Remembering Our Need
Pastor Mathew Magera – 12/3/17 – Sermon 255
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This very short Gospel reading is the beginning of the
story of the rich young man who comes to Jesus asking what he must do to be
saved only to learn from Jesus that he must give up everything he has and then
come and follow him. Concluding this interaction, the rich young man goes away
from Jesus and we never know what happens to him. The reason we don’t hear the
story in its entirety this morning is because there is too much going on within
this initial exchange between the two that we have to let it be on its own.
I like how this person approaches Jesus and does his
best to get on Jesus’ good side. Good teacher, he says. Good teacher. I mean,
this doesn’t sound like the typical greeting. It’s not the usual “greetings,
Rabbi” that we might be used to. It sounds like something we might say to a
teacher if we felt like we were going to get into trouble or if we wanted to
suck up. It has that undertone of a husband approaching his wife already
knowing he’s done something wrong. But, in all seriousness, when he greets
Jesus with these words, is he trying to get on Jesus’ good side, or is he
trying to convey a serious point about Jesus’ goodness? We could debate this
but Jesus’ response tells us it really doesn’t matter. It only sets Jesus up to
say everything we need to know even before the man asks his question. Good
teacher, he says. Jesus is quick to state that no one is good except God alone.
We can’t deny the truth of this statement but we also
can’t deny the truth of what remains unsaid at this point. If no one is good
except God alone then everyone else is, by default, not good. What does this
mean about the one who is asking Jesus what must be done to be saved? It means
that he is also among those who are not good. It means that he is not perfect.
This gets buried in the conversation between these two as one by one the man
insists to Jesus he has done everything and at the same time Jesus is trying to
say, no, I’m sorry, but there is still something that can’t be done. No one is
good except God alone. You are not good. This, then, may not be a story about
giving up everything one owns but rather a story about embracing one’s need of
God in their life.
This morning on our walk through Advent, we take a
look at how Jesus makes all things new through our need as we ask the question,
why do we need Jesus?
* * *
I want to address this question through an example
that many of us can relate to. Parenting. If you are a parent yourself, you
know the joys and trials of being one. If you are not a parent, you are, more
likely than not, the child of a parent or two and you might be able to think
about the joys and trials of parenting you. I want you to imagine being the
parent of a young child. If you’ve been there before, you might know what I
mean when you are out and you always tend to hear conversations by friends or
even strangers who don't have kids who seem to know exactly what it is like to
be a parent. They always know, right? They're self-declared experts in
parenting but they've never done it themselves. They are always saying, "Oh,
it would be great to start a family, wouldn't it?” “You would make a great
mom.” “You were made to be a great dad.” “Wouldn't it be perfect to have little
versions of us running around the house?” And there you are, the parent of a
young child already thinking to yourself, "you have no idea. No
idea."
There is a difference between being the parent of a
young child and not having kids at all. Vast differences. I watched a
presentation online not too long ago about this very concept and for the life
of me I cannot remember the presenter’s name, so just know that these examples
are not mine, but they make the point nonetheless. When you have children,
things that have been seemingly so easy for you will become difficult in the
blink of an eye. Even things you’ve never even considered to be things, will
become the most impossible things you've ever had to do. Take a typical day.
Here’s a conversation between a couple with no
children who are trying to leave the house for the day. One goes up to the
other and says, “Let’s leave the house.” That’s it. Off they go. Now, for parents
with kids the conversation goes a little differently.
“Where are your shoes?”
“I don't know.”
“Where did you last see them?”
“On my feet.”
“Why aren’t you wearing the clothes I gave you?”
“My clothes
don’t fit.”
“Put that shirt on.”
“It's too big.”
“Put your pants on.”
“They’re too small.”
I think you get it by now. But, then, there’s even the
issue of wanting to leave. You might have this conversation.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“I don't want
to go.”
Have you ever had that child that would just not come
to the door unless you pretended that you were leaving? You'd have to bluff.
"We're leaving now, we'll see you later." "I'll buy you
something if you come with us.” I mean, have you ever had that day when you
were just at your wits end and you would just want to call their bluff?
So, eventually, you get everyone in the car and you’re
off down the street but the day is not over. You remember driving in the car
with your kids, right? Now, think about what it is like for someone who does
not have kids to be driving in the car. No stress. Driving down the street with
your significant other and... "oh there's that new restaurant, we should go
there sometime. We could go there. Any night. Absolutely any night we could go
there." You know, driving down the road without a care. You've got George
Michael singing “Freedom” on the radio. Everything's good. But, for a parent,
not so.
That new restaurant? You’ll never go there. It’s too
expensive, the kids won’t eat anything and they’ll find a way to break
something. I mean, that’s just how you think as a parent, right? Instead of
listening to George Michael singing Freedom, you’re learning about how the
wheels on the bus go round and round and round and round and round and round.
Because you know they’ll never let you just play the song once.
Then you get home. And it's bedtime.
"Bedtime" right? Such a treat. Without kids, how do you go to bed? You
hop into bed after watching a nice movie, you snuggle up and you say,
"Good night" and off you go into dreamland. With kids? Not so. Maybe
you’ve had this conversation.
“It's bedtime.”
“No it's not.”
“Yes it is, now get into bed.”
“But, I want a
drink.”
“You just had a drink.”
“But I want
another one.”
“You can't have another one.”
“Why?”
“Because you'll need to use the bathroom.”
“But, I'm
thirsty.”
“But, it’s bedtime.”
After a long day with kids, you're lucky if you get
the chance to fall asleep with your spouse. Some nights, you're playing rock
paper scissors to determine who gets to get up in the middle of the night if
there's a problem. The words "good night" have changed too, as
parents. You get into bed, you roll over to see your spouse half asleep and you
want to say good night, you really do. But, as a parent, the only thing you can
do, with that one last bit of strength you have left, all you can say is,
"good luck." And this is just one day. Parenting isn’t just one day.
* * *
With that in mind, whether you have parented a child
or been a child of a parent, we know that children… have needs. Sometimes they
can be exhausting needs, but a child can't do everything on their own. Why do
children need parents? They need a parent to help do things for them, to teach
them how to do other things.
So, we come back to the question, why do we need
Jesus? When God takes care of us, sometimes we might say he does so as a
parent. Sometimes he creates paths for us, sometimes he teaches us how to do
something. But, what is true in either case is that we have need for Him in our
lives. There are things we can't do on our own. There are things we need to be
taught how to do. There are things we just don’t understand. There are things
only God can do for us and there are things only God can teach us. As Jesus
says, no one is good except God alone. We are not good. But, in Jesus, we are
made so.
Even though we tire at the end of the day worrying
about our kids or somebody else's kids, or there is somebody worried about us, God
does not grow weary of caring for us. Though a missing shoe or mismatched
clothes may frustrate us, or even the lack of sleep, God, our heavenly Father,
is still there for us when we need him. Even if it is at 2 in the morning when we
are sick in spirit and struggling with those satanic demons in our lives.
Sometimes to understand our need of God, we may need
to look at the children in our world. They could be our children or someone
else’s children, it doesn’t matter. When we look at them, we recognize their
needs and their unpredictability. Without taking this opportunity, it’s easy to
forget that we are the needy child. We are the ones who can’t do it. We think
we can. We’ll try to prove it too. But, in the end, we are no better.
This is the first week in Advent. We are beginning our
anticipation and preparation for Christmas. That first stop along the way is to
recognize our need of God. We are sinners after all. We are broken people who
have fallen away from the God who has made us. We have fallen away from the God
who provides for us and the God who loves us. We are, as Jesus tells this rich
young man, not good, by default. But, though we are not good, Jesus came to
change that. We may not be able to adequately or completely cleanse our soul of
the sins we have committed against God, against others and against ourselves.
Nor can we reconcile ourselves with God. But, even though we cannot make
ourselves good, God chooses to do it for us. When this story continues and
Jesus tells the rich young man to give up everything he owns and to follow him,
we should remember Jesus’ request goes beyond what we can see with our eyes.
He’s not just asking the man to literally sell everything he has. Jesus is
telling him that if he wants to be saved, he needs to be utterly dependent on
Jesus. Not because having nothing to our name makes us holy, but because having
nothing makes us totally rely on the generosity of another for our survival.
The only way this man would understand this is by giving up all he has. The
hardest thing for a rich person is to have nothing. The hardest thing for a
healthy person is to be sick. The hardest thing for a confident person is to be
unsure. Whatever that happens to be for you, this is what Jesus is calling us
to be as he reminds us that no one is good except God alone. No one can save
themselves. Yet, salvation comes freely through God who is good. Salvation
comes from God’s choice to make us good. Those things that we cling to must be
let go of in order to discover our true need for God. Through that need comes
Jesus, the one who changes us into good. Through that need comes a promise.
Through that need comes hope. Remember your need for God and he will remind you
that, through Jesus, he has claimed you as his own and he has forgiven you your
sin and made you into that which you could not make yourself. He who is good,
has made you, likewise, good as well. As the Bible says, “Behold, I am making all
things new.” To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.