Ozymandias

In case you don't know, I have a degree in English literature.  I bet you're wishing that some of that would spill over to my writing. But every once in a while, something comes up that is and remains useful for me to talk about.  This is one of those times.

There's a sonnet by Shelly called 'Ozymandias.'  It's a simple enough story, a story of a king from a time long past who erected a structure, a statue to his own glory, and in it, wanting the world to know of his strength and glory.  But time, as it does, bears all things away, leaving only legs, and a broken face, along with the inscription which reads 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.  Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.'  Nothing else remains.

That sonnet resonates with the readings we had for Sunday.  The readings where the disciples point out to Jesus to grandeur of the temple and everything about it.  The stones, the structure, the building project, everything that went into making that place magnificent, it's worth pointing out to Jesus.  Look at the wonderful things we have done to the glory of God!  And Jesus, as he frequently does, brings them back a bit, to remind them of priorities they really ought to have.  He may seem like a debbie downer, but that's the work of Christ, which is to do the work of both law and Gospel.  To oppose the proud and give grace to the humble.  Jesus reminds his disciples that there is going to come a day when not one of those stones is left upon another.  There is going to come a day when all these things will by necessity be gone.  Time will sweep them all away.  They will be gone.  It definitely happened to the temple, you know.  The temple, that building that the disciples pointed out to Jesus for its grandeur and majesty, that building's gone now.  Broken and smashed by the Romans on their way out of town, leaving it scattered to the wind and the desert. 

This is the temple of the Hebrew people.  Look on it, ye mighty and despair. 

Not despairing in the way that Ozymandias had in mind, but despairing for a completely different reason.  Despairing because even the works of the mighty are ultimately fruitless.  You can be as mighty as you want, you can be as in charge as you'd like, you can have it all together conceivably, but ultimately time sweeps everything away.  The great empires of the world all existed in an illusion of permanence, in that they figured that the way things were was the way they were always going to be.  They figured that their empire was the end of history, it was the last thing, the last stop on the railroad.  Egypt, Assyria, Persia, China, Russia, Great Britain, the United States, they all assume that they're the last stop.  And they're all wrong.  Look on the works of Ozymandias, and despair.  Look on the ravages of time, look on the wasteland that is all around, look upon the desert that is the only thing that remains, with everything else gone and swept away.  If you're placing your hope, your courage and confidence, in the things you've made with your own hands, then you will be sorely saddned by the lack of permanence.  Time is going to blow it all away, and there will be nothing left. 

So what to do, then?  It's a matter of alignment with the one thing that is permanent, the one permanence in a vast ocean of temporal things.  The one thing that can and will and does last forever.  Heaven and earth may pass away, says Jesus, but my words will never pass away.  Christ is above all this, above the ravages of time, above the works of the hands of men which are being borne away by time, above all the things that we believe are permanent, above everything we have Christ.  The one who was around from before the beginning of the universe, the one who rose from the dead to die no more, the one who exists outside time, the only one to whom entropy doesn't apply. 

Look on his works ye mighty and despair.

Despair of your own works.  despair of your own deeds, despair of what you have built and put together, despair of it all.  At times like this, where there are wars and rumors of wars, times when the world seems to be running down, times when nothing seems safe and everything seems dangerous, times when the things we have built for ourselves don't seem so secure, the civilization we enjoy seems less permanent.  The times when we are tempted to look upon those works and despair. 

But despair itself is temporary.  Despair itself has only the illusion of permanence.  Despair is going away.  In a little while, Jesus promises, your mourning will be turned to laughter.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  We do not grieve like the rest of men do who have no hope.  All these promises are there through the scriptures, where Jesus tells us time and time again what is actually permanent.  He tells us what it is that is forever, and it's not what we think it is.  It's not grief, or death, or separation, it's not the grave, that yawning abyss it's not any of that. It's life.  Life everlasting.  As we see wars and rumors of wars, as we see the famines and floods, as we seen nation rise against nation, as we see all of this, it reminds us that these works are receding.  And as the things of this world disappear, as the things of this world vanish and are absorbed by the wastes of time, the cross of Christ, his permanence, his eternity, stand forever.  No matter what else happens, no matter what else befalls us, we think of his words. 

Fear not, for I have overcome the world.

There's always a bigger fish.

They have another Star Wars movie coming out this year.  Did you know about that?

Merchandising is out in the stores, and it's unbelievable.  This hasn't happened since the prequels came out not too terribly long ago.  Here's a fun video about it.

Now, as the merchandising goes into full blast, as I say, it reminds me of the time when the prequels came out, and Star Wars was back in the forefront of public thought again.  And it reminds me of one of the few moments I found enjoyable about the Star Wars prequels - namely, Episode 1, the Phantom Menace.

In that particular episode, you saw Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan going through the planet core in a submarine of some kind.  I know it has a name, and I'm not interested in what that name is.  But yes, they move through the planet core, and on their way through, they get attacked by some enormous creature.  And that massive aquatic creature seems set to devour their entire submarine, until said massive creature, said Leviathan, is scooped up by some other, larger sea creature, who tears up the previously assumed massive fish as though it was nothing.  When that happens, Qui-Gon wisely says

There's always a bigger fish.

Best line of the entire prequel trilogy right there.  The absolute best one.  There is nothing in the prequel trilogy that compares to it, mainly because it's true.  It's always good to get something true out of your media, no matter what you're watching, and in this case, even though the prequels were dreadful, they have some truth to them.

Now, there is always going to be a bigger fish.  That's something that is going to plague you for your whole life, as long as you grade things on a curve.  Which we all do.  If you want to know how much you grade on a curve, think only on your time in the grocery store.  Think of how judgey you get about the content of everyone else's carts, and how you feel about what they're buying.  I know, I know, we shouldn't do it, but we all do.  If you see a cart loaded up with all sorts of tut, then it's incumbent upon you to 'tsk tsk' about it, and to rank yourself in relation to everyone else in the grocery store.  You come off looking good, even if your choices are bad, if they're next to someone else whose choices are even worse.  And that's fairly key to understanding all of this.

For you see,in this world, you are in contact with other people all the time, and being in contact with them, you either subconsciously or consciously compare yourself to them, their choices, their status, and everything else.  You compare yourself, you weigh yourself in the balance, and hopefully are not
found wanting.  In other words, you are on a curve constantly, in competition with everyone else in the arena of your own mind.

But there's a snag, which is that you, as an individual, are going to be dealing with bigger fish.  Bigger fish all the time.  There's always a bigger fish.  And this comparison between each other, this jockeying for position in the rat race in our own minds, there will always be a bigger fish. And it leads to lies.  It leads to social lies that plague us.

On a curve, you will always find a bigger fish.  There is always going to be someone bigger and better than you, someone who has it more together.  Someone who is richer than you, who has a bigger house, a newer car, a more upt to date cell phone, and all that.  As soon as you acquire something, it is worthless as far as keeping up with the Joneses, you know.  Worthless because things move on, and there will always be a bigger fish.  But in the Gospel reading, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't grade on a curve.  Well, not really anyway.

If you know God, then you'll know that you're dealing with something that is in every way immeasurably superior to yourself.  The comparisons, the fishing, all that goes away, and goes away rapidly.  it recedes, when you try to compare yourself with the Almighty.  So that big fishing is gone right there, but when Jesus looks at you, he doesn't do so as someone among many, He looks at you as you.  He looks at you and sees your individual condition.  As though there was nobody else in the universe.  Just you.

In a sense, the Christian faith is predicated on this, that there is a bigger fish out there, bigger than all the rest, and certainly bigger than you.  Jesus Christ, our Lord, he's the one who offers up to us the one standard of correction, the one measurement by which we are all measured.  The standards and law of God, which are pefect.  That's the only thing we are measured next to, and we are found wanting.

So do yourself a favor, and drop the curve.  There isn't a curve. It doesn't exist and never did.  You think it did, but it only exists in your mind, like the spoon from the Matrix.  And if that's to esoteric, think of the way that Jesus tells you to pray.  Think of how he tells you to fast and how he tells you to give.  He tells you to do this all in secret, so your left hand won't know what your right hand is doing.  Why is that?  Partially so you'll know there isn't a curve.

Surrounded by loud, ostentatious prayers, surrounded by generous givers, you end up focusing on the curve, focusing on what other people are doing and how you stack up.  You get isolated, concentrating on what other people are doing, and your need to compete, and your need to decieve to compete.  It's almost always a bunch of lies, you know, people lying to look better, and doing a reasonable job of it, standing before each other and being proud as peacocks, and even when you try to compete, you know it's a sham.  That sort of thing can and will break you, which is why Jesus wants you, in your religious life, to bring it back to him and to you.  He wants your focus not to be on everything else that may get in the way, on the curve that doesn't exist, on the fish that can and will get in the way, and rather on him, and his relationship with you.

For Jesus knows something important that you are frequently tempted to forget.  His body and his blood were given and shed for you.  In baptism, we echo the words that tell us that the promise is for you.  This is for you, as an individual.  Not for you as a point on the curve, but you as the only one.  Even if you were the only one, Christ would have shed his blood for you.  There's no curve, and there never has been.  There has only been you, and Christ, and his love for you.  That's it.  Is there a bigger fish?  Yes, and he's called Christ.  Is there a bigger fish on the curve that you should worry about?  No, because the curve isn't there.

All Saints day

At Halloween, something interesting happens.  We dress up, we trick or treat, but we have no idea as to why we do that.  It's just something you do.  For candy.

But hold on, buckaroos, because that's not the whole story.  Have you ever wondered where the word Hallowen comes from? Or, I suppose Hallowe'en?  It's a shortened form of All Hallows Eve.

Think of those words.  You know what the word 'all' means, I assume.  But what of the other two?  You know what the word 'Eve' means, too.  Christmas Eve is what?  The day after Christmas?  And then that leaves 'Hallows.'  As in 'Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.'  Hallowed.  Be holy.  Halloween is the day before all Hallows day, or all Saints day.

What is all saints day?  It's the day that we commemorate all the saints.  Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to go through all the saints in obscure calendars, like Saint Rumbold, or Saint Longinus.  What it does mean, though, is that we end up focusing mainly on the saints that we know, and know well.  we focus on the saints whose lives matter to us, and who have touched us in tangible ways.

If you've never seen it, the movie 'Millions' is probably the best example of this.  Because it's the best movie ever.  It is the absolute best of all films that has ever been released, according to me.  Gets me right in the feels every time.  It's sweet without being horrible.  Anyhow, the story gets as close as I can recall to working out the Lutheran conception of sainthood, with saints being justified sinners, whose greatest works were accomplishing their vocations in their world.  And now I just watched the trailer.  And my eyes got sweaty again.

But yes, back to the topic at hand.  If you read through the words of Jesus carefully, if you think about what he says, and deal with his message, he's not all about world peace and solving world hunger and that sort of thing.  He's about you living in peace with your family, you feeding those whom you can, and so on.  Think global, act local.  Most of us are paralyzed by the idea that we should have this world of ours be perfect, but if we end up thinking about the global situation, then we can relax, and let the governments of the world look after feeding the poor and restoring peace.  But that's not your calling as Christians.  Your calling is to look after what you can look after.  Want the world to be more peaceful?  Be peaceable with your neighbors and family.  Want the world to be fed?  feed the people you see.

And our discussion of saints, all the saints, is going to end up as us thinking about the big saints, yes, but also about those whom Jesus has sanctified.  Because that's what a saint is, you know.  not someone who has lived an exemplary life, someone who has lived without sin, someone who has kept themselves unstained by the world, but someone who Jesus has sanctified with his blood and made holy.  Someone whom Jesus has saved.

This is what it means to be a saint, not to be perfect.  Being a saint isn't something for a select group of pople who have been perfect, and you can tell that from the Bible. The great thing about the people you find in the Bible is that they aren't whitewashed.  They aren't presented to us as being perfect, which is such great news for us.  Think about any saint you want, and you'll find some skeletons in their closets.  St. Paul, one of the best known saints, referred to himself as the chief of sinners, lamented at great length his inability to do what he wanted to do, talked about his struggles in his faith, and about what a dreadful person he was.

And he's a saint.

Wrong Saint Paul.

But this is the reality of who we are and what we do.  This is the reality of being a human being in the world, this side of heaven, is that we're all sinners.  We all do things wrong, we all disappoint God in our behavior, in our closed attitude towards him and each other.  We all do awful things, we are all neglectful of him and our worship and devotional time.  But this is where our sanctity comes in.  The more you learn about the saints the more you will realize that they're not holy because they lived super duper well, because they didn't.  They denied Christ, killed Christians, sought glory, doubted their faith, all the stuff that you and I do frequently.  But this is what it means to be a saint, it means that you are a sinner who has been forgiven.  Not that you are good, or great, or even passable, but you are forgiven.

When All Saints day rolls around, this is when we get to thinking about the work that Christ does.  Think about the saints not as you have conceived them, but rather as the Bible discusses them.  Think of them in the terms that Revelation uses.  'A great multitude that no one could number from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.'  It's not a select club.  It's the people of God.  Holy because Christ makes them holy.  Righteous because Christ makes them righteous.  Heaven-bound because Christ brings them to heaven. 

Reform Senators

I know, I know, the Reform Party never had any senators.  But think about the senators in this great nation of ours.  Think about them, and the scandals that they're in.

In addition to being in trouble for never doing any work, and for the work they do being meaningless, a few of them are also in trouble for other things, including but not limited to, their primary residence.  Senators in this great nation have been under fire for not living where they claim to live.  Oh, sure, they claim to live in Saskatchewan, or Prince Edward Island, but they have health care cards, drivers licenses, condos in Ontario, which is where they actually live.  That's the primary residence.

Why am I bringing this up?  No, this isn't a Political Blog, as much as it may seem like one sometimes.  No, this is about God, as usual, and about God's word.  In his word, in the Gospel reading for Sunday, we heard Jesus say 'If you abide in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'  Simple enough to hear, obviously, but hard to work through.  It's hard to work through because it has in it the notion of abiding.  Abiding in the same way the senators are supposed to.  You wouldn't think much of senators, and we don't, who claim a primary residence in one location but who never go there, and certainly don't live there.  In that same way, the disciples of Christ (which hopefully include you), are supposed to abide in God's word, knowing the truth.  But most of us abide in God's word the same way that the senators abide in Saskatchewan, which is that they have it as a residence on paper, but never go there.  They assumed that it was enough to have it, and to never deal with it ever again.  As we as Christians do too.  We assume that if we read God's word once, that we would never have to go over it again.  We don't feel as though we actually have to abide there, if we have it as our primary residence on paper.  In other words, we say that this is the most important thing in the universe to us, but we spend zero time actually living in it.

But Jesus says if we abide in his word, that we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.  Why do we have to abide in God's word?  If it doesn't change, then why do we need to live in it as opposed to reading it once and then moving on with our lives?  Well, consider for a moment the phenomenon known as Groundhog day.  No, not the day, the movie.

In this movie, Bill Muray lives the same day over and over and over again.  The day doesn't change. It's always February 2nd, for years and years and years.  He's trapped there forever in a day that doesn't change, doesn't alter, but he himself has to .  He has to learn and grown and change, which he does over the course of the time he is trapped in that day.  Now, the late Harold Ramis
 he spoke about the meaning of this movie, and what it was actually about, and the desire of people to find their own religious, spiritual tradition in it.  Buddhists love it, Catholics love it, because they all think it's about them and their own spiritual journey.  But Ramis said that the closest thing to it being about something is about the reading of the Torah in the temple, that the Torah readings are always the same, they don't change year to year, it's the same thing every time, and yet as the readings are the same, you yourself are different, and you change. 

Now, this is why it is so vital for us to abide in God's word, to live in it.  Not because we're going to find something different in the scriptures, we aren't.  There's nothing new in there.  The Bible will be the same yesterday, today and forever.  Nothing new there.  It's not because the Bible is new, but because we are.  We are new.  We are different.  We have changed. The word of God doesn't change, but we change, and it will speak to us differently as different moments, which we will lose if we just glance at it once, and then move on with our lives.  If the last time you seriously engaged with the scriptures was when you were a child, or when you were in confirmation class, or anything like that, then you're missing out on what God has to say to you as a grown person, at this stage in your life.  To put in in a real world way that you can understand, think about the greatness that is Calvin and Hobbes.  The comic strip, not the Philosophers.

When I was young, I read Calvin and Hobbes.  I loved it.  It was fantastic.  And then I didn't read it anymore.  I moved onto other things (mainly mountaineering books now), and promptly forgot about it. But all of a sudden, I found Calvin and Hobbes again, and I saw it in a whole new light.  When I was a child, I identified with Calvin.  Now that I'm grown up, and have children of my own, I identify with Calvin's parents!

  
How did that happen?  The words didn't change, the drawings have been the same always, but I changed.  I had new experiences, and so going back to the material means that it affects me in new ways.  If that's the way with Calvin and Hobbes, how much more it is with the Holy Scriptures?  How much more is it with God's word, and what he has promised to share with us?

In that way, if we only encounter God's word as Children, then we are missing out on something incredibly important.  St. Paul tells us that when he was a child, he thought like a child, and reasoned like a child.  Now that he is a man, he put childish things away.  When you were a child, God spoke to you like a child.  He told you what you needed to know then.  You knew that the whole world was in his hands, that Jesus loved you, that you knew, that there was a floody floody and all that.  But now that you're grown, those answers, that relationship may not satisfy you anymore.

If that's the case, then you may not have encountered God's word lately.  If it seems childish, that's likely because you either haven't encountered it since you were a child, or have dealt with it as a child.  It's time to put childish things away, and to view it like a grownup.  It's time to learn the truth, and to have the truth set you free.

The great gift of the Reformation was that Luther took the scriptures, and put them in a language that everyone could understand.  He took the Bible, and made it so that we could hear it in our own language.  It wouldn't do us much good to try to abide, to live in a word that we couldn't understand, that we could never work out what it meant.  But once Luther had given us the scriptures in our language, had made it so we could hear, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, once that had happened, we could know the truth.  We could know that we have sinned.  We have done what we didn't want to do, we have avoided doing what we want to do, we have served ourselves and not our neighbors nor our family.  We have thought too much about what we want, and have broken relationships in our wake.  But we hear from God's word that we have a source for hope.  Hope even in the face of death.  There is no such thing as too late, no such thing as too far gone, or too broken, that's the work of Christ.  You learn from his word not just that you are in bondage, in slavery to sin, but also that he earnestly desires to set you free.  That's his work that he came to do, to put you right, to restore you to God and to each other. 

The child's version of these stories are to tell you that God loves you.  The adult version is to tell you that he loves you to death.

He looked at him and loved him.

There's a lot about this guy to love.

Not me, you understand, but the rich young man from the Gospel reading from Sunday.  He comes bounding over to Jesus, and kneels before him, and loudly asks 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'  There's a lot to love about him.  There's a lot to love about him because he seems so like us, so relateable.  He seems like an ordinary human being. 

If you haven't read them, there's a series of books called 'Bruno and Boots' about a Canadian boarding school called MacDonald Hall.  In this series, Bruno and Melvin (Nicknamed Boots, obviously), engage in hilarious misadventures and harebrained schemes.  MacDonald Hall is located conveniently across the highway from Miss Scrimmage's finishing school for young ladies, and the
girls are frequently involved in the schemes in some way or another.  During one of these schemes, when the girls do something particularly amazing, Bruno remarks breathlessly 'those girls.... they remind me of us.'  It was the highest compliment he could pay.

That line has always stuck with me, because truly, one of the highest compliments one could pay to someone else is that they remind you of yourself.  In your own eyes, you are the hero of your own story, and so to be like you is to be fantastic.  To be like you is to attain as close as possible to perfection this side of heaven.  And this is why I love this rich young man - because he's like us. 

When he bounds over to Jesus, and kneels before him, he doesn't embark on any of the complicated ethical questions that others have asked Jesus.  When the lawyers and scribes test Jesus, they do so by asking questions about whether it's okay to pay taxes or not, or if it's lawful to get divorced, and Jesus responds.  They ask him by what authority Jesus does miracles, or why his disciples don't wash their hands at an appropriate time.  All sorts of questions that seem important to the doctors and merchants and lawyers.  But they're not questions that plague you, I'll bet. 

If you were to be able to ask Jesus only one question, if you could sit him down and ask only one question, it would likely be the same one as this rich young man does - how do I get into heaven.  There we go.  No fanciness, no beating around the bush, just straight into the solar plexus, what do I have to do to get into heaven.  That's what I want to know.  Nothing else. 

And Jesus replies truthfully, which is to say 'you know the commandments: Don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't kill, dont' defraud, honor your mother and father.'  Success!  This is what the young

man wanted to hear.  Heck, it's what we all want to hear! If we were to ask Jesus how to get into heaven, the answer we want to hear is 'be a good person.'  We want to hear that answer because, as mentioned earlier, we are the heroes of our own story.  To get through the day, we have essentially convinced ourselves that we are not just good people, but the best people.  We are good and upright.  We do things well.  We are the people here on Earth who get it right and do things well almost always.  Our problems that we encounter are the fault of other people who get in our way and bust us up.  We don't make mistakes.  That's not us.  And so the best answer that Jesus can possibly give to us is to 'be a good person' because that's what we believe that we're already doing.

This rich young ruler, same thing.  He hears the pronouncement from Jesus and responds joyfully, saying 'I've done all this from my youth!'  Be a good person?  I'm already a good person!  Sweet sassie.  So when the young man says to Jesus 'fantastic, I've done all this my whole life,' Jesus looks at him and loves him.

That's ordinarily where the story would end, right?  That's where the story wraps up, at least in our own minds.  'How do I get into heaven?' 'Be a good person.'  'I'm a good person.' 'Outstanding.'  But the story doesn't end there, because upon looking at him, Jesus loves him.  And love is a terrible, dangerous thing. 

Most of us don't want to be loved, we want to be liked.  We want to be liked, because like doesn't require much of anything.  it doesn't require change or painful growth.  When someone says 'I like you,' they're saying that they appreciate who you are right now, they like what they are currently seeing.  When someone says 'I love you,' they're saying 'I like what I have right now, and I want it to grow and develop, to be better tomorrow than it is today.'  And that's a painful thing. 

It's a difficult thing to be loved, much easier to be liked.  You can be liked by your buddies who will encourage you to drink too much and fight some guy in a bar.  You can be loved by your wife who will encourage you not to drink, and to save your liver.  This is what love is, you understand, is wanting the best for the object of your love.

We've all encountered this love, you know.  The friends who remind you that you're not happy with your new boyfriend, your granny who helpfully points out that you've gained weight, your parents who continue to remind you of your marks in school and how they could be better if you were working to your potential - this is the kind of love we don't want.  The love that bends us and breaks us and makes us into something that we weren't before.  Because that person loves us.

It is this love that compelled Jesus to speak to this young man, to tell him 'okay, so you've told me how you've kept all the commandments your whole life?  Well and good.  But I'm not here to congratulate you for your successes.  I'm here to fix your failings.'

How would you feel about a dentist who congratulated you for your mouth full of healthy teeth, but ignored the one that was placing you in agony?  Or a doctor who praised your breathing while ignoring your broken leg that made you unable to walk out of the waiting room?  What would you think of parents that shrugged their shoulders as you went to your death, or teachers who just plain didn't care if you did your homework or not?  I know we want to be liked, but sometimes we are loved, and love is a dangerous thing.  Jesus has in mind for us to be perfect, just as God himself is perfect. That's the rule and the standard - there is no other.  And when this rich young ruler comes before Jesus and says to him 'I'm a good person,' Jesus essentially responds by saying 'I don't want you to be a good person in your own eyes.  I want you to be perfect.'  Or, to put it another way, 'You may think you are good, but nobody is good but God.'

So Jesus points out his failings.  Even after going through all his strengths, Jesus points out his failings, telling him that it is good that he is doing the work he has been doing so far, but he still has a long way to go.  He needs to be perfect as God is perfect.  If he isn't, then that's why he needs Jesus.

For Jesus looked at him, and loved him.  And he looks at us, and loves us.  And his love requires our perfection.  So where do we go with this love?  Well, Jesus helpfully articulates what his love for us is.  He looks at you, and loves you, and tells you this: No man has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends.' 

That there is the good news of the Gospel.  Not that you're a good person, because you aren't. Sometimes it takes consulting with God to see how far you have still to go, even if you think you keep the commandments perfectly.  Even if you kept them all but one, there would still be room to go and room to grow - you still wouldn't be perfect as God would demand.  So if you're not going to be perfect on your own, then Jesus will remind you of your need for him.  He will be your savior.  His pointing out of your weaknesses will show you just how far you still have to go, further than you can go in your entire life.  Jesus doesn't tell you this to dishearten you, nor to make you feel bad, but to remind you of your need for him.  He does this to tell you that as good as you think you are, you aren't perfect.  But he is.  And he has come to die for you.

The young man leaves disheartened, because he has many posessions.  He has just been reminded of what he has that is keeping him from God, and he is disheartened because of it.  Perhaps his heart has been hardened, perhaps he is not thrilled about being informed of this, or perhaps he is angry that Jesus has dared to point out that he is less than perfect.  What is he going to do from this point on?  Who can say?  He may sell his posessions, but likely not.  Odds are instead that he will go back to his home, and pretend that Jesus doesn't say what he says. 

But Jesus does say what he says.  He says it and means it.  And he tells anyone who will listen that they have a long way to go, an interminably long way to go.  They'll never get there. Which is why Jesus has to come to them.  Don't harden your heart, don't listen only to the first half of the love of Christ, listen to it all.  Not just his desire for you to be improved, but his willingness to accomplish it for you.

The great divorce

Great meaning large or immense, we use it in the pejorative sense.

That's right, the teachings from Jesus on divorce.  This is unpopular, isn't it?  I mentioned that I wasn't really looking forward to the readings for Sunday, and I asked my wife to guess what they could possibly be, and she guessed that it was 'wives submit to your husbands.'  Very close.  It was
actually the teachings, obviously from Jesus about divorce, and they're much harsher than we would expect. Especially today.

For you see, these days, folks get divorced at an alarming rate.  That is, they get divorced at the rate of about 50%.  That's not an accurate number, you understand.  That number is purely hearsay, but it's out there now, and we're going to have to deal with it.  Anyhow, let's go conservative, and say that the number is hovering around 40%.  Fine.  The big surprise for us is that the Christian population doesn't show any appreciable increase in marriage survival rate over the outside population.  That is, you're not looking at a massive increase in either marital fidelity, or marital survival over the vast heathen hordes.  And these are people who believe sincerely that Jesus really REALLY doesn't want you to get divorced.  He's quite opposed to it, to the point that he calls remarriage after divorce adultery. 

But you don't see Christians protesting outside courthouses that allow divorces.  You don't see them holding signs saying 'one life, one wife!' or 'Get your patrimony off my matrimony!'  Why on earth
don't you see those same signs in the same way you'd be seeing protests associated with same-sex marriage or abortion clinics?  Probably because unlike those, the people who are protesting might very well be protesting themselves.  Why did furor about divorce die off?  Because people got divorced.  And if a lot of people get divorced, then all of a sudden nobody wants to talk about divorce anymore.

If I've imparted nothing else to you, and I haven't, your one take-away from all of my ramblings should be that everything is a democracy, even when it isn't.  Everything happening in Iraq, Syria, all those places, well, they're all democracies, even if they're dictatorships.  If enough people in the country decide they want Bashar Al-Asad gone, he'd be gone.  Ask how Khadaffi is doing these days.  If you get enough people deciding something, hitting critical mass, then things become that.  The only thing that isn't, and can't be a democracy, is God's word.  We don't get to take parts out based on them being unpopular.

But we want to.  Because so many of us get divorced, we want to edit Jesus, and make it so his requirements on us aren't so high.  We get to thinking that what he demands is impossible, and so knowing that, our job is just to make what he says easier.  Less complicated.  We take his words, and fudge them around, making sure that he doesn't actually put holes in what we do.  We want to make sure that he's not going to bust us up, that he'll turn his attention elsewhere.

But it's not a democracy.  If Jesus says something that gets under your skin, your job isn't to strike out those words.  It's to hear them, and if you need to be made uncomfortable by them, then to be made uncomfortable by them.  If Jesus tells you that you have something to change, don't react to it by changing him.  And if we look at those words of Jesus about divorce, and claim that they're too hard, then that should tell you why you need Jesus.

To be honest, everything he says is too hard.  Have you ever noticed that?  It's not a plan that he gives you that is easy or straightforward.  When Jesus talks to his people, he tells them to be perfect, just as God is perfect.  That's a tall order, and not one that we can realistically attain.  Obviously.  Nobody's perfect. 

But on this issue, we complain and get mad, and when we read the firm, inflexible words of Jesus, we get upset, saying to him 'No, you don't understand!  You don't know what it's like to live with someone who hurts you.  You don't know what it's like to fall out of love, to find out your spouse is unfaithful.  You don't know what it's like to lose your faith and fellowship in someone.  You don't know.'

And to that, Jesus responds by saying 'don't I?'  He's in a relationship with us.  We, as the church, are called the bride of Christ, and we're an unfaithful bride.  A bride who is interested in other gods.  A bride who wants attention from elsewhere.  An unsatisfied bride, who takes and never gives.  We end up not talking to each other for long periods, not visiting, not spending time together.  We end up, essentially, as strangers.  There has been a major breakdown in our relationship over time, and it's on our shoulders.  If there was ever a reason for someone to want to get out of a relationship, Jesus would have plenty of reasons to get out of his relationship with us. 

Here's where the Bible matters though.  Even though we understand that we are a long way away from perfection, this is where Jesus shines.  He's not in the business of telling you what to do, giving you a moral lesson, and then just letting you get on with it, he's in the business of two things
1 - fulfilling the law on your behalf, and
2 - forgiving you when you don't measure up.

Maybe for the first and only time ever, you have time and space in church to quit pretending.  You have time and space in that worship service to say to God 'I haven't done everything right.  My marriage is a shambles that nobody knows about, I'm just barely holding on, I don't think we're going to last even though I post on facebook constantly about how in love we are.  What am I going to do?'  That's what Jesus is all about.  You bring him your weakness, you leave with his strength.  Maybe your marriage is failing, perhaps it's already fallen apart.  That doesn't mean that we need to look at Jesus' words and delete them, or to pretend that he never said them, but to look at them and realize that level of commitment is not just good, it's divine.  And that's the level of commitment that God through Christ has promised to us.  Throughout the Bible, he tells us 'If it were not so, would I have told you?'  In other words, he's been trustworthy and true this whole time.  We believe him because he tells us the truth. 

When he says things that upset us, because he forbids things we do, we have a couple of choices.  We can walk away, saying 'This is a hard teaching, who can understand it?' or we can say with some degree of confidence 'Lord, where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!'  Essentially, it's not your job to be perfect but to be made perfect.  It is your job to have your sins forgiven, to not hide them or stash them away or to pretend Jesus doesn't say what he says.  He does say it.  He does mean it.  And our faith in his power to forgive, cleanse, and make whole, rests in his promise.  He told us he would draw us to himself, he told us he would forgive and make all things new.  We believe in him as children believe in their parents.

Because they promise.

Cut it out!

So, why does Jesus say what he says? 

That seems like an obvious question, but it isn't.  It's not actually as straightforward as you might expect. Why do any of us say things, really?  It's not why we think we do.  We think we say things in order that we might be heard and observed, in order that we might communicate and further human discourse.  But then there are times when we say things to 'make conversation.'  You know, when we say things just to fill the mental space that is not currently being used for anything else.  Nobody's saying anything, so we figure we might as well add something to the mix.  And so we say stuff just for the sake of saying it.  'Reading the newspaper?' 'Watching TV and playing on your phone?'  Stating and restating the obvious, just for the sake of having something to say. To 'make conversation.'  Only problem is that we don't make conversation when we do that, not really.  We just fill space with words. 

But Jesus doesn't do that.  How are we so sure that he doesn't do that?  Well, if you get right the way to the end of the Gospel of John, it'll tell you all about it.  There are many other things that Jesus did that aren't recorded in this book, but these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.  All simple and above board, certainly.  Or so we'd think. 

But then we get to passages about cutting off limbs.  And when we get to passages that talk about cutting off limbs, we are far more tempted to think that Jesus is just making conversation.  Oh, sure, he's talking about amputations, but he's just exaggerating for effect.  He doesn't actually mean it, does he?  Or does he?

There's a movement out there that is called 'red letter Christianity.'  I won't bore you with the details, but essentially what we're looking at is that the letters of Jesus that show up in the Bible (often helpfully in red ink) are incredibly important, and matter.  Now, we won't get into the discussion as to whether all scriptures is God-Breathed (it is), or if scripture interprets scripture (it does).  Instead, we're going to isolate those words of Jesus and ask ourselves 'does he mean it?'  Simple question.  If we say that he doesn't mean it, then we are setting ourselves up for all sorts of trouble as we pick through the words of Christ in the Bible.  Oh sure, Jesus doesn't really mean what he says about care for the poor and feeding the sick and taking care of the weak and the orphans.  That's too hard!  Some might say that's impossible.  Okay, sure. And it is.  But just because it's impossible, doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't mean what he says. 

Take, for example, a quite serious thing that Jesus says, when he tells everyone 'be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.'  Would we say that because this is impossible (yes, your perfection is impossible), that Jesus is therefore not serious, is only joking, and shouldn't be taken seriously?  Or do we say that he means it, that his intention for us is to be perfect, and we have to grapple with what that means. 

So back, once again, to his suggestion that if our hands or feet offend us, that we should remove them.  If it is your hands or feet that lead you into a life of sin, Jesus suggests removing them.  But he is also suggesting that you remove yourself from any cause of sin.  Whatever it is that is dragging you down and causing you to sin, remove it, be far from it, because sin is a serious business.  Though he doesn't talk about it often, he does mention hellfire in this section, and it's no joke.

Yes, I know, I'm not what you would call a fire and brimstone preacher.  In fact, I'm not sure what brimstone even is, only that it's bad, and I should avoid it.  Beyond that, no clue.  But when Jesus speaks up about Hellfire and damnation, it's a good idea to listen.  It's a good idea to listen because Jesus takes sin very seriously.  He takes it more seriously than we in the church do.  Most of us are pretty relaxed about sin, take it easy, don't think about it too much.  We don't dwell on our sin and what it's doing to us at all.  We think instead that our sin is something for Jesus to deal with, and for us to laughingly do, and then half-heartedly repent of later.  What does Jesus expect?  We're not perfect!

Jesus doesn't do what we want him to, though.  He doesn't shrug his shoulders at sin and pretend like it's no big deal.  He reminds you, exhaustively if necessary, that it is a big deal, and it always was.  Your little sins, the things you do on a daily basis, that's what's dragging you down to hell.  It's not the big stuff only (though make no mistake, it is the big stuff), but it's the small stuff too.  The little indescretions, the hushed whispers, the browsers opened in incognito mode.  The things you do that nobody knows about so you can fool yourself into thinking that there are no consequences, and it won't matter.

But it does.  it's the stuff you do that is the problem, not the stuff other people do.  Let them do whatever they're going to do, and don't worry about it.  Don't fret, don't sweat, don't focus on what they're all about, think about yourself.  Jesus is talking about your sin, and how your sin is leading you to hell.  Eternal hellfire and damnation where the fire never dies out, and the worm never stops eating away.  Sound fun?  Of course it doesn't.  What would you do to avoid it?  Anything Lord, anything! Would you cut off your hand?  Well, no, no I wouldn't.  I've grown quite attached to it.  Well, would you throw out your computer?  No, Lord, for I need it for work, and to watch cat videos in addition to pornography.  Okay, well would you then install filters on your internet browser to avoid seeing that content anymore?  No, Lord, for I don't really want to stop.

Aha.  How our excuses fall.  Sure, if you wanted to stop, I'm certain you could.  If you wanted to quit, there would be ample opportunities to do so.  If you really wished to steer aside from your sin, it would be possible, but you and I and Jesus all know that you won't.  Far from cutting off your own hands, you won't even change the TV channel to save your soul.  So what now?  Just abject defeat?  Is this the end of all things?  Or is it something else entirely?

When Jesus tells you to cut off your hands and feet, he is doing so not for effect, but telling us what it would take to seriously avoid sin.  What would it take?  It would take body part removal on a large scale.  And yet none of us Christians seem to do that.  We don't chop off our hands or toss away our feet.  Why not?  Because the weight of the problem carries with it a solution - it carries with it the solution in Christ Jesus.  The price of staying clear is far too high - sacrificing our hands and feet!  But that's that Jesus does to keep us free from sin.  In order that we might be saved from the consequences of our sin, Jesus doesn't demand that you give up your hands and your feet, but he gives up his.  Think of the price Jesus pays on the cross for your sin - think of what he loses.  He gives up his friends, his freedom, his safety.  He gives up his dignity, his clothes, and his family.  At the end, he gives up his hands and his feet, not cut off, but nailed down, and pinned to the cross.  and there he dies.  Dies for you, and for me, dies for the sins that we wouldn't cross the street or put down a book to avoid.

But the great thing is, the story doesn't end there.  There was a bit in Blackadder (a british TV show from the 80s) in which a thorny theological problem got introduced.  Namely "Suppose my right hand offends me, and I cut it off.  Well, suppose my left hand offends me as well.  What do I cut it off
with?"  Funny, but it does illustrate a good point, which is after you cut off a hand, you don't have another one grow back in its place.  Humans are not built to do this, you understand.  We don't regrow limbs.  Gone is gone, and dead is dead.  You have to be really sure cutting that hand off will solve the problem.  Well, Jesus was sure that his death would solve the problem of your sin.  He knew it would.  Itw as all plotted out, this was the price that had to be paid.  So he paid that price, bled and died, and your sin was gone.  But unlike you, you who could only lose a hand once, Jesus died and then rose again.  Paying the price for all time, and yet keeping all the glory to share with us.  The amazing miracle of the resurrection isn't only that your sins are paid for, but that you sins are paid for by the one who actually had the resources to do it.  Not you, you don't have anything close to enough in your bank balance.  This is why you lean on the glory of Christ, because he has promised to give unto you grace everlasting out of his riches.  How much does he have to give?  Enough that death itself can't hold him down.