There Is a Bomb on Your Bus!
Proper 23
October 11, 2009

There Is a Bomb on Your Bus!
by Travis Shafer

Mark 10:17-31

A young seminary student was working on one of his sermons and getting help from his advisor. The advisor looked over the sermon as the young man waited somewhat patiently for feedback. The advisor looked at the young man and said that his sermon was great, except that the sermon title was horrible. The title was so bad that the young man was told the rest of the sermon didn’t matter, that is how bad the title was. He asked his advisor why the title mattered that much. After all wasn’t it the message that counted. The advisor told the student that without a good title no one would really listen to it. The title should be one that grabs the attention of the congregation so well that they wait eagerly for the sermon, instead of hoping the pastor forgets to read it that morning. The title of the sermon should be so good in fact that if a bus full of people were driving by and read the title on the sign out front, that they would stop the bus and come in to hear the sermon. The young man left disappointed but eager to re-title the sermon. A few days passed and the student again brought the sermon to his advisor, the advisor picked up the paper, looked and it laughed. The young man had title the sermon “There is a bomb on your bus.”

In today’s Gospel reading from Mark the rich man asked Jesus what was left for him to do in order that he may have eternal life. Like the student waiting his teacher’s reply, the rich young man was eager to hear Jesus’ answer. But he didn’t like it when Jesus answered with so high of a demand, the cost of Discipleship was just too much. Jesus was calling this young man to something he was not ready to accept at that point in time. The love of earthly possessions is what held that rich man back from following Jesus that day. He didn’t understand what was waiting for him if he were to sell everything and follow Jesus. Fear of the unknown sometimes drives us away from a relationship with God.

Take for instance a story of one of my friends, we will call him Adam. I worked with Adam while I was in high school. We were a year apart in school and he was only eight or nine months older than I was. When I was 16 he was barely 17. One day I invited Adam to come to church, gave him directions and waited eagerly that Sunday morning for Adam to come over. He didn’t show up. I figured he overslept or had been called in to work early; he was a manager at the Pizza Hut we worked at. The next time I saw Adam I invited him again to church and this time he said no. I was surprised. It took two weeks of me asking and inviting Adam for him to tell me that he could not come to Church, because if his Dad found out he went to church he would be no longer welcome in his own home. Adam’s Dad was an atheist, and told Adam that if he went to church he would be kicked out of the house and never allowed back in. His Dad wouldn’t even give him a reason why, it was just that way. Adam feared what would happen, so he did not come to Church with me. Why would he get kicked out of his home for something he didn’t really understand? For Adam the cost of even thinking about becoming a Disciple was too much. Adam and I continued to be friends, and I kept inviting him to church, until I moved to college two years later. I haven’t seen him since.

Though Adam and the rich young man are separated by two thousand years they have a lot in common. Neither of them understood what was on the other side of the fence. Adam was held back from a relationship with God by fear, and it didn’t matter what I said, that fear of losing his family was too strong. The rich man in our story this morning was held back by love of possessions, and most likely fear of being without his wealth. So much so was his love, and fear, that he instantly hung his head and walked away from Jesus, before Jesus could tell the man what he would gain by following instead.

I would venture to say that we are all at one point in our lives hung up by something that hinders our relationship with Jesus. And no it doesn’t have to be a sin that we have committed that holds us back. The rich man didn’t seem like such a bad guy, and Jesus doesn’t say that riches are evil. But they are not our friend if they stand between us and God. I know some people who think giving their lives to God is saying no to any kind of fun. Living a Christian life seems boring to some and to others it sounds like we are slaves to something we can’t even see. Some people do not come to Christ because they think things like science disproves God. Sadly sometimes what holds us back from having a relationship with God is our faith itself, we may think we know beyond a doubt what God wants us to do, and that stops us from hearing the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Others are just fearful of what they don’t understand.

Ironically enough it was love that held the young man back from a relationship with God that day. You see the key verse in this story is not the conundrum of a camel and the eye of a needle, nor is it the first shall be last part. No the key to this passage is that Jesus looks at the man, looks inside of the rich man’s heart, and loves him. The young man was lacking one thing in order to gain eternal life and it was a relationship with Jesus. That is what we all need. Jesus loved the young man, and if the young man would have loved Jesus the man wouldn’t have walked away sad. But instead of loving what he should love, he loved earthly possessions. Love is a good thing, unless the love we have for something is holding us back or getting in the way of our relationship with Jesus.

Like love, fear can be the most powerful of motivators in our lives today. Fear of failure. Fear of being unaccepted. Fear of being unloved. Fear of being without security. In fact that is the fear that was most likely active in the back of the head of the young man in the story. You see in Israel at the time this story takes place, wealth was a sign of God’s favor. If you had more money than most that must mean that you were in higher favor with God than most everyone else. So when the Disciples saw this man coming towards them, they might have assumed that he was alright by God’s standards. The rich man however, knew something was missing. Why else would he have asked Jesus the question that he did?

“Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” That was the question the young man posed to Jesus. What would this sound like today? Maybe this, “Good teacher what must I do to make sure I am saved?” or even “Good teacher, I am a really good person, I have followed the Torah and I just want to make sure what else is there for me to do in order to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ reply made the man sad. Why? Because if he didn’t have money, the possessions that showed he was in favor with God, how would he make sure he had food? Clothing? Shelter? If he sold all of that he would be left with no status symbols and nothing to make sure he had what he needed in order to live?

Or so he thought. The man walked away without knowing what was going to be there if he only decided to follow Jesus’ instructions. Jesus didn’t get the time to even tell the young man the good side of leaving everything else behind. Jesus tells the Disciples, after they make comments about how they have left everything that no one who leaves everything behind for the sake of the Gospel will be left wanting. In fact that person will receive a hundred fold in this life what he or she has left. Think about that for a second.

We will receive a hundred fold houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fields if we make the decision to treasure our relationship with God over every earthly thing. We can have possessions, and enjoy them. Jesus doesn’t renounce possessions in this story, what he does renounce is our possessions possessing us. Our love for God and a relationship with Him must take the number one priority in our lives.

When I left for Dubuque in the fall of 2002 I was scared to leave my family. I was scared to leave the home I had always known. I was leaving the known behind and going to embrace the unknown. Like Adam I was afraid of leaving my family, but unlike Adam I knew what was on the other side. I had trust that God would be with me. How many of you here this morning have ever had fear of leaving something that was known well to you for something or somewhere that wasn’t so familiar? I know not all of you here grew up and have lived in Galena all your lives. And I know that maybe you didn’t follow the call of the Gospel to Galena, like the Disciples left their fishing boats for three years with Christ. But you had faith in God. Your faith led to you coming here to this congregation in one form or another. If you left behind, or have been left behind by family then you can identify with the young man and the Disciples. Like the Disciples you follow Christ, and you have received new brothers, sisters, mothers, and houses.

Look around you this morning at all of those in this sanctuary. They are your brothers, your sisters, your mothers, and I would imagine that their homes are our homes as well if we were in need. And if one of us suffers don’t we all suffer? The prayer chain that we have in this congregation affirms that. We love one another. We are family, children of God, and brothers and sisters in Christ. Why do you think we call it a church home? The promise that Christ gave to the Disciples is fulfilled for us today. And what is even more amazing is that the family of God, the family that we belong to stretches out beyond our little sanctuary down the street, floods into the countryside and actually spans oceans, continents and centuries. Everyone who is a Christian, who professes the Risen Lord, and everyone who has ever professed this Truth or ever will profess this truth is our family. For all we know one of brothers in faith is the young man in the story, after all it doesn’t say that the young man never came back to follow Jesus does it? I think that either way you look at it this definitely qualifies as a hundred fold.

Like the Disciples and the rich man in this story Jesus looks into each and every one of our hearts, sees what is missing to make us whole and reaches out and offers to heal it. All we have to do is follow Him and put all of our trust in Him. We enter a relationship with God alone, just Him and us. It is the Holy Spirit that prompts us but the actual decision to follow Christ is ours alone. The Spirit makes it possible for us to follow even during the hardest of times, but we must first take action to say “yes.”

There is one person who knew all too well what the Disciples knew. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor during World War II. He stood against the atrocities of the Third Reich, and was executed for his beliefs. Before his death however he wrote a great number of books, one of which is titled The Cost of Discipleship. In this book he comments upon the passage from Mark that we have been looking at this morning. I am going to end with his words.

Jesus is here speaking to men who have become individuals for his sake, who have left all at his call…They receive the promise of a new fellowship. According to the word of Jesus, they will receive in this time a hundredfold of what they have left. Jesus is referring to his Church, which finds itself in him. He who leaves his [or her] father for Jesus’ sake does most assuredly find father and mother, brothers and sisters again, and even lands and houses. Though we all have to enter upon discipleship alone, we do not remain alone. If we take him at his word and dare to become individuals, our reward is the fellowship of the Church. Here is a visible brotherhood [and sisterhood] to compensate a hundredfold for all we have lost. Amen.

(Comments to Jim at jmccrea@galenalink.com.)