Belong, Believe, Become

Proper 23b: 

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31

Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

First question: what is meant by eternal life?  We know this doesn’t mean living forever in the bodies we now have.

Jesus shows us that eternal life is having an intimate and personal relationship with God---this Triune God of three persons: Creator, redeemer and sanctifier.  God is the stream of eternity—the One who has always been, is now, and will be forever.  Eternal life can only be found in this stream of the divine---trusting that God is the One who made us, the One to whom we belong, the One who rescues us from our brokenness and the One who can restore and make us holy so that we are equipped to join the never-ending dance of the Blessed Trinity, so that we are able to dive deeply into eternal life.

Teacher, what must I do to inherit?  Notice the question isn’t: “What must I do to earn?”  We cannot earn eternal life.  This isn’t a matter of earning enough gold stickers or amassing a bigger lists of things we have done right versus things we have done wrong.  Inheritance is something given, usually from one family member to the next, passed down generation to generation.  Inheritance is about belonging to a family.  Eternal life, then, begins with belonging.

How do we help others know that they belong?  They belong to God, they belong to us, we belong to them, that we are one big family of belonging?  How do we come to know and believe this ourselves?  For me, it started with coming to church on Sunday morning.  Even as a child, I knew I belonged to my faith community.  One: because my parents told me I did---and then, when I went to church, those in the faith community showed me I belonged.  They knew my name; they looked after me, took interest in my life, treated me like family, taught me, listened to me, corrected me, spent time with me, they loved me.  Of course, some of them loved me better than others.  Like in any family, some of them ignored me or only tolerated me---but I knew I belonged.  I grew up with these rituals and church spaces---and they have always been safe places for me---so church for me has always equaled belonging.

We know how to do this.  We know how to make people like me feel as if they belong.

But what about people who didn’t grow up with these rituals?  Who didn’t grow up going to church spaces? Or those who did and were taught things they can no longer believe? Or those who were hurt by their faith families?  Who were told they weren’t good enough? That they were not worthy in God’s eyes---because let’s face it, church has told many people that God is not interested in them as they are---that somehow their sin is worse and smellier and uglier than anyone else’s so they better clean up their act if they want to belong at church.

Or what about those who simply grew up with other ways of being church?  Who didn’t use books and hymnals and kneel and cross themselves?  Who didn’t say the same words every Sunday or use an organ or meet in beautiful places with dark wood and stained glass and lots of items that are beautiful, and yet, can be intimidating?  What about them?

How do we help these people to know they too belong?  Should we simply tell them, if you want to belong here all you need to do is be like us?  Is that what belonging means? Do they need to start with Sunday morning in order to belong?  Can people belong if they show up at a potluck or a social gathering?  If they come to a steak fry or a craft show?  How do we express our belief that we belong to one another if they come for a community discussion, to seek some help in a time of need or simply because they were walking by and wondered?

If inheritance first means belonging to a family---how did we come to know we belong and how do we help others know?  How do we remind one another that we belong---even when there are bumpy patches and disagreements, tension and differences of belief?  Whose job is it to remind one another that “Hey:  I know you are finding it tough right now, but we belong to one another?”  What might that look like?

And, of course, if eternal life is having a personal, intimate relationship with God, how do we help people to know God---to believe in God---to explore and meet God?  How is God revealed in the midst of us?  Can it be through more than worship?  Can it be through fellowship, through dinners and conversations, through studies and questions, through prayer disciplines and serving others?  Can it be done in other spaces---places other than church---in homes, in restaurants, in bars and coffee shops? And if it can, how committed are we to taking part in these things?  Do we as a faith family want to put in the time and investment it takes to know God, to help others know God---do we want to risk what it might mean to be known by God?  How do we open ourselves to God?  How do we make it safe enough for others to open themselves to God with us? 

As a child, people told me what to believe, and if I could express what I believed (which had been told to me), then I belonged.  That’s not the way it works anymore.  At least for most of us.  And it is not the way that Today’s Gospel is implying it should work.

Inheritance = belonging.  Belonging means we find ourselves within a community who can help us to believe, but we need not believe before we belong.  As seen in Job and throughout Scripture, believing often comes with questioning, with struggling, with poking and prodding what we have been told to believe.  Believing isn’t a one-stop shop kind of thing; it is a never-ending process of growth.

From the belonging and from the believing, we are empowered to become. The desire to even want to become grows within us. To become who God dreamed us to be---human beings made in the image of God.  Human beings who shine with the light of Christ, human beings who love with the compassion and mercy of Jesus, human beings all bound together in the web of grace knit by the Almighty Creator who from the dark chaos made all that there is so that the Creator might know and be known by Creation.

Belong, believe, become.

The rich young man’s question to Jesus is really two-fold: Why am I here and how can I live that why?  This question from the Good News of Jesus Christ is the question the church must answer for itself today---the world-wide church, the denominational church, the church Diocesan, and this church called Intercession: Why are we here and how can we live that out?