Year B

Mark 10:17-31

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Test of Faith

Have you ever felt that your faith was being tested? I’m sure you have. I certainly have felt this especially in these past few weeks. First Helene and its damage done, and then Milton in SWFL, thankfully our family home in PC did not have any damage to it from this storm but all this has left me feeling pretty tested and powerless. One thing I have learned through the years, in times like these, when in seemingly impossible circumstances, God does empower us to reach out to God. Our faith empowers us to cry out to God in times of distress, or suffering, or when God seems absent. What we seek in these times is to know that God knows our troubles and wants to help.

From what we read in scripture about God, what we experience in the church’s word and sacraments and from each other, even in the most hopeless situations we come to know that God does not forsake us, and we see God’s love and power in our lives and in the lives of others. When we reach out to God, God reaches out to us and helps us make the best out of our hard times even when action on our part feels impossible, and for us humans, it can be impossible, but for God all things are possible”. Jesus gives us this promise of God’s “impossibility”, in the gospel text today. He says, “For God all things are possible”.

God cannot be contained in what is ‘normal’ for us, and our faith should take this into account as the Epistle tells us today and it should push us into daring, active, risking faith. The author of the letter to the Hebrews experiencing testing and hard times himself says we are to draw near to God with boldness. This author clearly believes in a God who speaks and acts within our world. In fact, the whole opening of this letter to the Hebrews recounts the power of God’s voice and how human beings respond to that power: as God has spoken of old, so now God has spoken to us by a Son. So, that we may “receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.”

God knows us and God responds through Jesus and expects us to respond faithfully to our salvation made possible through the cross of Christ. God entered our world, full of brokenness, pain, and temptation, sympathizing with our weaknesses. Job and the psalmist today would have understood this. They remind us that a relationship with God does not require stoic resignation in the face of hardship, suffering, and despair. In fact, it is precisely trust in God’s mercy and love that leads us to complain and lament when God seems like God is ignoring our suffering.

The famous patience of Job that we read about in last week’s text appears to have worn thin today. We find Job lamenting the hiddenness of God. Yet, his suffering does not bring him to deny God’s existence of power or justice, even though he realizes that his faith does not appear to be making any difference at that moment in his life. If only he could abandon his faith! But he cannot. And this is what makes his heart faint. This is what produces such a sense of dread and despair that he wishes he could simply vanish away. I can definitely relate to Job, there have been times in my life when I wish I could just walk away from whatever was happening. Those who have felt this know suffering sometimes greatly. Those who have not, possibly have not believed as deeply as Job.

Job’s friends attribute his despair to a lack of depth of faith. His faith at this time offers him no joy, but he does not resolve this by blaming God or himself for what has happened, unlike his friends. He also doesn’t believe that all will turn out for the best, instead he acknowledges that terrible things happen for reasons that he will never understand, or for possibly no reason at all. He is resolved to trust completely in the God who allowed this, wherever that trust takes him. This complete trust in God is where the rich young ruler in the gospel story today seems to fall short. We have here a man, who runs up to Jesus, kneels before him, wanting to inherit eternal life.

He asks his heavy value-laden question to Jesus and Jesus explains the commandments. In a way, he is a bit like Job, a fastidious follower of the precepts of the law. But something was missing. He tells Jesus that he has obeyed all the laws since his youth. Jesus looks at him and loves him and then hits the bullseye. “You are addicted to things.” Then the test comes…Jesus tells him that in addition to keeping the law, he must sell his possessions and give the money to the poor to inherit eternal life. Unable to do risk it all for the kingdom of God, now we have no idea what happens latter to this young man but at this time he was unable to follow Jesus and he leaves grieving.

The disciples are shocked. If a law abiding, faithful man isn’t in, then who is? Of all the people who could expect easy access to God’s kingdom, should not it be those whose very riches suggest God’s blessing? On the contrary, Jesus answers: wealth is an even greater obstacle into the kingdom it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Then who can be saved? This command of Jesus may seem impossible for humans; but for God all things are possible. Only God saves, we cannot save ourselves. In Christ, what seems impossible is truly possible.  

All the texts today, point to the saving, life-giving actions of Christ in the cross and resurrection. The text from Job and psalm 22 speak to the agony of the apparent absence of God, an absence Jesus experienced as he cried out in agony on the cross. The writer of Hebrews reminds us, in Jesus Christ we have a high priest who can sympathize with us in every way, but who is without sin and is full of grace and mercy. It is Christ who calls us, like the wealthy man in the gospel, to leave all we have and follow him. This is indeed costly discipleship and can definitely test our faith.

Yet, God can bring new life out of suffering and death, God hears our prayers of lament as well as our confessions of faith, making the impossible possible. Our faith is tested every day and that why we are empowered by God’s Spirit to impossible faith, to live into Christ’s call to follow him. Jesus says when we leave it all his sake and for the sake of the good news, we receive a new family, the family of God, a cause to serve, risks to take, battles to fight, and eternal life.