The Freedom of the Kingdom of God

 A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

Imagine. You have been hearing about this Jesus from friends and family. He’s been doing amazing things: healing and casting out demons. He’s been telling people about God. Some say he is God.

But the thing that really gets you. The thing that really draws you to this man, is that he speaks about another world. Another world that is also our world.

Jesus says that it is close. It is near. It is possible. And we must be ready. And the way we must get ready is to live according to the values we find in this coming world. According to the love and justice of God.

You hear in the words of Jesus that this coming kingdom will see the sources of our deepest stress and despair; the things that cause the pits in our stomach and weights on our chest — to melt away.

And you want in on this.

And so you find Jesus. And you say, “I want to follow you. I want to live as a citizen of this new kingdom. In fact, I’ve already been practicing. I keep all the commandments. I’m a good person.”

And ready to be received into the inner circle of disciples with a hug and a handshake, instead …  Jesus says to you, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Oof.

My favorite detail in this passage — maybe the most important detail — is that before he responds to this man, we are told, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”

As the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney has preached, “[Jesus] saw all the mistakes and wrong decisions, bad choices and hurtful words, anger and betrayal, dishonesty and disrespect, lust, greed and, bigotry. Whatever it was that was inside [him], Jesus saw it all and loved [him] anyway.”

Start there. Always start there. With Jesus’ love. 

And, this man that Jesus sees and loves and knows so well finds the notion of letting go of those things he is asked to as tragic. Terrible enough to grieve. To grieve. A word we associate with the loss of a loved one. 

I think this grieving response gives us a hint as to Jesus’ dream for this man and the reason behind his request. Because it seems at some point this man’s “many possessions” have come to possess him. Have come to take on a meaning greater than they ought to. So great they stand in the way of taking on the call he hears so clearly to follow Jesus.

I like to imagine, or I guess hope, that this man eventually came around. Sat and considered and prayed. I like to imagine he met Jesus’ challenge. Sold his many things and returned to him.

Because I hope he got to catch a glimpse of the vision that brought him to Jesus in the first place. That coming world that offers freedom from all of those things that possess us.

But it is important to remember that when Jesus speaks to this man, he is also surrounded by a crowd. Hanging onto every word. Ready to spread it to the next person and the next person … probably the way this man first heard about this itinerant preacher and healer. 

And that crowd, in that time and that place, was living in a world where “the concentration of wealth was in the hands of a small elite group, at the expense of an impoverished majority of the population.” Huge estates were created and maintained thanks to  the exploitation of landless laborers. “The pressure on the poor was immense, with factors such as overpopulation and over-cultivation of the land, natural disasters, and increasing tributes and tithes. These all combined to force the already poor majority into an arduous struggle for mere survival.” (1)

So, it was within these human-made conditions — these systems. These attitudes. These policies – that Jesus speaks. To this man, and to all of those gathered living within these systems. Wealth and poverty, both likely present and accounted for among his listeners.

And it is under no dissimilar conditions that Jesus encounters us, today. In this context. Here and now. And he is still loving us. And still challenging us to see the systems that allow for poverty to exist in the first place. To learn about them. And to work toward dismantling them. Challenging us to feel the water we swim in. And to imagine something new — to believe something new — is possible.

As the Rev. Dr. Raquel S. Lettsome puts it, Jesus’ instructions to this man, and to us, seek to “remediate economic practices that consign the majority of people to poverty.” To be a disciple “forbids oppression of the poor” and “protects the least of these.” (2

Sooo, yes. For those who have asked (and they do ask!), the Gospel is political. Is anti-oppression. Is anti-poverty in a world that is so often anti-poor people.

 And this is, I think, a particularly helpful truth for me to have top-of-mind during an election season.

When we go to the polls, I believe we can and we should bring the Gospel with us; have God’s vision and special concern for the poor and marginalized in the forefront of our minds, as we discern.

Because sometimes, our decisions may benefit the marginalized at the expense of our own comfort, wealth and/or power. This too is the step toward freedom Jesus challenges us to.

Now, please do not worry – I’m not now or ever going to tell how to vote (whew) but I do think creating forums to help us all get more informed about these decisions often goes unrecognized as the Holy work of discipleship that it is, and I am so glad we are doing it as a church community here at St. John’s.

I was happy to be with many of you at the League of Women Voters Ballot Initiatives primer last week, and I hope to see you at the “Ballots and Burgers” event taking place next week after the 10am service. You’ll hear more about that during announcements.

So yes, I think Jesus is speaking to the individual and to the collective this morning with his famous or perhaps infamous warning about the camel fitting through the eye of that needle. I think he is pushing us yes, to let go of our excesses which only serve to weigh us down. And, to see the larger picture of the oppressive structures that allow poverty to exist in the same world that also contains unimaginable wealth. I think he is asking us to imagine something so much better.

Because a world without poverty would mean freedom for, not only the poor, but for all of us.

The freedom of the kingdom of God.

1 Loving the Poor Saving the Rich by Helen Rhee, as quoted in The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty and the Church Today by Miguel Escobar, page 34

2 Raquel S. Lettsome, Fortress Commentary on the Bible, “Mark.”