Mark 10:17-31
Raymond A. Foss
Suncook United Methodist Church
Suncook, NH
Laity Sunday
October 11, 2009
Does this scripture make you uncomfortable, a little bit maybe? I know it does for me. And, if I shared John Wesley’s sermon on the same scripture, “On Riches”, with you, I think we would be even more uncomfortable.
What do we take from this passage? What can I as a person, what can we as a congregation and people of faith in a land of such abundance, learn from this lesson? What is Jesus actually telling us to do?
I have been thinking about this scripture, the story of the Rich Man and the teaching of how hard it is for a rich man to go to heaven, and about being called to follow Christ.
And Jesus often talks about what it means to follow him, what we must be prepared to give up. Those first disciples, as Peter ably relates in the scripture, gave up everything. They did drop the nets, left their families. They even left their father in the boat with the hired me. They did it. They stopped serving one master and chose to serve another. They took up their cross and followed Jesus.
I have often thought about these lessons, for both myself and for our country, this land of plenty, this blessed land. I am mindful too of what is going on in the world now, about hunger in the world (something I’m particularly mindful of this morning after walking over 6 miles yesterday), about the health care debate here at home, and about the global environmental threat of climate change and our role in that as individuals and as a country.
Have you determined yet what your carbon footprint is yet? I’m not sure I want to know how much I am contributing to global warming, especially after thinking about what Muffie shared about the amount of water we all use versus what others around the world have to use. When we drained the pool in our back yard for the year, I thought, “How many people around the world could have used that?”
More personally, I struggle with all of this as an attorney, as a father, and as someone who has been blessed with the particular, specific, gift of poetry from God. I believe in my heart that it is my “starfish”, as Pastor Huntley talked of back on July 26.
To refresh our memory, he told the story of the man standing on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. Another man, maybe any one of us, prudently asked the man why he was throwing them back, that he couldn’t possibly save all of the starfish on the beach. The first man replied that it made a difference to each one he did save from the sun’s heat, out of the living waters.
But I have this nagging feeling, this questioning. I have felt a call to do more with my gift of Poetry. I’ve gone so far as to ask myself, “Should I give up my law practice and try to write poetry for a living? Am I not following Christ because I haven’t dropped this one life and picked up the cross and trusted that this was what Jesus wants me to do? Is that where my treasure is? “
I think the message of Christ; I think God is challenging us to trust in Him. that He will provide if we are faithful servants. That is in our work and in our sharing of our gifts.
In my work, I have a lot of clients who haven’t paid me as an attorney. I have a lot of clients who I have taken on pro bono or at a very reduced fee. I sort of grit my teeth thinking about how much is owed. But, you know, God has provided. We have had the money we needed for our daily bread. We have this wonderful church family. We have this wonderful church home.
And I have responded by writing more poems, posting them in more places, and I have been blessed by the responses from around the world.
In the forty-four years of my life before meeting Ruth, I had written a total of 300 poems. In the last 5 ears, since the beginning of October 2004 to now, I have written and posted a total of 4,350 poems, 450 in just the last 3 months. And, for me, I drop my nets regularly when God calls. You see, most of my poems come when God wants them to, not when I have stopped on my own to write.
Bottom line for me as an individual, I guess, is that I don’t want to come before God with a full silo, like one of the other rich men in scripture, in Luke 12:13-21. I would like to share two poems I wrote about that scripture, based on the sermon Pastor Huntley gave on November 23, 2008, Thanksgiving time last year. The first one is called:
Storing Up When We Should Give
A foolish man, so the lectionary calls the rich man
his new silos, full, bursting; but empty
his life for the work, for storing up, preparing only
for the rest of this life, his time on this mortal coil
When the master calls, he is empty, unprepared
for his appointment with destiny
Storing up, when he should give
calling on man when God is there
when God would provide
all he, all we need
November 23, 2008
Luke 12:13-21 and sermon,
“The Human Need to Give”,
by the Reverend Huntley Halvorson,
Suncook United Methodist Church
The second one is called:
Grain Spoiled
Like the manna, enough provided, all he would need
his daily bread, relying on the Lord
Grain spoiled, in the silos, the garners
useless grain, at the end of his days
Gathered in and unshared, more than his daily needs
Spoiled, lost, when he was called home
November 23, 2008
Luke 12:13-21 and sermon,
“The Human Need to Give”,
by the Reverend Huntley Halvorson,
Suncook United Methodist Church
As a church, I think we hear this calling from God, to give to our brothers and our sisters, to not store our grain, through Our Family’s Table, through our monthly dinners, through the bread ministry on Wednesday nights, through the Food Pantry, through things like the CROP walk and other ways that we as individuals serve those in need.
And, as a country, I think God is calling us to be more giving, to see our neighbors as Jesus would see them, as part of our family. I would like to close, with the challenge that Jim Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church posed in his weekly column in Faith in Action on September 28, 2008. He forcefully reminds all of us that we, the United Methodist Church, have approved a call to action to bring about universal health coverage in America, and a single-payer system for healthcare for all, in Paragraph #3201 of the 2008 Book of Resolutions, found on pages 346 to 356.
He said that we need to be preaching about the need for health care in our country, for all. It is what we believe and it is what we should be calling for from our leaders.
Pretty uncomfortable stuff, especially when it is humans who draft the legislation in Washington to make this happen. And we are all aware of human flaws and frailties.
As so often happens when I read scripture, when I read my devotionals, or something like this letter, I felt God’s uncomfortable nudge, his calling to me, to drop my nets and to write.
This is one of the two poems I wrote about this challenge from Jim (which I sent to President Obama too). It is called:
In this Land of Plenty
In this land of plenty
no one should know hunger or fear
none should be without
the care they dearly need
We are our brothers’, our sisters’ keepers
their neighbors on this earth
we share the same human birth
our trials just the same
Our ways are made more gentle
our paths made more straight
when we each stop and help our neighbor
a good Samaritan’s hand offered
when no one is watching at all
All of us the same
no one better or worse
all called to follow
the master’s message
his command
To love one another
as we would choose to be loved
to help each other
to offer comfort to our neighbors
as we would hope they would do
All should be covered
no insurance withheld
all of our brothers, our sisters
worthy of healthcare
whenever they are in need
September 30, 2009
Faith In Action newsletter,
Word from Winkler, 9/28/09
http://www.umc-gbcs.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=frLJK2PKLqF&b=5489299&ct=7532533&tr=y&auid=5386346
Congregational malpracticeBy Jim Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society
& Alive Now daily devotional
http://alivenow.upperroom.org/daily-reflections/daily-reflections-for-september-28-october-4/
for September 30, 2009
“An Uncomfortable Nudge”,
by Roland Rink
I don’t know about you; but I think I’m actually glad I am uncomfortable about this scripture. I think we should be. We need to always be testing our lives against the example of Christ and his teachings, to the words of our own faith, and to Jesus’ challenges to the rich man, to all of us.
Before my final thought, I do need to include the final paragraph of John Wesley’s sermon, “On Riches”. Hear these words.
“O let your heart be whole with God! Seek your happiness in him and him alone. Beware that you cleave not to the dust! "This earth is not your place." See that you use this world as not abusing it; use the world, and enjoy God. Sit as loose to all things here below, as if you were a poor beggar. Be a good steward of the manifold gifts of God; that when you are called to give an account of your stewardship, he may say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"”
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/108/
So, what will you do with this teaching; where is your treasure, what’s in your silo, and whom will you follow?
Amen
All
of my poems are copyrighted by Raymond A. Foss, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. All rights
reserved. Contact me at Ray
Foss for usage. See all 29,160+ of my poems at www.raymondafoss.blogspot.com
Poetry Where You Live.
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