Sermon Cloud

On Thursday night, every baseball fan in eastern Pennsylvania was watching the second game of the National League Divisional Series between the Colorado Rockies and the Philadelphia Phillies. Twenty-five year old pitching phenom, Cole Hamels had been pegged to pitch the second game. He was still pitching in the fifth inning when the call came in. His wife, Heidi had gone into labor, and his mother-in-law called the clubhouse.

Frank Coppenbarger got the call. He took the message to the Phillies pitching coach who was sitting in the dug out. The Phillies were batting in the bottom of the 5th. The pitching coach told the manager, Charlie Manuel. The Phils were already down 5 to 1, and Cole was due to hit. Manuel put in a pinchhitter and told Cole to go to the hospital. So he left in the middle of the game.

There are moments in life, when priorities come into conflict and we have to choose. It is in that cauldron of choices that our true selves and values are revealed. Cole was lucky. He was given permission to go. And even though he was pitching and even though his team was still playing in the playoffs, his personal priority was to be present for the birth of his first child, a son.

A similar situation happened in Cincinnati when Pete Rose was the manager. Terry Francona, now managing the Boston Red Sox, tells the story of how his wife Jacque went into labor with their first child.

Francona, who was playing with Cincinnati at the time, went to tell his manager, Pete Rose that his wife had gone into labor. Rose told him he could go, but if he did, not to bother coming back. Now there is a tough position to be in.

Have you ever had to make a decision between two things you value, two things you felt committed to, two things that were priorities but you could only choose one, you could only be in one place at one time?

The guy in today’s gospel reading ran smack into a tough decision between two things he valued. This rich young man, identified as a “rich young ruler” in Luke’s gospel, comes up to Jesus hoping either to find the secret to life, or to demonstrate how good he was, so he could justify his life. And remember that Jesus knows the thoughts of those he encounters. After calling Jesus “Good teacher,” he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said, You know the commandments: and Jesus named about five of them. He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Now Jesus could tell from his answer, his tone and his demeanor that he was a genuinely searching young man. So Jesus felt true compassion and love for the man and said, “You only 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."

Ouch! Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had been given an invitation to follow Jesus around Galilee, and get to watch the miracles he worked, and be able to listen to every pearl of wisdom, every insight and every truth that Jesus spoke, I’d jump at the chance. Well ... I’d be really excited that he asked me, and well ... I’m sure that I would have gone with him.

Following Jesus doesn’t always mean giving all you have away, or selling everything and giving the money to the poor. But the point is that frequently when we realize how amazing Jesus is, and we decide we want to be a Christian, we want to follow Jesus. We want to be like him, then we almost certainly have to start making different kinds of choices.

What kinds of choices, you ask? Well, let’s start with the little ones, the ones at our level.  Every Sunday we have to make a choice between getting up to go to church, and staying in bed or reading the newspaper, or playing a round of golf. It is a choice between Pastor’s Monday Night Study and Monday Night Football. It is a choice between Disciple Bible Study and Grey’s Anatomy. It’s a choice between a church picnic and watching the Redskins. There are always choices. Choices between the things we really want, and the things we think we should want, or the things that we want others to think we’d take, or choices between our first and our second priority.

“I really love Jesus, but the only way my golf game is going to improve is if I play more often.” Or, “I really love the church, and I support it fully and financially, but I have bills to pay too and college tuition is looming in the near future.” So that becomes a choice between a ‘20' (dollar bill) and a ‘5'; a choice between planning our giving with a check, or showing up and seeing what’s left in the wallet.

Look you can be rich and still get into heaven, but having money won’t save you. And giving money won’t save you either. Jesus didn’t say, “sell all you have and give the money to my church.” Jesus said, “get rid of all the stuff that is standing in your way. Do some good with it, then come follow me completely unencumbered.” The problem this rich young man faced is the same problem we face. Given the material world we live in, it is very difficult to complete divorce ourselves from our worry that we will need every penney we have, or from the worry that we don’t have enough. “We have families and obligations, and hopes and dreams, and a retirement to prepare for, we can’t put Jesus ahead of everything!”

You see ... that’s the rub. To follow Jesus, almost always means a reprioritization. You don’t have to give everything away, or sell everything and give the money to the poor, but like the rich man, if that’s what’s getting in the way of your being a fully committed follower of Jesus, then that’s a problem; and you need to figure out a way, to cut the strings that hold you back, so you can follow Jesus and enter into the kingdom of heaven.

We are not unfamiliar with giving up things we want, in order to grasp something more important. We all know countless women and even some men, who have given up their careers, their college educations, given up their proximity to their families, given up their own dreams in order to support their husbands or wives. We all know countless parents who had promising careers, decide that they wanted to stay home and raise their children themselves because for them that was a higher priority. We all have had friends, family members and co-workers tell us that we are nuts to make one choice or another over what they thought was more important.

But it’s your life. It’s your decision. And ultimately we all prioritize based upon our values, our objectives, and our dreams. The rich young man wanted to be assured of his gaining eternal life, but when the price was all that he owned - it was too high a cost.

Each of us want to go to heaven. Each of us want to be faithful to God. Each one of us wants to live lives that would make God proud of us, but sometimes to do that; to truly do that, would mean learning to leave something we value behind.

Have you ever heard the expression “Three moves equals a fire?” In theory, the more you move, and the more often you pack and unpack and have a bunch of gorillas moving your furniture around the more likely it is to get ruined. If you move three times, according to this saying, you almost have to replace everything. That’s why three moves equals a fire, cause in a fire, you lose everything in one fell swoop.

My mother lost everything many times in her life. When she was young her father owned a construction company in New Orleans and they were rich. The depression hit, he went out of business, and they lost everything. Later as they were struggling to get back on their feet, my grandparents divorced. That left my grandmother moving all over the southwest looking for work, while my mom took care of her siblings. They were really poor and moved from town to town with only what they could haul in the back of the car.

When she and my dad decided to follow God’s call and become missionaries to Africa, they left everything behind. They accumulated a house full of furniture in Africa, and intended to return to that house after a year’s furlough. While we were here in the States, war broke out, and we never were able to return to that house. At our next assignment, again with donated furniture and a few acquisitions here and there, they reestablished a home. When war broke out there, we were evacuated at dusk by United Nations soldiers with instructions that we could only take one suitcase a piece.

My mom learned not to be too attached to stuff, because it is only stuff, and God always seems to replace stuff. But if she had decided to stop serving God because she had lost so much stuff she treasured, it would have been a much poorer choice.

Sometimes we just need to learn to leave the stuff, that keeps us from serving God. Sometimes we need to learn to leave out the things that block our responding faithfully to the call of God. Sometimes, the things we think are important and worth holding onto, are the very things keeping us from eternal life. Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? “Leave all that stuff that holds you, and come, follow me.”