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Cathedral Sermon
The Venerable Howard Lee, Precentor
19th after Pentecost
Sunday October 11th 2009

A call to transformation is at the heart of Christian faith – a call to transformation is at the heart of baptism. The font in any church is a significant symbol to all the baptized that the Christian journey is a journey of transformation. The particular design and fabric of this cathedral font, as it changes with the light and incorporates the colours of the windows will be a powerful reminder in this place of the dynamic nature of the Christian life.

How often we hear the assertion that it is possible to lead a good life without aligning ourselves with God, or making a commitment to ‘the way’ of Jesus the Christ?

Of course that is possible and indeed is acknowledged in this morning’s gospel. Jesus takes the rich man in Mark at his word, that he has indeed kept the known commandments. He is said to look at him with love, and his heart was warmed – for here is a good man.

However, the point of Jesus’ ministry is not about doing, but is about being transformed in body, mind and spirit so that we become a new creation. The invitation to the young man is the same invitation to baptism – it is about becoming one with Christ and that involves a different world view from that which society generally espouses. It is about a whole way of life that includes economic, social, and environmental considerations for which we may be vastly unprepared, and like the young man, ultimately unreceptive. The good news on the other hand, as Jesus notes, is that what may seem impossible may become possible with God.

We probably consider that Jesus’ handling of this man is extreme. The man is wealthy, yes, but he seems well intended. His question is respectful and sincere. He asks something we’ve all asked at one time in our lives: what must I do to inherit eternal life? The problem with the question, is how the man phrases it. He does not ask how to receive eternal life or how to enter the kingdom of heaven, but what he must do to inherit it. The man “uses the language of property and economic privilege and also assumes that eternal life is given in exchange for good behavior or in fulfillment of certain conditions.” His very language shows just how different his worldview is from the Kingdom of God.

At the heart of the narrative is a profound statement: “Jesus, looking at the man, loved him”. This is not a verbal sparring match for sport. Both Jesus and the man know something important is at stake here. We feel it too. Jesus sees this man and loves him, yet asks far more of him that what seems humanly possible. Jesus challenges the man with five imperatives: go, sell, give, come, and follow. Jesus asks him to begin living the values of the kingdom he cannot yet see or understand.
Given the tragic implications for many of the current collapse of financial markets – the example of great wealth may not seem today to be the best illustration. It wasn’t so long ago that many prospered (although certainly not all) in an economy that seemed to confirm the invincibility of the market’s invisible hand. We could justify prosperity as something available to all, at least in theory. We were told that the world benefited when we accumulated and consumed. Yet, wealth is only one such value where there tends to be divergence from ‘the way of the world’ to ‘the way of the kingdom’; Jesus could just as easily have challenged the man’s social, justice or ecological attitudes!

Jesus did not ask the man to do more, give more, be more. Jesus asked the man to submit to God’s upsetting, reorienting, subversive grace. This required the man to give away everything that kept him from doing that. The rich man could not imagine God’s economic activity outside his predictable reality. The question is, can we? Jesus sees us for who we are and loves us. He also asks us to follow. Saying yes to discipleship means saying no to those things that hinder discipleship. This is a complicated word of comfort and challenge, of grace and judgment. It is also a hopeful word.

Uncertain times give us a window of opportunity to take a new measure of things. The economic, environmental and social models many viewed as dominant now seem arrogant and greedy. Throughout Mark, Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God and how surprising it is. His invitation to come and participate in it requires us to let go of certain kinds of security and embrace new truths about faith and life.

The church makes the same invitation in baptism which can be unsettling because we don’t know quite what we will loose and what we will gain. But like the young man, Jesus invites us to take courage, to trust and be hopeful in living out the values of God’s realm, values we cannot yet fully see or at this time completely understand.

The font is set in our midst as a constant reminder and challenge to live by these values which we as Christians have chosen to profess.