Divine Interruptions-The Untouchables
Whenever the subject of the “rich young ruler” comes up in a Bible class, people get uptight really quickly! For those who do not know, Jesus meets a man we call the rich young ruler. This rich fellow is trying to follow God and has come to Jesus for advice. What will it take for me to really serve God? Jesus response is that the man must sell all that he has and give it to the poor. The man walks away dejected, because he cannot do the one thing that Jesus calls him to do. This story makes American church goers nervous for one obvious reason-they don’t want to sell their stuff. Jesus sounds like a radical. Pretty quickly people in the class will give their interpretations of the story, which tend to be “Jesus wants us to be willing to give up anything for him, but he doesn’t mean we all have to sell our belongings.”
This response shows, I think, a real challenge for people who want to seriously follow Jesus. While these comments help to blunt the story and ease the materialist living in our hearts, we don’t even take the reframing seriously. Most of us will chronically avoid the question “What is so precious to you that you would not give it up if Jesus asked for it?” For each of us it would be something different, but we all could come up with something. Followers of Jesus largely get around the discomfort of the idea by rationalizing away any possibility that Jesus would ever truly ask for that thing.
This trimester our sermon series is all about “Divine Interruptions.” Do we make space for God to interrupt our plans? Are we willing to go somewhere unexpected for the Lord? In the first sermon time we had a chat with Carolyn, our Connections Pastor, and she shared about a change to her work life that has happened in the last year. For many of us our work is something we would not give up. Our careers can be closely held to our sense of personhood. If God asked for a career change, would you make one?
When considering this the scariest part, to me, is that feeling of “I could not do THAT.” As soon as we say in our heart that we are incapable of something, it brings into question our loyalties. Is it that we can not do it, or that we will not do it? Would a career change really be impossible, or would it just be uncomfortable? What about a move? What about a change to your family size? What about changing your economic situation? The point is not to identify things that bring us joy or comfort and then threaten to take said joy and comfort. The point is that when we hold those things too tightly they become idols. They are goods above and beyond our value for serving God. Scripture says those things are bad for us. Idols are bad not just because God is jealous (though the Bible is fine describing God that way) but because they are disordered. They make the temporary permanent, the immediate transcendent, the vapid meaningful. Part of our spiritual efforts in this season of welcoming divine interruptions is to make sure that we have ordered our world so that only God is truly given the deference we should give the divine.