Author: Al

Text: Mark 10:23-31
Date: Pentecost XX + St. Luke, Evangelist + 10/18/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Today’s Gospel is a continuation of last week’s story of the Rich Young Man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The whole story, verses 17 through 30, used to be read as one on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost in Series B of the lectionary. It is therefore a unique challenge to preach on each half of the story over two Sundays with little reference to the other half. The first half ends with the young man going away sorrowful because he couldn’t imagine doing what Jesus told him to do, namely, to sell all he had and give to the poor and then to come and follow Jesus. In preaching on that text last Sunday we focused on Jesus’ identity and how a person inherits eternal life only by way of repentance and faith in Jesus. Today the second half of the story has Jesus turning to his disciples to help them analyze in an even deeper way the disciple’s changed relationship with the world and the cost of following Him. Continue reading “Riches and Reward”

Text: Mark 10:17-22
Date: Pentecost XIX (Proper 23) + 10/11/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

For the rich young man who came to Jesus, when he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he showed that it wasn’t his riches that was the problem. He was seeking to be justified on the basis of his own, outward keeping of the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Jesus knew that the Law of God had not yet done its complete and proper work in this young man’s heart. For the proper work of the Law is not to “straighten you out,” but to make a man despair not only of earthly possessions and money but of the Law itself! That is, to realize and face the impossibility of being saved by means of works of the Law. It means to make us despair in order that we may flee for mercy to God’s grace alone as the only hope. So Jesus challenged him, saying, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” The key, of course, was not in the “selling all you have,” but in the “follow me” part. But then, what do we see? We then read that the young man was disheartened and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He didn’t “get it.” He did not follow Jesus. For him the answer Jesus gave was too much. For him that price of inheriting eternal life was too high. And he went away sorrowful. Continue reading “Repent and Follow Jesus”

Text: Mark 10:2-16
Date: Pentecost XVIII (Proper 22) + 10/4/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Do people desire to become Christians or to be the more committed Christians primarily because they are thinking about going to heaven when they die or is it because they are looking for something that can make sense out of our otherwise confused lives right now, today? It may be one or the other or even both. On the one hand, Jesus came, and, in today’s Gospel, we see Him more and more determined to make His way to accomplish His sacrificial death on the cross. He came for the purpose of dying for the sin of the world and to open the kingdom of heaven to all. On the other hand, there is also concern for how we make it through our days in this life, even while we wait for sin and death to be done with and attempt to walk along the path of faith in Christ, living in the forgiveness of our sins. So while we are concerned about salvation, about heaven, about what our destiny and lot will be after this life, we also hope to lead lives of faith now, lives that at least try to be pleasing to God and receive and reflect His guidance and blessing even amid the difficulties and problems that sin causes every step of the way. Continue reading “The Wrong Bible Verse”

Text: Mark 9:38-50
Date: Pentecost XVII (Proper 21) + 9/27/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Today’s pericope helps us understand what has gone just before in Mark’s Gospel, and to better understand our own task of confessing Christ in our world today. I mean, didn’t you think it strange that the disciples suddenly started arguing about who is or will be the greatest among them? Where did that come from? Were they that petty? When’s the last time you got into an argument about who is greater than whom? I thought so. Probably the last time was when you were a child! Or when you were being childish! And then what about this oddity that suddenly Jesus’ disciples were unable to cast out a demon from a young boy, something that they had previously been fully authorized to do? Continue reading “Who's Following Whom?”

Text: Mark 9:30-37
Date: Pentecost XVI + 9/20/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

This is now the third and final time in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus tells his disciples about his coming passion, death and resurrection. And their reaction just seems to get worse every time he brings the subject up. The first time (8:31-33) Peter rebukes Jesus and becomes the unwitting tool of Satan himself. The second time (9:9-12) followed Jesus transfiguration and the inner group of disciples were left with more questions than answers. This third and last passion prediction so stuns them that they were, literally, speechless. “They did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him” (v. 32). They don’t get it yet, that the way of the Christ, and therefore of his followers, is the way of meekness as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). The Messiah is, as Jeremiah prophesied, “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer. 11:19). Taking a child for an object lesson, Jesus illustrated the peaceable innocence and meekness that characterizes Him and therefore is also to characterize those who follow Him in the way of the cross. Continue reading “Wisdom From Above”

Text: Mark 9:14-29
Date: Pentecost XV (Proper 19) + 9/13/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

When the Blessed Virgin Mary inquired of the angel as to how it would be that she should bear a child without a human husband, she was told, “nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37). By faith in that word she conceived and bore the Son of God. When the disciples heard Jesus suggest the difficulty of the rich young man and people like him to enter the kingdom of heaven at all and asked, “Who, then, can be saved,” Jesus said, “with God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). I have been blessed to know a few people of some earthly means and wealth to also be examples of generous and lively faith. Jesus Himself, before His suffering and death, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed, “Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk. 14:36). In the Book of Hebrews faith is defined as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). “By grace you are saved through faith,” says the Apostle Paul, “and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). It appears that this thing called “faith” has to do with issues that are beyond our manipulation or prediction. Yet faith, in the Bible, is not blind, it is not just a hunch or a wild bet or wager based on your wildest dreams or desires but is, rather, the appropriate God-given response to the promises of God. Continue reading “Believe It or Not”