Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath (2000) |
Mark 10:17-31
October 11, 2015
Myers Park Baptist Church
Charlotte, NC
Inner-life questions are the
kind everyone asks, with or without benefit of God-talk: “Does my life have
meaning and purpose?” “Do I have gifts that the world wants and needs?” “Whom
and what shall I serve?” “Whom and what can I trust?” “How can I rise above my
fears?”
—Parker Palmer
—Parker Palmer
If you are a
fan of Hollywood movies, you may remember the pyscho-thriller “What Lies Beneath.” To even mention it 15
years after it was in theaters is to
give it far too much credit. Its only redeeming quality was that its
co-stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer were very easy to look at. The couple
that Ford and Pfeiffer played, Dr. Norman Spencer and his wife Claire had a perfect marriage and a
perfect life, at least on the
surface, until the
stories they told themselves and others began to unravel as
what lay beneath bubbled up and broke
the surface. This morning’s gospel lesson from Mark 10 is no psycho-thriller, but it is no less unsettling for what lies beneath in it.
On my first day of seminary, I walked
across campus to the cafeteria with several of my new classmates. We chatted about where we were from and about
our current and previous work in churches. Kirby was quieter than the rest of us and a
decade or more older. He had
never served a church in a paid capacity, he said. He was a businessman who two years earlier decided that God was telling him to sell everything he had and give the money to the poor. When
he informed his pastor of
what God was telling him, his
pastor was not as fond of the idea
as
Kirby and God were. “If you do that,” his pastor asked, “who will provide for your wife and your two
daughters? How will you survive?” Kirby quoted Genesis 22:14: “The
Lord will provide,” and
his pastor said they should talk again. The eventual outcome of many conversations was that Kirby’s pastor convinced
him that what God was really
saying was
that he should sell his
possessions and go to seminary. So he quit his job and sold his
family’s house, and
the four of them moved from
Florida to North Carolina for Kirby to attend seminary. When we reached the end
of
the cafeteria serving line, Kirby
headed off to join our
classmates at a table, and I made a beeline to the opposite side of the room because
I had no interest in eating
lunch with
someone who was obviously crazy.
I
had spent my whole life in church,
and I had never met anyone who actually believed that God wanted her or him to sell
everything she or he had.
As I sat eating my
lunch alone, it dawned on me that what really disturbed me was not that Kirby might be playing with several cards short of a
full deck. What really disturbed me was
that his faith story called into
question the authenticity and integrity of my faith story.
I also believed that I was doing what
God was telling me to do, but of
course I was sane and he
was crazy. Says who? And
then there were my underlying
assumptions and expectations. I assumed and expected that going to seminary would lead to a job and home ownership and providing for my family. But
this guy had all that and
gave it up to go to seminary. Suddenly,
it didn’t look as though I was
following Jesus at all. I was just one more Baby Boomer chasing the American dream conveniently covered with a thin gospel
veneer.
So tell
me this: What do you do when the
story you are telling yourself and
others about
your life becomes hollow, inauthentic,
fraudulent even? What
happens when the “inner-life
questions,” as Parker Palmer calls them, bubble up and break the surface? That’s
what happens in this morning’s gospel lesson. The characters who hear Jesus’ words are
forced to face what lies beneath: those inner-life questions that call
into question our assumptions
and our expectations.
A college
development officer tells the
story of
working with one of the school’s major donors to cultivate a large gift to the college from a friend of the donor. The donor had committed $2 million to the
college’s capital campaign, and
the plan was to ask a friend of his
for a gift of $1 million. The friend’s net assets were in excess of $110 million, so the gift he would be asked to give was about nine tenths of one percent of his net
assets. The donor and his friend each flew their private jets into a regional airport in a nearby state. Over dinner, the donor and the development
officer talked about the college’s vision and
its mission and its capital campaign and the gift the donor had made. Finally, the donor popped the question: “We want to
ask you to consider giving the college a $1 million gift.” The friend was quiet for a moment; and then he responded, “O my, no. I couldn’t possibly afford to give a
gift that large.” On the flight
home, the
disappointed development officer
asked
the donor, “How can he possibly
think that
he can’t afford to give a
million dollars?” “I see it all
the time,” the donor replied. “No matter how much some people have, they are insecure and anxious and afraid they will lose control of it.”
In that development officer’s story and in this
morning’s gospel lesson what people have is on the surface; but insecurity,
anxiety, and fear
of losing control lie beneath. When the
man who came to Jesus heard the words Jesus spoke to him, “he
was shocked” and grieved. But it’s important for us to see that
what Jesus said in Mark 10 was no
less disturbing to the disciples:
After
the man left, Jesus said, “How
hard it will be for those who
have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” and the disciples were
immediately “perplexed
at these words,” because
these words violated their assumptions and expectations as well as those of the
man who left. And
when Jesus went on to say, “It is
easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark
10:25), the disciples were “greatly astounded.”
In the fall of 2003 when I was preparing to preach this passage from Year B in the lectionary cycle, I came to the realization that one reason being the pastor of a
tall-steeple church is exhausting
is that you expend an enormous amount of energy trying to shove camels’
behinds through needles’ eyes, and both the needle and the camel are resistant to the enterprise. The resistance of the needle is grounded in the laws of physics. But the
resistance of the camel is
grounded in insecurity, anxiety,
and
fear of losing control.
Jesus knew that. That’s
why Mark 10:21 says that Jesus, looking
at the man with many
possessions, “loved him.” Jesus
“loved him.” Jesus looked at him and loved him because Jesus saw right through the veneer to what lies beneath. Jesus saw what the man with many possessions had not
yet realized: The very things on
which he was relying for security,
contentment,
and control—in his case, rules-based
righteousness and possession-based contentment—were actually increasing his insecurity, compounding
his anxiety, and exacerbating
his fear of losing control. The story he was telling himself about his
life was a fraud.
So what do you do when you awaken one day to realize that your dream job is a nightmare; that the home of your dreams is a haunted house; that
your confidence in your own righteousness
or
your faithfulness or your talent
or
your good looks or your good health
or your friends or your spouse or your parents or your children or anyone or anything else has been misplaced? When the story you have been telling yourself about
your life becomes hollow,
inauthentic, fraudulent even? What do you do when that happens?
First, like the
characters in Mark 10, you are shocked, perplexed, and greatly astounded because
your expectations and
assumptions have been violated, destroyed. Second,
you grieve because
what you have lost is enormous.
Whatever else you have lost, you have lost your understanding of
yourself and your faith story
and your relationship with God and with others and with the world. And then, third, if you are wise, you stop
and strip off the veneer; you dispossess and divest yourself of the
hollow, inauthentic, and
fraudulent story you have been
telling yourself and others.
Here’s what I know: If you
will strip off the veneer to
expose your insecurity, anxiety, and fear to the light of day, you
will discover beneath them the solid mahogany, the genuine ebony, the cherry
through and through that Jesus sees and loves in you. Looking on you in all
your insecurity, anxiety, and
fear of losing control, Jesus
loves you. And here’s what else I know: When you discover that kind of love, accept that kind of love, and are embraced by that kind of
love, you will discover meaning and purpose in
your life; you will
accept whom and what you
shall serve; you
will embrace whom and what you
can trust; and you will
rise above your fears. You will.
And one last thing I know: Doing that is experiencing
the kingdom of God; and when you do, the needle, the camel, and the tall-steeple preacher will
all breathe a giant sigh of relief.
Copyrighted © 2015 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at 02tlsjeff@gmail.com.
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