up the world into groups of acceptable and unacceptable people. And then we worry about whether we are acceptable to a God who declares us beloved.

One commentator notes that Jesus equates the giving up of possessions to 'becoming like a child' --those who easily enter the Kingdom. This means setting aside all the elements that confer upon us status and power over others is required to enter the kingdom. [1] Power over one another is one of the things Jesus lifts up that impedes us from being the people of God in the kingdom of God. It keeps us from relating to one another as children of God. It keeps us from truly loving one another.

There is so much that keeps us from truly loving one another. Most of it has to do with our inability to let go, not only of our material possessions and attitudes, but of each other.

REAL LOVE: LETTING GO

I'd like to tell you a personal story, if I may.

Years ago, when I was still a practicing attorney, I was engaged to be married. Jill and I had been dating for over a year and a half--after a year of friendship--and had decided to get married. We picked a date a year in the future. We began to talk plans about the wedding, about guests lists, finding both a minister and a rabbi who would be willing to do the service, and then of course entertaining the long range talk about children, housing, and so on. It was a heady, exciting time.

But a few months into the engagement, Jill began to wonder about the relationship and after much tearful discussion we agreed on a temporary separation, to give each other time to work things out. I won't mince words--this was not a pleasant time, as any of you who has ever been in one of those 'in-between' times can attest to. After some weeks apart, we met to talk--and it was over. She suggested that we meet a day later to talk about the extent to which we would still be able to be friends.

I went back home to do some soul searching. My entire future had been wiped out. The timetable I'd had in my head: married by 1998, children in 2000, etc. etc. That future had been erased and replaced only with the unknown. I was feeling hurt. I had every right, I suppose, to say that I knew what I had wanted and unless I got that, I wasn't going to settle for anything else. I could continue to be angry that I never got a satisfactory explanation of why things had to end. I suppose I could still feel that way--bitter over being single and childless when I was supposed to be a married father of two by now.

But some time between those two days I had something I could only describe as a profound religious experience, when I understood that the Christian thing to do, the thing I thought God would want me to do was to let go. Not to hold on to bitterness or pain, not to cling to some vision of the future that I had planned in my head. Not to demand that she relate to me in only the way I had desired. I came to believe that God wanted that I should be a friend to her, if I couldn't be her husband. And so we stayed friends and in many ways got even closer than we had been before. She is now married and she and her husband have a son, and she and I remain close friends to this day.

What I learned in that experience is that love is letting go. We so often think of love as getting the thing we want most, and indeed for many people love is all about controlling others. But that is not what love is. Love is letting go. There's an old proverb that wound its way into a song by Sting, that says, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was. We do not possess anything in this world, least of all other people." It is wise advice, but neglects one important truth: setting things free, letting go, is not just a strategy of loving, it is loving. If you cannot let go, you cannot truly love, you seek only to possess, and that is not love. That might be lust, or greed, or insecurity, or fear, but it is not love.

In so many ways we see what love is when we see the love of God for us as shown to us in Jesus' life. For the love that Jesus shows to us is not possessive or fearful. It is giving, self-sacrificial. It does not seek to control, it seeks to set free. God gives us free will, to choose God or to reject God, out of love, knowing that it means we will reject God, turn our backs. A professor of mine in seminary was talking about the suffering of God and said, "I know God suffers--has any of you ever loved without suffering?" [2] The suffering comes from the risk that one takes that one won't receive love back. But truly loving means accepting that risk, desiring freedom for the other, and letting go.

END

So much of our lives is diminished by our inability to let go. We have trouble letting go of material things and so we have trouble entering into relationship with God. We have trouble letting go of our attitudes and fears and so we have trouble knowing that God loves us. And we have trouble letting go of one another, and so we have trouble truly loving one another in the way that God has loved us.

God calls us to let go. This God, who has let everything go for our sakes, even God's own son, calls us to leave it all behind for the sake of the kingdom. There is one thing that we lack, to give everything we own away, and to follow Jesus.

We will always have difficulty letting things go. It is in our broken natures. Few of us have the fortitude of St. Antony or St. Francis or the others who were able to forsake all material possessions. It seems, we are all in the same boat as the rich man who was grieved because of his many possessions. And we find ourselves asking, as the disciples did: "Then who can be saved?"

But Jesus speaks to us words of comfort : "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."

For, we will not always succeed at letting go of our material possessions. We will not always succeed at letting go of our fear, our anxiety, our preconceptions, our anger, our guilt. We will not always succeed at loving one another with a freeing love, that lets go of one another. We will often fall short.

And yet in the midst of it all is the One who gave up everything for our sake. He opens his arms wide to us and calls to us. He reminds us that in spite of our inability to love perfectly, we are perfectly loved. We are already beloved children of God, saved by the grace of God. And by that grace, he reminds us, we have already been freed. Freed from the prison of our materialism. Freed from our prisons of doubt, anxiety, and fear. Freed from our need to possess one another--freed to love one another the way God loves us. Freed to leave it all behind and follow him.

Notes
[1] NIB, Vol. XIII, p. 649
[2] Dr. Josiah Young, Wesley Theological Seminary.

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*Leaving It All Behind* Rev. Mark Schaefer Kay Spiritual Life Center October 15, 2006 Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31 Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Then Job answered: "Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. "If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face! Hebrews 4:12-16 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Mark 10:17-31 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 is 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 mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have 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 are first will be last, and the last will be first." BEGINNING I few years ago a moved into a new apartment. I had lived in the old one for nine years at the time of the move. I began to pack my things about five weeks before the move-in date in the new place. It took me that long. And I discovered in the course of that move just exactly how much stuff I owned. I could hardly believe it. I knew I couldn't move it all so I threw out a lot of things. Bags and bags. And so much of it was just things I had picked up and not gotten rid of. Clothes I hadn't worn in years. Various items I didn't use. And plenty of keepsakes and mementos that I hadn't looked at in years. In fact, when I realized that I had somehow managed not to need the program from my college senior year torchlight ceremony in the 14 years since graduation, I realized that I could probably survive without it forever. Now, I am a pack-rat, and have always been. But I don't think I am alone in letting go of things. We're very comfortable with our 'stuff'--and we like having it around. George Carlin wrote a whole routine on how your house is really just 'a place for your stuff.' I once went to the Marjorie Meriwether Post mansion here in Washington and Mrs. Post, the heiress to the C.W. Post Cereals fortune, had filled her house with stuff. Shelves and shelves of it in every room --even in the hallways. It's fair to say that her stuff was nicer than mine--Fabergé Eggs, expensive china, etc.--but it was stuff just the same. We live in a consumer driven culture and it's very difficult for us to get away from the idea that we need things. One hundred fifty years ago, it would never have occurred to a product-maker to try to sell you another of the same item they had already sold you. That would imply there was something wrong with the original. Now, we all but accept the idea that everything we buy will be replaced by the "new and improved" version, and for reasons that we've never really examined, we all believe that we need this newer version. We have a hard time letting go of our stuff. THE TEXT And so we can understand the plight of the man who runs up to Jesus and asks, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus reminds him of the commandments, to which the man responds that he has kept the commandments his whole life. And then we read: 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. Now, it should be pointed out that this man was a good, righteous person. He had kept the commandments of God since his youth. He runs to Jesus and kneels before him--a clear sign of his enthusiasm and his desire to be a disciple of Jesus. We are even told that "Jesus... loved him". And yet, in the end, he leaves, "grieving"--sad, for he had many possessions. It is a result that astonishes not only the man, but also the disciples. For Jesus continues by saying, "How hard it will be fore those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God! ... It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." The disciples were probably used to thinking of rich people as having been blessed by God--as many continue to think today. It is a teaching that leaves the disciples "greatly astounded." REAL FAITH: LEAVING THINGS BEHIND Material Things It is an astounding teaching, to be sure. And has always been heard throughout the history of the church as a radical statement. Famous figures in church history, such as St. Antony, St. Benedict, and St. Francis all heard this passage read in church and then promptly gave away all their material possessions and became monks. And certainly the text is about material possessions. In fact, the possession of material goods is part of the age old sin confronted by Israel and the Church throughout its history and is still with us: idolatry. The prophets of the Old Testament preached against idolatry not only because people were praying to idols when they should have prayed to God, but because idolatry was about putting one's trust in material things rather than in God. The prophets reminded Israel that when Israel forsook God for idolatry, the gap between wealthy and poor increased, justice in the land decreased, and the people came to ruin. It is no less true for us today. We place entirely too much faith on the things we own, the possessions we have. We place trust in money. In Roth IRAs. In the stock market. In technology. In cell phones. In clothing and fashion. In big screen TVs. In TiVO. In large houses. In gated communities. In weapons. In all kinds of stuff. And yet, none of it can save. Our trust is ultimately misplaced when we forget that useful tools for our work, petty enjoyments and diversions, are just that. They cannot offer us life, they cannot make us whole. Marjorie Meriwether Post had a mansion full of stuff. But it turns out in the end that she is as dead as billions of other people, who died with considerably less. For all her possessions, she fell to the same fate that awaits us all. And yet, we continue to place our trust in the things we can own, the stuff we feel we have to buy, our material goods until our obsessions with them become so complete that we can no longer truly turn to God with the same sense of abandon that Jesus calls us to. We, like the rich man, become too attached, and cannot imagine our lives without the things we own. Non-Material Things As important as it is to remember that material possessions cannot save, there are other things we hold on to that get in the way. We hold on to our preconceptions and attitudes. Mostly about ourselves. We imagine that we are unable to be loved, or that we are undeserving of being loved, or that we have some other failing that keeps us on the outside. And so we have a hard time accepting that God loves us, that God has forgiven us. We hold on to our anxieties and doubts. We never journey forward out of our comfort zones into those new realms where God is calling us. We doubt that we're capable of making change in our lives, forgetting all the while that God is capable of working the change in us. We hold on to our fears ; fears that separate us from one another, fears that keep us bound by the chains of prejudice and bigotry, the divide up the world into groups of acceptable and unacceptable people. And then we worry about whether we are acceptable to a God who declares us beloved. One commentator notes that Jesus equates the giving up of possessions to 'becoming like a child' --those who easily enter the Kingdom. This means setting aside all the elements that confer upon us status and power over others is required to enter the kingdom. [1] Power over one another is one of the things Jesus lifts up that impedes us from being the people of God in the kingdom of God. It keeps us from relating to one another as children of God. It keeps us from truly loving one another. There is so much that keeps us from truly loving one another. Most of it has to do with our inability to let go, not only of our material possessions and attitudes, but of each other. REAL LOVE: LETTING GO I'd like to tell you a personal story, if I may. Years ago, when I was still a practicing attorney, I was engaged to be married. Jill and I had been dating for over a year and a half--after a year of friendship--and had decided to get married. We picked a date a year in the future. We began to talk plans about the wedding, about guests lists, finding both a minister and a rabbi who would be willing to do the service, and then of course entertaining the long range talk about children, housing, and so on. It was a heady, exciting time. But a few months into the engagement, Jill began to wonder about the relationship and after much tearful discussion we agreed on a temporary separation, to give each other time to work things out. I won't mince words--this was not a pleasant time, as any of you who has ever been in one of those 'in-between' times can attest to. After some weeks apart, we met to talk--and it was over. She suggested that we meet a day later to talk about the extent to which we would still be able to be friends. I went back home to do some soul searching. My entire future had been wiped out. The timetable I'd had in my head: married by 1998, children in 2000, etc. etc. That future had been erased and replaced only with the unknown. I was feeling hurt. I had every right, I suppose, to say that I knew what I had wanted and unless I got that, I wasn't going to settle for anything else. I could continue to be angry that I never got a satisfactory explanation of why things had to end. I suppose I could still feel that way--bitter over being single and childless when I was supposed to be a married father of two by now. But some time between those two days I had something I could only describe as a profound religious experience, when I understood that the Christian thing to do, the thing I thought God would want me to do was to let go. Not to hold on to bitterness or pain, not to cling to some vision of the future that I had planned in my head. Not to demand that she relate to me in only the way I had desired. I came to believe that God wanted that I should be a friend to her, if I couldn't be her husband. And so we stayed friends and in many ways got even closer than we had been before. She is now married and she and her husband have a son, and she and I remain close friends to this day. What I learned in that experience is that love is letting go. We so often think of love as getting the thing we want most, and indeed for many people love is all about controlling others. But that is not what love is. Love is letting go. There's an old proverb that wound its way into a song by Sting, that says, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was. We do not possess anything in this world, least of all other people." It is wise advice, but neglects one important truth: setting things free, letting go, is not just a strategy of loving, it is loving. If you cannot let go, you cannot truly love, you seek only to possess, and that is not love. That might be lust, or greed, or insecurity, or fear, but it is not love. In so many ways we see what love is when we see the love of God for us as shown to us in Jesus' life. For the love that Jesus shows to us is not possessive or fearful. It is giving, self-sacrificial. It does not seek to control, it seeks to set free. God gives us free will, to choose God or to reject God, out of love, knowing that it means we will reject God, turn our backs. A professor of mine in seminary was talking about the suffering of God and said, "I know God suffers--has any of you ever loved without suffering?" [2] The suffering comes from the risk that one takes that one won't receive love back. But truly loving means accepting that risk, desiring freedom for the other, and letting go. END So much of our lives is diminished by our inability to let go. We have trouble letting go of material things and so we have trouble entering into relationship with God. We have trouble letting go of our attitudes and fears and so we have trouble knowing that God loves us. And we have trouble letting go of one another, and so we have trouble truly loving one another in the way that God has loved us. God calls us to let go. This God, who has let everything go for our sakes, even God's own son, calls us to leave it all behind for the sake of the kingdom. There is one thing that we lack, to give everything we own away, and to follow Jesus. We will always have difficulty letting things go. It is in our broken natures. Few of us have the fortitude of St. Antony or St. Francis or the others who were able to forsake all material possessions. It seems, we are all in the same boat as the rich man who was grieved because of his many possessions. And we find ourselves asking, as the disciples did: "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus speaks to us words of comfort : "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." For, we will not always succeed at letting go of our material possessions. We will not always succeed at letting go of our fear, our anxiety, our preconceptions, our anger, our guilt. We will not always succeed at loving one another with a freeing love, that lets go of one another. We will often fall short. And yet in the midst of it all is the One who gave up everything for our sake. He opens his arms wide to us and calls to us. He reminds us that in spite of our inability to love perfectly, we are perfectly loved. We are already beloved children of God, saved by the grace of God. And by that grace, he reminds us, we have already been freed. Freed from the prison of our materialism. Freed from our prisons of doubt, anxiety, and fear. Freed from our need to possess one another--freed to love one another the way God loves us. Freed to leave it all behind and follow him. Notes [1] NIB, Vol. XIII, p. 649 [2] Dr. Josiah Young, Wesley Theological Seminary. Back to Sermons page Back to AU UMC Home Copyright © 2006. Mark A. Schaefer No part of this text may be reproduced or otherwise disseminated without the express written consent of the author.

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