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This Week's Sermon THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY after PENTECOST 18 October 2009 "Then Who Can Be Saved?" Mark 10:23-31 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

When we describe someone as "rich" we usually add another adjective, "powerful." Money commands power in the world. "Money talks," we say. It has a way of influencing everything from legislation to the kind of clothes we wear. It is the seedbed of corruption as well. Those with lots of money are used to getting their way in the world because having lots of money means one has lots of power. Maybe a better term is "clout." People with money can make things happen that they want to happen. These people are likely to be called "the firsts" in the pecking order. "Top dog," "Big Dog." The "lasts" are those with little or no money, and hence, no clout, no influence, no power.

Most of the trouble in our society lies in trying to realign this situation. The "haves" try to keep what is theirs while the "have-nots" try to take what belongs to the "haves." Most politics is built upon this basic principle, contrary to the meaning of the Seventh Commandment. Yet, no political solution has ever worked. But the Gospel is not about rearranging the political and economic landscape. It is about much more important things. In the end, wealth means nothing to God.

In Jewish society people who were rich were thought to have God's favor. After all, wealth was a blessing from God, so the person with more wealth was thought to have been more blessed. In fact, many thought-wrongly so-that if a person were poor, God must not think favorably about such a person because God had not prospered him. So, if a person had wealth he was considered closer to God and the things of God. He was considered a good man, one who had God's favor.

Of course, that wasn't true and still isn't true. Last week's Gospel reading showed us the rich young man who had made an idol of his wealth. He couldn't get past it. It was a roadblock between him and God. His wealth was his god. Jesus warns us all that it is difficult for anyone to get into the kingdom of God, but those who have wealth have a harder time. It is not the money, in and of itself, but what the money does to a person's ego. As I said earlier, "rich" and "powerful" tend to go together. People tend to defer to the wealthy because of what that money can do. The wealthy tend to think they are better than poorer people.

Interestingly, it wasn't only the Jews who had this notion. John Calvin, who was a contemporary of Luther and who had enormous influence on our nation and its politics, is probably most known for his teaching on predestination. Calvin taught that there is a double predestination, that is, God predestines some to salvation and others to damnation. That God chooses some to be damned is not taught in Holy Scripture, however. But if one wanted to know if he were among the elect, Calvin said, then he should work hard, and if he gained wealth, it meant that God had favored him and he could consider himself among the elect. From this we get the so-called "Protestant Work Ethic." It really doesn't differ from the thinking of the Jews of Jesus' day. If you had wealth, you could consider yourself in good standing with God.

The disciples were amazed at Jesus' comparison of a rich man getting into the kingdom of God and a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Then Mark records that they "were exceedingly astonished," wondering if anyone could be saved. This is what I would call "a teachable moment." Once Jesus demolished their thinking that wealth is a measure of God's favor in connection with the kingdom, he said:

"With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." (Mark 10:27, ESV)

You can't do anything to secure entry into God's kingdom. The rich, who are used to having people defer to them and give them what they want, will find no such deferral from God. God is not impressed with what a man has, and why should he be? After all, he is the Giver of all things! The rich man is no better than the poor man, but it is also equally true that the poor man is no better than the rich man when it comes to the things of God. Both stand as equals. Neither deserves the kingdom. "With man it is impossible," Jesus says.

Yet, Peter saw an opening.

"See, we have left everything and followed you." (Mark 10:28, ESV)

Peter is pleading the fact that they once had wealth and have given it up, and that this should count for something. We're sometimes impressed by people who give away their wealth to serve God. They take the words of Jesus to the rich young man as prescriptive for all people of all time. So countless individuals flocked to the monasteries and convents in the Middle Ages as a way of meriting eternal life by giving away their wealth, or at least, turning their backs on it. But those who make themselves poor are no more worthy than the person who doesn't do this. Jesus would not even allow his disciples to make this claim.

The Apostle Paul makes it clear in writing to the Romans:

"For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." (Romans 3:22-25, ESV)

Salvation is a gift of God because of the life, suffering, and death of Christ, not because of anything that a person has or does. One can be guilty of idolatry without being rich. Paul reminds us that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" [1 Timothy 6.10]. One can love it and never have any. One can be consumed with the pursuit of money without ever succeeding. It is still sin.

And yet, rich people DO get into God's kingdom! Joseph of Arimathea, Zacchaeus, Lydia, e.g. The impossible becomes possible. In fact, it is not just possibility, but God works such a miracle for rich people. And he works it also for poor people, and all those who fall between the firsts and the lasts. You learned it from Luther's explanation of the Third Article of the Creed:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.
In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

One gets into the kingdom only by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith. One receives. One does not muscle his way in or bribe the gatekeeper.

Jesus adds a promise about what the disciple receives:

"Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." (Mark 10:29-30, ESV)

What is this? It's a reference to the Communion of Saints, of brothers and sisters in Christ, fathers and mothers in Christ, of the blessing of this communion where Christians take care of each other. As an example, the Apostle Paul concludes his letter to the Roman Christians with a long list of personal greetings, including this remark:

"Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well." (Romans 16:13, ESV)

These people were Paul's extended family. Christians are brothers and sisters to each other in Christ. Pastors are sometimes called fathers in Christ.

But Jesus adds two words to this: "with persecutions." Jesus takes away any thought that there is a kind of quid pro quo, that is literally, "what for what," a system where one exchanges one thing for something of similar value. One does not exchange one's earthly family to get something else. God doesn't work on that system. To underscore that, Jesus adds that the Christian will receive persecutions. God doesn't bribe you to accept his way. Looking at the rich young man, we would say that Christ challenges us with a very sobering reality. The road to the kingdom of God is full of self-denial, severe trials, with persecutions being the worst of them.

"But many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Mark 10:31, ESV) is a warning to us all. You and I often assess our own worth and try to gauge our reward on the basis of what we think we deserve. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the same thought came up:

"Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius." (Matthew 20:10, ESV)

Jesus concluded that parable with the same words that conclude our reading today, "So the last will be first, and the first last." (Matthew 20:16, ESV) What you have suffered or endured for the sake of the kingdom gives you no greater reward than the person who never suffered at all. It's all by grace. The ultimate judgment belongs to God.

So, the disciples' question remains:

"Then who can be saved?" (Mark 10:26, ESV)

Indeed! Who? Certainly not the rich! Certainly not the poor! As Jesus explains, human beings cannot do the impossible. Only God can do that, that is, only God can save sinners. It is not in the power of sinners to save themselves. They can't muster God's favor.

Who can be saved? All the world! Why? How? Because only Christ has paid the price to rescue sinners. He gave himself into suffering and death for sinners. That's what Jesus says next. He repeats it for a third time. So, it is by Christ's suffering and death that anyone is saved. His death atones for all the world, but sinners must come with empty hands. The benefits are distributed by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith. You get it, not by works, not by being in better standing with God, but because of Christ. Period. You receive it by believing it, and even that is a gift of God the Holy Spirit.

Who can be saved? Those who are really last, those who plead nothing of themselves, not power, not money, not who they know. Only those who plead Christ crucified and risen again. They get into the kingdom of God. Those who become like little children, who are simply on the receiving end of God's grace in Holy Baptism. The one who trusts the redemption won by Christ gets in.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.