Starting to think about Sunday's 'preach'. (My Mum's Church has taken the verb to preach and made a noun a preach out of it - bless).
The Gospel is the story of the 'Rich young ruler', although Mark only records his being male and wealthy here. Here is a classic example of somebody that Jesus actually succeeds in putting off.
Most of us think of Evangelism as the process of telling (selling?) the benefits of being a Christian (for example, eternal life or a right relationship with God), but Jesus doesn't do this - or if he does I don't think I can think of one example. The final verses of this passage refer to a follower of Jesus receiving "things", but in relation to getting back what was lost in the following.
Jesus, in fact, seems much happier telling people what they must lose in order to follow him. Is he supremely confident about his ability to sell the Gospel, or have we lost our nerve?
I've been struggling with this for the 8am slot here in NE Hants, and my first sermon as a Licensed Lay Minister...
From which, a thought: we don't know that Jesus puts him off... we only know that he went away with the mental collywobbles having been unable to respond to Jesus in the same way that certain fishermen had.
And then I thought this (in the voice of Jesus):
“perhaps that young man was closer to the truth in asking his question, than Peter and the others are in asking theirs. Because rich though he was, he’d not lost sight of the end-game, the reason for all this talking, and teaching and sharing, the reason why I have to go to Jerusalem... Without all that, and especially without what I know must happen in Jerusalem, you, my Father, can not get as close to him as that young man really desires, if only he could admit it."
Posted by: ramtopsrac | October 08, 2009 at 10:17 PM