April 6, 2003
Making Choices
The Rev. Dr. Riley E. Jensen

The problem for Frank was that he was trapped.  With a Harvard MBA, a lot of drive, a wife who adored him, Frank hit the job market like a shot and rose quickly to the top.  He was his company’s “fair haired boy”.

Frank had relational skills.  He was personable.  He was a quick study and articulate.  He could translate new knowledge into action.  Frank had high energy.  He liked to produce.  Frank liked people and they liked him.

But now he had a problem.  He was in trouble because the next move up for Frank was corporate headquarters in New York.  His career, to advance, included doing some time with the folks at headquarters.  But the Murphy’s had been in Grand Rapids for eight years.  The children were in soccer and ballet.  They had purchased a house.  They had even found a church which all enjoyed.

The problem for Frank was that he was trapped.  Torn!  Divided!  Pulled two ways!  No one in the Murphy family wanted to move to New York.  No one!  The family meeting on the subject was a disaster.

I know we don’t have that many Harvard MBAs floating around here, and the home office might be in Chicago not New York, and the dilemma might not be moving up the corporate ladder but keeping any job at all.  Or trying to find one – should I take any job just to get some income or keep searching for one that fits my skills and experience.  Life is filled with choices and they are seldom easy at the time we make them.

The rich young ruler came to Jesus with a question.  I want to believe that for him it was a serious question -- perhaps even a searing question -- one that had caused sleepless nights and hours of torment.  He had no doubt come to Jesus because of his reputation as a great rabbi, one who taught eternal truth in a way that touched the soul.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he asked.  Certainly it was a deep and profound question but he was asking it of one who offered deep and profound answers.  You come to one of your pastors with a deep spiritual question, and while you may not expect a quick simple answer, at the very least you expect us to wrestle with it a bit and offer some insight.  The truth is that I would gladly clear my calendar for someone who was asking this kind of faith question.

But after a rather brief exchange Jesus answer appears to be curtly dismissive, “Go sell what you have, give to the poor, and then come and follow me.”  That is certainly not the handholding, non-directive Rogerian response they taught us in Pastoral Counseling 101.  Where is the sympathy?  Where is the empathy?  None of that!  Simply, “You can’t have it all.”  “You’ve got to make a choice.”  “No one can serve two masters.”

It drives us back to the beatitude, “Blessed or happy are the pure in heart.”  Or happy are those who have made a choice because you can’t have it all!  As obvious as it may seem in theory that we can’t have it all, the response of a consumptive society is “why not”!  Whatever you may think of the war in Iraq, does anyone really believe that we have counted the cost and considered the price.  Are we prepared to do the job of nation building?  Are we prepared to suffer the almost certain consequences on an already debilitated economy?  Or do we assume that we can have it all without sacrifice -- other than that of the brave men and women who have placed themselves in harms’ way?

This beatitude has so much contemporary relevance it is almost eerie, and it all revolves around that word “pure” which is so open to misunderstanding.  The Greek word that is used here means literally “uncontaminated”.  We speak of “pure breds”.  But in human terms it means single minded.  So the opposite of pure in this verse is not dirty.  The opposite of pure is “divided” just as the opposite of committed is undecided.

Jesus recognizes here a common human dilemma and describes it quite clearly.  It is awful to be caught between polar attractions, pulled two ways.  Why is it awful?  Because we think we can have it both ways; we think we can have our cake and eat it too; we think we can go North and South at the same time; we think we can follow Jesus and not have to change our lifestyle.

It is hard for us to admit that some things are mutually exclusive, incompatible, and cannot co-exist.  Yet Jesus was quite clear on this point.  He said, “You cannot serve two masters.”  He didn’t say you shouldn’t serve two masters.  He said, you can’t.  It cannot be done.  Either you will love the one and hate the other, or you will cling to the one and despise the other.  A house divided will collapse.

We know that.  We have experienced this conflict of trying to go in two different directions at one time and sadly (usually under protest) admitted its impossibility.  For instance, when was the last time you were able to diet and nibble at the same time?  Or quit smoking and have just one more for old time’s sake?

Choice!  Who here has not agonized with a friend or colleague caught in a struggle of choosing.  One is at midlife and torn between commitment to wife and family and the glitter of the single life.  One is presented with two equally attractive job offers, but one includes a lot of travel.  You are 16, and the choice is between two “delicious” boys, equally cute.  Or you are 8 years old and can’t decide, will it be raspberry sherbet or peanut butter fudge.

The question here has to do with priorities.  The problem is insisting that we can have it both ways, that there can be two slots marked number one.  But “no” says Jesus.  It doesn’t work that way.  You can’t have it all.  You can’t serve two masters.  You have to make a choice.

That sounds pretty final but what if we fast forwarded and made that young man the product of the fine Christian schools of West Michigan.  Then, of course, he would have the benefit of knowing that we don’t interpret everything that Jesus says literally.  Obviously, Jesus didn’t mean for all of us to sell everything that we have.  Our young friend has probably also learned the Prayer of Jabez and knows that wealth and Christian discipleship are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

He would be right on both counts.  This is a particular instance (and not to be generalized) for that is the way God deals with all of us as unique individuals.  So you can let out that sigh of relief.  We are not going to become one of those cults where you have to sign over the mortgage, and we are not even going to kick you out of here if you don’t give ten percent to the church.

You see, the choice of the young ruler in the story is not necessarily the choice you have to make.  This is not about having a garage sale and taking a vow of poverty.  Purity of heart is what Jesus is after.  “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”  Kirkegaard said that, and he was right!  But who can do that?  “I hate choosing (a friend of mine used to say to me) and sacrifice is my least favorite of all.”

Yes, it is!  Almost impossible for some of us!  The truth is that we do hate denial and sacrifice -- but please remember -- the essence of sacrifice is not denial; it is choice!  It is single minded, undivided, full attention focused on the good -- but most of us don’t want to have to choose.

Do you remember Tennessee William’s play, “Night of the Iguana”?  The setting you may remember was the West Coast of Mexico, about 1940.  It was lush jungle bordering a beautiful white beach, and above (on a bluff) was an old hotel, Puerto Barrio.  Shannon, a defrocked minister with a weakness for young girls and a problem with alcohol, staunchly contends that he is loyal to the Church and willing to serve, even suffer for his faith, were it not for the hypocrisy of his superiors.

Playing opposite him, the hotel proprietor (Hannah) exposes Shannon’s self-deception by saying:

“ Who would like to suffer and atone for the sins of himself and the world, if it could be done in a hammock, with ropes instead of nails, on a hill that’s so much lovelier than Golgotha, the place of the skull, Mr. Shannon?”

We all hate sacrifice, having to choose.  And so it is T.S. Eliot who writes:

“Our age is an age of moderate virtue

and of moderate vice

when men will not lay down the cross

because they will never assume it.

Yet nothing is impossible, nothing to

men of faith and conviction.

Let us therefore make perfect our will

O God, help us.”

You see, the problem for many if not most of us is internal division, ambivalence, having a double mind.  The road to joy, however, according to Jesus is a single mind, purity of heart, to will one thing.  And what is the thing most needed?  To see, and to experience (however fleetingly) the presence of God.  “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

And we have.  We have had that experience at one time or another or we wouldn’t be here.  Do you remember?

Perhaps for you it was a church retreat or summer camp on some mountaintop when you were 14 years old.  Perhaps it was a moment of great need when you admitted for the first time that you could not make it alone.  It could have been for you an occasion when love and forgiveness were freely offered when you least deserved it, and God broke through into your cluttered life.  Or perhaps when you finally tired of the reward game, the stimulation game, the applause game, the power game, and said, “There must be more to life than this.”

We have all had that time when the Holy entered for a moment and stopped, stilled our distracted lives, and it was true, it was real, powerfully so, only to flit away.  Blessed are those moments, says Jesus, when other cares recede and a clear, uncontaminated vision of the Ultimate appears, and the Holy descends quietly like a dove and puts you at peace.  Happy are those who seek it and find it again, and again, and again.

Friends, the Bible is quite clear about this -- God is willing at any time.  The question is are you?  I promise it will not fit into your present schedule.  You will have to make space, and that means you will have to make a choice.  We hate that!

Could you spare five minutes a day for the Holy?  For quiet, reflection, prayer?  How about five minutes twice a day?   To do that, you will have to give up the delusion that you can have God in mind and the rest of your frenetic world there too!

We really cannot have it both ways.  We have to choose.  Jesus made a choice that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, and now it’s our turn as we receive the symbols of sacrifice, the symbols of the bread and cup, for sacrifice is not denial.  It is to choose to abide in the presence of the holy.