21st Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

A few years ago, the pastors of our synod were gathered for a retreat on the topic of adaptive leadership: How can we help steer the church through all the changes going on in the culture around us as well as within our congregations.

One of the speakers at the seminar put change into a faith context in a way that really spoke to me. As individuals or as a congregation, we walk along on our usual path in our usual routines, he said, until suddenly, we are interrupted in some way or other.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek. The Greek language has two words for ‘time’. There is chronos: the time we measure with clocks and calendars, schedules and work assignments. And there is kairos: the right time, fulfilled time, meaningful time, holy time.

The base line of our lives is chronos, our daily existence measured in dates and times. Then suddenly, kairos breaks into our lives. Something happens that interrupts our routines.

Every time our chronos is interrupted by a kairos event, we are at a fork in the road. We can try to continue living as we have always lived, or we can use this moment to change our routines and seek God’s guidance and move towards the fulfilled life Jesus offers.

The fulfilled life Jesus offers is wonderful and amazing, pure blessing, filled with joy and hope and the peace that passes all understanding. Everyone wants that, right? The problem is that before we get to that new life in Christ, we encounter the cross. Just like Jesus had to suffer and die before he was raised to new life on Easter morning, so we have to experience the suffering of letting something die before we can claim the new life Jesus offers.

Here is an example from our history. For many generations, this congregation worshipped in a small church building in the center of the village of Woodbine. Year after year, the faithful were baptized, married, and buried there. The place was filled with memories.

However, as the congregation grew, that church became too small. Two unwed sisters bequeathed the congregation a significant sum of money. That became the kairos moment: The people decided to buy land and build a new church. This new facility has been a great blessing for the people of Calvary and the community. It has plenty of space. It is handicap accessible. It has an outdoor chapel and plenty of parking space. It was absolutely the right thing to do.

And yet, it did not come without pain. The congregation had to deal with suffering and loss in order to claim this new possibility in Christ. Some things had to die: the building with all its memories had to be left behind; worship changed simply because the worship space was different; families that had worshipped in the same pew for generations needed to find a new spot in the new sanctuary.

Yes, the cross had to be encountered, but because Calvary was willing to do that, we eventually arrived in a new space with new possibilities and new growth in faith and service.

In my own life, I experienced this truth when it became clear that my husband Eric would not be able to work in Germany and that I would have to immigrate here. I have never regretted this move. I have been happy here, have been supported by my congregations, and have found joy in my ministry.

However, I did not arrive at this new joy and life without encountering the cross. Some parts of my life had to die. All the hymns and Bible verses I had memorized in German were now useless. I missed favorite foods, German holidays with their traditions, and old buildings and cities steeped in history. And leaving my family was really tough, too. Yes, parts of me and my life as I knew it had to die.

The new life I entered as a result of those deaths was a blessing and well worth the price, but at the time it definitely hurt.

Coming to today’s gospel story from this perspective, opened a new dimension in it for me.

We meet a rich and faithful man. This man is sincere in his faith and has lived according to God’s commandments all his life. In fact, by all accounts, life seems to be going along a smoot path for him.

Until the kairos moment comes. He meets Jesus and asks him, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” He probably expected a learned conversation about the law.

Jesus, however, gives him an unexpected answer: “Sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow me.” Jesus is inviting him to become a disciple, to learn from Jesus Christ himself what the kingdom of God is like, to bask in the presence and grace and love of Jesus Christ, to witness his miracles and hear his teachings about the love of God and the salvation he offers. This is an invitation into new, fulfilled, blessed life.

But first, this man has to encounter the cross. Some part of his old life has to die before he can enjoy the new life in Christ. In this man’s case, what has to die is his love of possessions. He will need to let go of the power and security his wealth has given him.

The man is shocked. He cannot imagine himself doing this. This cross is too much for him. He walks away from Jesus, from the invitation to discipleship, from his chance at new and fulfilled life.

How could it have gone differently? I think the perfect counter example is Zacchaeus. He, too, is a rich man. He is isolated because people hate him for his profession: tax collector for the Roman Empire. Being short of stature, Zacchaeus has to climb a tree to be able to see Jesus walking by.

When Jesus calls him down and invites himself to dinner at his house, Zacchaeus’ life changes forever. Grace and mercy touch his life. Jesus brings him to a kairos moment, a fork in the road, and Zacchaeus jumps at the chance of new life with eagerness and joy.

What is the immediate effect of this new life Zacchaeus has entered? He gives away his money. Loads of it. Jesus doesn’t even have to ask him to do it. Once Zacchaeus is on his path to kingdom living, money has lost its power over him. It is now just a tool for blessing others, and Zacchaeus does that to the fullest.

This is the chance Jesus offered the rich man. That day, he is not able to accept the invitation. The cross he encounters is too much to bear. He walks away sadly. Will he change his mind later on? The gospels don’t tell us. But with God, there is always hope.

Our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews this morning states that God’s word is sharper than a two-edged sword and cuts us open to reveal our innermost being. I believe the writer of Hebrews is describing this challenge of claiming the kairos moments when they occur. The rich man is cut open, and it is revealed that his love of possessions is stronger than his desire for eternal life.

And yet, the word he receives is not a word of judgment. What Jesus gives him is a word of invitation: Come and follow me. Come and join this new kingdom movement. Come and be blessed in my presence. Accept your cross, let die what stands between you and eternal life, and then come and experience the joy of living a fulfilled, blessed life.

We experience this truth in many different ways in our lives. Here are some examples:

When we get married, we have to let die our independence, our freedom, our ability to always be at our parents’ house for the holidays. But we gain the amazing joy of living in partnership with the person we love above all in the world.

When we kick an addiction, we have to let go of the allure of an easy fix, the temptation of numbing our feelings with drugs. But we gain freedom from addiction, we gain health, we gain improved relationships with family and friends.

When we feel called to change our career, we let die the security and familiarity of the old job, but we gain a new level of fulfillment in a job we truly feel called to.

When we have a baby, we give up a lot: ease of going out for a movie or meeting with friends, good sleep, money, a tidy house, and more. But the vast majority of parents will tell you that it was worth giving that up for the joy and fulfillment their children brought into their lives.

This truth also applies to life as a community and nation.

Two recent hurricanes have shown us the cost of climate change. In order to curb that, some things have to die: our love of plastics and fossil fuels, some conveniences of individual travel, old routines in regard to chemicals, etc. But the promise that lies beyond such sacrifices is a healthier climate for all creation.

This nation is facing a housing crisis. In order to solve it, we might need to encounter the cross: the willingness to live on smaller lots, to live in less space, to make room for townhouses and apartment buildings in our neighborhoods even if that decreases our home values. The promise beyond this sacrifice is that our childcare workers and school bus drivers can afford to live where they work, and that our children and grandchildren can afford decent homes; a more just community for all.

Jesus invites us into a new way of fulfilled life as the people of God. As disciples living in this place and in this nation, we are called to make God’s kingdom real and invite our neighbors into a just and fulfilled life. We are called to adapt our worship and our service to ever new circumstances so we can reach people with the gospel.

There will be crosses along the way. Some things will have to die. We don’t know what they will be, but we do know that before every resurrection, there comes a death of some sort. At every baptism we proclaim that in Christ, we die to our old life and rise to new life by the grace of God. My prayer is that we will have the trust in God’s guidance to endure the cross faithfully, so that we can claim the new life Jesus is inviting us into. Amen.