The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak

Trinity Church

Waltham, Massachusetts

Pentecost XX – 14 October 2012

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31

From the Book of the Prophet, Amos:
They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord of hosts will be with you….

From the Epistle to the Hebrews:
We have a great high priest…Jesus, the Son of God,…one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin…. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy ….

And From the Gospel According to St. Mark:
Speaking to the rich young ruler who had asked Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life, Jesus, looking upon him loved him and said…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.

Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,
Amen.

Some of the most fascinating books of the Old Testament are the books of the various prophets. Although most of them proclaim God’s harsh judgment on both the nation and especially upon the leaders of the nations; Israel in the north and Judah in the south, they also call for repentance – for turning away from evil to embrace righteousness. In so doing, the prophets would offer true hope for a good life.

The judgment usually focuses on the kings and their administrators – after all, they were supposed to lead the people in faithfulness – but the prophets call the people to accountability as well. No one is innocent. All have fallen away. All will pay the price.

Such was the history of God’s chosen people – that in the good times, the kings and the people turned away from God – and in the bad, they would turn to Him making promises of faithfulness only to depart when everything started to go well again. In those good times, when everything was going well, they forgot about their Lord. But not only that, they also worshipped the false pagan gods and goddesses who blessed every form of self-gratification.

There was a price to pay for that self-gratification. These deities demanded a human blood price – usually but not always, of the first-born son. That child’s blood would insure the continuance of the deity’s approval so that the people could continue in licentiousness – or so they believed.

Then, when everything would fall apart, they returned to the Lord – usually in response to a prophetic call, with all kinds of promises of faithfulness – only to turn away again. This cycle characterized all of their history.

How interesting that in the ancient world, all of the pagan religions demanded human sacrifice – all except one – the authentic faith and religion of the Hebrew people. In ancient Judaism, the One True God had put an end to human sacrifice, as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac. God stopped the sacrifice and from that moment on, human sacrifice ended for the chosen people – that is, until they departed from The One True God. Then they once again practiced this abomination.

In all cases, the prophets spoke from God’s perspective. God revealed to each of these astounding men what He wanted them to say. Hence, their words were God’s words – not their own.

You will remember that the prophet Isaiah began his prophetic ministry in the year that King Uzziah died. Amos preceded him, prophesying during Uzziah’s reign. At that time, everything, both in Judah and in Israel, was going great. A period of prosperity the likes of which had not been known in the nations since king Solomon’s glorious reign some 250 years earlier, the kings and the people took it for granted, believed that God had blessed them because they deserved it – a kind of entitlement – and indulged idolatry, political corruption, astounding injustice and personal licentiousness.

Interestingly enough, the prophets Elisha and a little later, Jonah, had predicted that this time of peace and prosperity would come only a few decades before. Their prophecies came true – which always distinguishes the true prophet from all the false prophets. False prophets abounded in those days as they do today. False prophets say what the people want to hear rather than proclaim the Word of God that would challenge them to humble repentance.

True prophets as they speak on behalf of God, always find some following. But generally, they are abhorred, ridiculed and rejected by most of the people. True then. True now.

Enter stage right – Amos – a man called to proclaim the divine judgment to the kings and the people of both nations because they had abandoned the true faith and religion to embrace the ever popular, self-indulgent paganism. Sadly, too many people were more than willing to sacrifice a child to insure their self-indulgence. But those sacrifices were in vain. The One True God would not stand for it. The kings and the nations would fall. Assyria would make of these great nations, slave nations. And the good times would end.

Amos emphasized the injustice done to the poor. There was no free market competitive capitalism in those days. Born poor, you would remain so unless you cooperated with the wealthy government by ingratiating oneself into the circle of power – if you could. Then you had a chance.

But even if you were able to get ahead, the government would tax you back into poverty. The adage, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer really did apply in those days. The rich got richer by taking what little the poor had. An early form of the redistribution of wealth.

So the prophet was literally abhorred as he prophesied at the city gate – a place where everyone would pass through – as he spoke truth to power admonishing all who heard, to quote Amos, to seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord off hosts will be with you…

Probably the best way to summarize Amos’ prophetic message would be, turn away from your false beliefs and your false religions – and also from your self indulgence and then humbly worship and serve the One True God, seeking justice and loving kindness – to paraphrase the prophet Micah. In so doing, without killing your child or killing anyone else for that matter, God will bless you.

Fast forward about 700 years. Jesus was walking along a road, somewhere east of the Jordan River, and a man rushed up to him, fell on his knees and asked, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Identified as a rich young man in Mark’s gospel, Luke speaks of him simply as a ruler. The rest of Luke’s account tells us that he was also wealthy.

Jesus responds with you know the commandments – keep them. The young man says, I have observed them from my youth. And then Mark reveals something amazingly beautiful about our Lord, he wrote; And Jesus looking upon him loved him….
Mark offers no further commentary. He gives no explanation as to why Jesus loved the wealthy young man.

I will be bold and offer this possibility. This man had been playing by the rules of his religion faithfully since his youth. Unlike so many young men during Amos years of ministry who had abandoned God’s commandments, this fellow had not. One might assume, then that everything would be just fine.

We can assume that for this man, everything was just fine – a good house in which to live, good food, status in society and the benefits of wealth. Or so it seemed.

Yet he went to Jesus because, deep down inside, the man continued to hunger and thirst for a quality of righteousness, of goodness, perhaps even of love and joy that he knew was somehow available, but not a part of his life despite his adherence to his faith. He may have had an impulse, as aspiration or yes a hope that there must be something better, something greater, something that went deeper and rose higher than the righteousness under the law. What I believe he was seeking was the higher righteousness of the divine grace as he sought eternal life.

If so, he went to the right man when he met with Jesus. And he took the right position before him, the humility of kneeling. But one thing still kept him away from the grace that he so very much wanted – his wealth. The only barrier to the saving grace was his wealth.

Jesus thus said, Sell all that you have given the money to the poor and – the most important words, come, follow me. Selling all that he had and giving the money to the poor would remove the barrier. But following Jesus would open the door to the saving grace. Just removing the barrier – by doing a good work, however honorable and important that might be – in and of itself, was not the key that would unlock the door. No – following Jesus was.

Well, this rich man – so very poor – let me use Mark’s words, his countenance fell and he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. One might say, he crashed and burned. The account ends here. We do not know what became of this rich young man. He wanted the fullness of salvation, but in order to get it he had to remove the barrier to it.

Perhaps he went away sorrowful, but later came to himself. Jesus loved him. Perhaps, later, he received that love, followed Jesus instruction and found his salvation, as he became a follower of Christ. Perhaps, later – after he heard of the crucifixion of this man who loved him and after he had heard of that man’s resurrection – perhaps then, he followed. Let’s hope so. He wasn’t a bad man. He just had that one barrier.

We also know, that some will not believe even if God should raise a man from the dead. And furthermore, we know that selling all that we have and giving it to the poor will not end poverty. Jesus said that we will always have the poor with us.

Yet we can hope in the saving grace -and mercy – of God in Christ. That whole human sacrifice syndrome – well, God ended that with Abraham. But people did not believe in what God had revealed to the Father of many nations. They continued the practice.

As we do today. The sacrifice of the first-born son – or the sacrifice of any unborn child – well, you can complete that sentence. Human sacrifice is human sacrifice no matter what form it may take – most certainly a barrier to salvation. And one major world religion claims that the killing of an infidel honors and glorifies God. That god is not the One True God, make no mistake.

God looked upon his people and on the whole world. He knew that they people would continually go astray. So He took definitive action to end this practice. He became man in His Son and sacrificed Himself to finally – once and for all – end that that dreadful evil – which today is offered not necessarily on the altar of some identifiable pagan deity, but on the altar of convenience – its own kind of idol or from a perverted idea of holiness.

In Jesus Christ, God offered the one full, perfect and all sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world and in so doing, offered then – and offers now – the breaking down of every barrier to salvation leaving just one – and that’s the choice that He gives to us to receive it by faith and then follow Him. He paid the price for His people.

His sacrifice – fully human since he was tempted just as we are – and perfect because he was without sin does what we cannot do. It removes the barrier of sin in any form for this sacrifice is the perfection of the divine mercy.

In His mercy we can confidently draw near to the throne of grace. The only thing we have to do – the only thing that we can do – is receive it.

With this in mind, let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you will bless us with the grace to receive your redeeming mercy. Remove any
barrier that anyone may have to your great gift of salvation and grant us the further grace to follow you – that in all that we say, in all that we do and in all that we are, so as to honor and glorify your Son,
the crucified and risen Savior of the whole world.
We ask this in His name,
Amen.