As I pointed out two Sundays ago, the sequential reading of Saint Mark’s Gospel on each of the Sundays after Pentecost has brought us to a section of the Gospel which is called “Saint Mark’s Little Catechism.”  It starts at Chapter 9, verse 30, . . . and goes through to the end of Chapter 10.  And what is a catechism?  It is an instructional summary of the basic principles of the Christian Faith.  Mark’s Gospel begins by telling us that Jesus came into Galilee saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”  And now (in his Little Catechism), Saint Mark raises the question:  if the Father has sent the Son to bring us into His Kingdom, . . . what sort of repentance makes a person worthy of the citizenship  into which Christ invites us.  . . . Jesus suggests (Mark says); Jesus suggests that the character of our repentance ought to have something to do with Humility; . . . that the object of God’s Kingdom is not the personal greatness of attaining to it, . . . but the object of Heaven is to appropriate and manifest God the Father’s uncommon love.

    Okay.  Well, what does Humility consist of?  And Saint Mark’s Little Catechism undertakes to use the words of Jesus answer that question; . . . to explain to his readers the Christian Character; . . . to explain the disciplines necessary to attain to the Humility of Heaven, by which we appropriate that uncommon love of God.
 
   Two Sundays ago Jesus told us about the necessity for moral and spiritual Chastity; . . . that Humility is attained by means of the discipline of Detachment; . . . that if you allow your hand to become an instrument of moral and spiritual superiority, . . . if you allow your foot to defeat God’s love, . . . or if you use your eye to attach yourself to disordered affections, . . . you will become like the city dump that is in the Valley of Gehenna, south of Jerusalem, Jesus says; . . . you will become inaccessible to God, being a mere spiritual and moral rubbish heap, afire with passions and constantly writhing with the restless motion of the maggots of cupidity.

    Last Sunday Saint Mark’s Little Catechism used the words of Jesus to discuss the discipline of Obedience as a second habit of the soul which makes us Humble.  It comes about when a number of Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce.  Jesus tells them that divorce is a human contrivance intended to mitigate the effect of sin, but that the relationship of a man and a woman, as the Heart of God intended it, . . . is that the two become one flesh.  . . . It is the obligation, Jesus concludes; . . . it is the obligation of men and women to be obedient to the Heart of God; . . . it is the obligation of men and women, Jesus tells us, to be obedient to the Heart of God and not become distracted by sin.  . . . And to aid us in this obligation, Jesus tells us, today, about the third discipline of Humility; . . . Jesus tells us, today, about Simplicity.

    In the Spring of 1994 our son Robert called us from Seattle to tell us his wife had been struck by a car while riding her bicycle to work.  . . . Now, Ann is a vigorous young woman who loves to swim and camp and hike and ski, and is a physician (I believe) of no small skill.  So, upon hearing of her accident, my mind did two things:  it feared the worse (paralysis, wheelchairs; perhaps an iron lung), . . . and it uttered a curse; my mind looked about me at all the stinkers in this world, . . . and I said to God, “Why not one of them instead?”  . . . When Robert assured us that Ann’s injuries were not severe, I breathed a prayer of thanks, . . . but I did not withdraw the curse.  . . . Why do you suppose I allowed my curse to remain?  Why do you suppose I want to believe that Divine Justice ought to protect  the good; . . . that the the contributors of good to society ought to live and the stinkers be taken away?

    Well, I expect one reason I believe that is because it is a religious precept.  You expressed it just a little while ago in the final verse of Psalm 90:

May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;*
   prosper the work of our hands;
   prosper our handiwork.

And where did the Psalmist get that idea?  From such places as the Twenty-eighth Chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy where we are told that

. . . if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments . . . all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, . . . the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground . . . But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments . . . then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.  . . . The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and frustration, in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of your evil doings . . .

Holy Scripture seems to teach that the reward of a good life is prosperity, contentment, tranquility, and well-being, . . . while a bad life shall reap bitter fruit.  . . . But Jesus says that Holy Scripture says no such thing.  And that is the substance of the Gospel appointed for today.

    You see, a man runs up to Jesus, kneels before Him, and asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  . . . And Jesus seems to get distracted by that word “good” and He goes into what looks like a little digression by saying, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”  Those words seem like a digression, . . . but they are Christ’s answer!

    Jesus says that there is only one Good.  No one is good but God alone.  Even Jesus, Himself, the Incarnate Word of God is not good of Himself.  If there is goodness in the Incarnate Word of God which is perceived by the man kneeling before Him, . . . it is a goodness articulated by the Life of God which has brought Jesus into being.  Therefore, the goodness of Jesus is true only insofar as Jesus is the Image -- the reflection -- of God’s goodness.  Jesus is not good in and of Himself, but the goodness that is in Him is received from God; . . . indeed, it is God.  And so it is for each one of us.  Which is why Jesus asks the man, “You know the commandments?”  The Commandments are an articulation of God’s goodness, . . . and the keeping of the Commandments is a participation in God’s goodness.  The Commandments are not rules to follow . . . but a description of the goodness of God in our relationships with one another.  . . . The man kneeling before Jesus wants to inherit eternal life, and so, Jesus tells him (and us) that the commandments describe that life . . . and to inherit it . . . you must live it!  We are not being good when we keep the Commandments, . . . we are participating in God’s Goodness, in Whose Image we are created and Whose Goodness we are created to comprehend and articulate in our thinking and speaking and doing.

    And the man answers, “Teacher, all these things I have observed from my youth.”  . . . And Jesus says, “You’re almost there.  You lack one thing . . .”  And what one thing does the man lack?  . . . He keeps the Commandments because he has been taught and because he believes that the consequence of goodness is great possessions.  The man’s faith is conventional:  he believes in religion; . . . he does not believe in God.  . . . The man’s obedience has not make him humble.  It has done just the opposite; . . . it has made him proud.  And so, Jesus says, “By your obedience you have participated in the Goodness of God, and now you desire God.  So, go . . . sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have sacred treasure; and come, follow me.”  . . . On this occasion Jesus is not particularly interested in the poor.  They are just a good place for this fellow to dump his wealth.  On this occasion Jesus is focused upon the man who desires life, . . . and He tells the man:  “Only God is good; in order to be obedient to the Heart of God you must simply desire Him alone.”

    But it is too much for the man to do; . . . it is too much for him to surrender himself to God.  And so, Jesus tells us, today, why this is so.  He cautions us that our affection for God becomes disordered by two things:  by our fears . . . and by the curses we expect God to place upon the things we loath because we fear them.  Our affections become disordered because we, like the rich man, begin to entrust ourselves and our love to what we think to be the material protections we have pleased God to give us, . . . and we assume we can manage God’s spiritual protection as well.  Our disordered affections bring us to a belief in religion . . . and not to a belief in God.

    And so, Saint Mark’s Little Catechism urges us to cultivate the discipline of Simplicity; . . . not to cling to our material or intellectual superiority; . . . not to cling to our wealth . . . but to employ it for mercy and good; . . . to employ our possessions and our intellect for mercy and good, and to have no other plan than to simply follow Jesus.  . . . Because, in order to appropriate and reveal the uncommon love of the Father; . . . in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and inherit the life that is eternal . . . the Christian Character must consist of moral and spiritual Chastity, Obedience, and Simplicity . . . so that we may attain to the Humility of Heaven.