As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Precious Lord, take our hands, lead us on, help us stand, lead us home. God, your kingdom is all around us, as we ask you to lead us home, help us to see that you have prepared it right before us. Help us to give all in order to experience living a little bit more in your home. Use this time to so enlighten us that we would understand Thy will, and know Thy way. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the gospel of Mark. Listen for God’s word for you today. Read Mark. The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

About two or three months ago, I was getting some paint at Home Depot. The person behind the counter was covered in tattoos and had this earring thing [Editor's Note: Listen to the audio for the complete Home Depot story]. And that is why I am so impressed with Jesus’ ability to think so fast.

In our usual understandings, the scribe gets out easy. An innocent questioner, a good man. Jesus nods soberly, “You are not far from the kingdom.” But is the text as vanilla as we read it. If this were just about a scribe giving the right answer, then why would we read that it shut everybody up? Why would this argument accomplish what the discussion with the Sadducees right before this passage didn’t? Why would this exchange silence the Pharisees, Herodians, the elders and the scribes, who had been dogging Jesus’ steps for the better part of two chapters now? I wonder.

Luckily, the text gives us some clues. The scribe tests Jesus with one of those, “Pat your head and rub your belly while you recite the law” kind of questions that they are so fond of. It’s an old script, two scholars debating and disputing, discussing and contesting, thrusting and parrying. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Presbytery meeting. The scribe asks Jesus a Jesuitical question, “What is the first commandment?” Jesus answers with the Shema from Deuteronomy, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and with all your soul,” and throws in a bit of Leviticus for good measure, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Listen to how the scribe responds. “Good answer,” he says. Cause I guess Jesus needed the reassurance. “You have said rightly,” he continues, “to love God with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self is just the ticket.” Did you hear that? Jesus said to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the scribe repeats back, heart, understanding, and strength. Jesus said heart, cardia, soul, psuche, mind, dianoios, and strength, iskouos. And the scribe said heart, cardia, understanding, pseunesios, and strength, iskouos. Now lets leave aside the fact that Jesus speaks in the active voice, you shall love, you shall love, you shall love, and the scribe speaks more abstract and passive, “To love God is more important.” Let’s just notice the difference in the content in what they say.

Interesting, don’t you think, that the scribe dropped an answer? Very interesting, I think. Almost makes me a little embarrassed for the poor guy. Jesus said heart soul mind and strength, and the scribe said heart, understanding and strength. Oh well, you might say, that was just an accepted manner of speaking of the day, substituting one word for another; I don’t think so. Remember, this is rabbinic hair splitting, and they can get quite particular and peculiar about words. Or maybe they are just translating the Hebrew differently. But soul, Nephesh in Hebrew, never makes the scribe’s list. Maybe the word that Jesus uses for soul is a fluff word, one that can mean more than one thing. And with that you would be close. Or as Jesus says, Not Far. The word that Jesus uses, psuche, does have more than one meaning, soul or life. But it is as far from a fluff word as you can get in the gospel of Mark. Mark uses it, among other places, in chapter 10, when Jesus says he gives his life as a ransom for many. He uses it in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he says “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” And it’s the same word used in chapter 8, the pivotal section in Mark, when Jesus says whoever would save their life will lose it, for what will it profit a person to gain the world, but to lose their life. Psuche is anything but a nothing word in Mark, it may be the most important word in Mark’s gospel.

Dropping a big word in his answer, the scribe shows more of himself than he probably wants seen. He is interested in a lively discussion, a theological debate, a head-tripping game of religious Trivial Pursuit. He is not interested in putting his life on the line. He likes thinking about it, considering it, because that can keep things safely at a distance. He can be on the scene, but not be in the game. This is someone who wants to hold back what is really important to him, what he most wants to own, that which he wants to keep private, and will give only those things that he can spare. And Jesus sees that. And seeing that he answered cleverly, that is intellectually, from the head, Jesus said to him, “Oh, you are not far from the kingdom.” Not far, but not there. You know, John Kerry was Not Far from being the President, closer than anyone in this room. But that Not Far is still miles away, if you were to ask him. Not far, but not there. Yes, you are willing to love God with your energy, your mind, your intellect. Just not with your life.

What would it mean, do you suppose, to offer to God your life. Psuche is life in the physical sense, physical self, and the inner life. It is a combination of body and soul. It is what is at the intersection of your existential self, and what is most important to you. What would it look like to love God with your life, and why do so many of us hold it back?

Maybe it would cost too much. Too much effort, and certainly too much money. Certainly there are many of us who would like to leave our ordeals with God at intention, intellect, and energy. We like the reasonable, the rational. I don’t know about you, but too often I am far too happy to leave my ordeals with God at energy, intelligence, imagination and love. Don’t ask me for my life. I’d like to keep what is ultimate, what is of the most importance to me, at my own control.

But Jesus sees another possibility. He knows that there is such a thing as loving God with your life, because he knows what God’s love can do. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t jump down this young scribe’s throat. Maybe that’s why he leaves him with those two poignant words, “Not far.” “Not far” because maybe in Jesus’ heart he’s saying to the young scribe, Keep going. Keep going, not far. Jesus sees the possibility for all of us, scribes, elders, friends, members, pastors, because he sees what the giving and receiving of God’s love can do to a person, to a people. How it grows, how it expands, how some people look back years from now and say, “I never thought I’d give that much time to the church,” or “5 years ago I never thought we could afford to give so much. Now I don’t think we could afford to give any less.” How even the most tightened fist, thrust behind the most ram-rodded backs, can surrender. Even the most tightened fist, thrust behind the most ram-rodded backs, can surrender, when it’s surrendering to God’s love.

What would it look like to love God with our life? Perhaps it would look like Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a woman who came from a good family, who made sure she was educated to the hilt. Bachelors in the New York City Ivy League School, and Law degree in the Cambridge Mass Ivy League School. That’s Columbia and Harvard, no slouches. After all the offers, 6 figures minimum, partner opportunities by the time she would be 40, she decided to work for the public defenders office. Her teachers were surprised. Her classmates were shocked. But her parents were proud. “Why,” you ask, are they proud? “Because people who don’t have money need good defense too,” they say, “and Elizabeth, she’s good.” For her there are more important things than bank. For her, the bottom line is not the bottom line. She’d rather serve God with all her life. It’s costing her, no doubt. She’s not a partner, though she has passed 40. And she’s not making 6 figures, not close.

Or perhaps it would look like a drive through Duluth this past week of Veterans day, seeing the names of men and women who loved their country more than comfort, who served through hardship and peril for cause greater than self.

Or perhaps Danielle, who lives in the projects downtown. Danielle’s mother, Deena, died from an asthma attack brought on by smoking crack. She’s ten and has eleven sisters and brothers. Some are older and on their own, and some of them went to live with a relative in South Carolina. That left five parentless children in the home.

An uncle, known to be a compulsive gambler, moved in. Rumor had it that his main interest was in using the children to get money for his habit. Whether that was true or not, it was clear to everyone that there was little affection or attention shown to the children at home, except what they offered each other, which was considerable.

Three of the youngest were in a downtown church’s summer program. One hot day when the church planned a swimming trip for the afternoon, Danielle was brought into the pastor’s office in tears. It turned out that she didn’t own a bathing suit. They decided it would be all right to skip the morning Bible lesson and go out to get a suit. The trip took them out over lunchtime, so they stopped at a nearby McDonald’s, where Danielle ordered a Happy Meal. She got up and came back with some extra napkins. Then she began divvying up the small bag of fries into five little piles, each on its own napkin. The pastor asked her what she was doing. “My sisters and brothers will feel sad that I got french fries and they didn’t,” she explained. “I’m taking them home to share.”²

What does it mean to love God with all your life? Turns out, friends, that it is nothing to be afraid of. Turns out, it might just mean sharing, even if all feel that you have is a small Happy Meal sized order of fries at your disposal. It means allowing yourself to be swept up in the cycle of loving and being loved by God. And I’m telling you, when you do, its amazing. It can change churches, and it can change lives. May it be so always for us. Amen.