Honesty and Healing

Better late than never: Here's my sermon from last month. Our pastor has taken some vacation time each of the last two months, and I've been blessed with the opportunity to fill in a couple of times. The lectionary readings for my October sermon were Psalm 22:1-8, 19-31; Job 23:1-12; Hebrews 4:12-16; and Mark 10:17-31.

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Probably my favorite new TV show this season has been a sitcom on NBC called “Go On.” Matthew Perry plays Ryan King, a sports radio talk show host. As the season began, Ryan was returning to work after the death of his wife in a car accident. He insisted that he was ready to move on, but his bosses required him to attend a support group for people dealing with loss.

At first, Ryan was skeptical. He tried to manipulate his way through the required sessions, but later realized that he actually was in need of help. As the season has progressed, he has become more and more aware of the depth of his grief and the fact that he can’t deal with it alone.

In our gospel reading this morning, we find Jesus having a conversation with a man who’s very much like Ryan King. The rich, young ruler, as he is known in the King James Version, is a wealthy, successful man, a man who seems to have it all together – and he thinks so, too. So he comes to Jesus with a simple question: “What do I need to do to have eternal life?” In other words, he’s asking, “What do I need to do to be pleasing to God? What makes God happy?”

I find Jesus’ first response interesting. You see, Jesus is asked this same question, or very similar questions, in other parts of scripture. Sometimes he answers by telling a story. Sometimes he condenses a complex idea down to one simple concept, as when he said the greatest commandments were to love God and love others. But when the rich, young ruler asks the question, Jesus gives an answer that’s sort of out of character for him: He quotes from the Ten Commandments.

He says, “You know what makes God happy: Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Honor your parents.” It’s one of the very rare times in his ministry that we find Jesus really seeming to endorse the law.

But I would argue that Jesus said this because he was anticipating the man’s response. He’s setting the man up for one of his life’s most pivotal moments.

When I envision this conversation, I imagine the man doing this Barney Fife kind of thing – trying to look modest, sort of sticking his hands in his pockets and looking down and kicking a rock and saying, “Well, I’ve … done that.” And I imagine that his pride was still shining through, despite his best efforts; and he stood there, waiting for some affirmation or a pat on the back from Jesus.

And he was shocked when Jesus said, “Great! Then give all of your possessions to the poor, and come follow me.”

Now, I’ve heard this passage interpreted as sort of a universal command for those who are wealthy. I’ve heard it used to suggest that everyone should live simply and give more away – and I don’t really disagree. But I don’t think that’s really the point here.

I think Jesus’ words to the rich, young ruler are not so much a commentary about wealth or greed or materialism; they’re about highlighting a dysfunction in this man’s heart.

There’s a great scene in “The Wizard of Oz.” It’s after Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion have defeated the Wicked Witch and returned to the Emerald City to give the Witch’s broom to the Wizard. Instead of sending Dorothy back to Kansas and giving the Scarecrow a brain and the Tin Man a heart and the Cowardly Lion some courage, the Wizard tries to intimidate them – until Toto runs in and pulls back the curtain, revealing that the Wizard is really just a man.

This is what Jesus does to the rich, young ruler. With one sentence, Jesus pulls back the curtain and exposes who he really is: A man who thought himself good and holy, but whose heart really belonged to his stuff. And the man walked away, sad because he was unwilling to let go.

Jesus later told the story of a self-inflated Pharisee, who offered a public prayer boasting of all his goodness, and a broken tax collector who humbly admitted his brokenness. In Jesus’ judgment, the tax collector was the one who went home made right with God. I think maybe, as he was telling this story, Jesus thought sadly of his encounter with the rich, young ruler who thought he had it all together.

On the other hand, we find a completely different attitude reflected in our Old Testament and responsive readings. Both Job and David came to God, not with boasting about their goodness, but with an acknowledgment of their desperate need for grace.

I have never spent a minute in seminary, so I don’t know much Hebrew. But the one word of Hebrew I know is “Tsa’aq.” It means to cry out, to call for help. It’s the cry of a victim, the desperate plea of one who demands justice. “Tsa’aq” is exactly what we find Job and David doing.

They come to God with their hearts ripped open, with their emotions laid bare. They don’t mince words; they cry out for rescue.

The writer of Hebrews urges us to “come boldly to the throne,” promising “that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Job and David are proof of this.

See, what I really love about these passages is that they don’t end with “Tsa’aq.” The desperation, the need, the frustration – they don’t have the last word.

Over the past few months, I’ve spent quite a bit of my driving time listening to Bruce Springsteen’s latest album. “Wrecking Ball” is very much a theme album – it‘s primarily about the economic problems American people have faced over the last four years or so, and the factors that caused this. The album follows a pretty clear emotional pattern: The first several songs are expressions of anger or sadness or frustration; then, the album begins to give way to clarity and, finally, unbridled hope. And the emotional hinge, right in the middle of the album, is a song called “This Depression.”

Like the passages from Job and Psalms, the song begins with an honest cry for help, as Springsteen sings, “I’ve been down, but never this down; I’ve been lost, but never this lost; This is my confession, I need your heart; In this depression, I need your heart.”

But by the last verse, something has changed; something starts to shift, and he sings, “I’ve been without love, but never forsaken; now the morning sun, the morning sun is breaking.”

This is exactly what we find in the Job and Psalm readings. After their pleas for help, after their cries of desperation, after their “Tsa’aq,” both Job and David find that “the morning sun is breaking.”

Listen to how instant David’s transition is – literally from one verse to the next. In one passage, in The Message paraphrase, he says, “You, God – don’t put off my rescue! Hurry and help me! Don’t let those mongrels devour me. If you don’t show up soon, I’m done for – gored by the bulls, meat for the lions.”

In the very next passage – in the next breath – this is what he says (again, from The Message):

“Here’s the story I’ll tell my friends when they come to worship, and punctuate it with Hallelujahs: Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers; give glory, you sons of Jacob; adore him, you daughters of Israel. He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.”

David apparently has this instant moment of clarity, this reminder that God is present – that God has always been present. And it changes his entire perspective.

So, by acknowledging who they really are and what they really need, David and Job are able to move past their desperation to a point at which they find sufficient grace. And by refusing to acknowledge his need, the rich, young ruler remained unchanged.

I was asked back in the summer to serve as an assistant coach for the Harlan County High School cross country team. Our course has a big hill, and one of the things that we have tried to instill in the kids is the importance of coming down the hill at full speed. It’s normal to want to hold back and tiptoe down the hill. But the fact is, getting down the hill fast is a great opportunity to gain some ground, and the momentum you have when you come off the hill can make all the difference in how you get to the finish line.

In the same way, by not holding back – by letting go and being honest about their need – Job and David were able to come through their pain into a place of clarity and healing and wholeness.

I said earlier that maybe Jesus had the rich, young ruler in mind when he told the story of the boastful Pharisee. But maybe he thought of us, too. It’s so easy for us to think ourselves stronger than we really are. Being honest about our need for grace is not easy; but until we do it, we’ll never be who we were meant to be.

So, what is the dysfunction of your heart? Is there something you can’t let go of? Is there a person or group of people you are unable or unwilling to accept? Is there pain that hasn’t been acknowledged?

We have an amazing opportunity. We have a friend who knows what we’re going through. We can come to him just as we are, and we can find the help we need.

This is also the hope that our world has – the hope that the way things are isn’t the way things will always be. I’d like to close with the words of a song by Andrew Peterson, titled “After the Last Tear Falls.”

                After the last tear falls, after the last secret’s told

                After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone

                After the last child starves, and the last girl walks the boulevard

                After the last year that’s just too hard, there is love

                After the last disgrace, after the last lie to save some face

                After the last cruel jab from a poison tongue

                After the last dirty politician, after the last meal down at the mission

                After the last lonely night in prison, there is love

                After the last plan fails, after the last siren wails

                After the last young husband sails off to join the war

                After the last “this marriage is over,” after the last young girl’s innocence is stolen

                After the last years of silence that won’t let a heart open, there is love

                And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again

                We’ll see how the tears that have fallen were caught in the palms

                Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all

                And we’ll look back on these tears as old tales

So let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. May we acknowledge our need for help and discover the healing that lies on the other side of that acknowledgment.  And may we cling to the hope that after the last tear falls, there is love – for us, and for the world.