Let me tell you of a recent experience that set me thinking about this issue of what is life. It got me reflecting on today’s “not too easy to hear” gospel passage.

A week ago Saturday I was taken by a good friend to Carnegie Hall to hear the great Cleveland Orchestra play a program of Messien, Mozart and Bruckner. Thomas Quastoff the German bass baritone was listed to sing some Mozart concert arias but as some of you know he was unable to sing at the opening night of the season the previous Wednesday. So I was ready to be disappointed. However he was ready and able to go much to my delight. Some of you may have read the fine background article on Quastoff in the Times several weeks ago. Quastoff was born with severe physical disability due to his mother taking the drug Thalidimide during pregnancy. He was one of the first cases in Germany. Basically he has almost no arms or legs and stands about 4 feet tall, all body and head. The Times article described the traumas of his early years and his education. He was forced to attend schools for the intellectually disabled for a time and generally he was treated as an outcast in normal society. But thankfully he had remarkable parents and siblings who not only believed in him but began to fight his cause as well as his own remarkably strong and determined spirit. And they recognized that he had a voice and natural musical talent. Eventually he won a singing competition but then was denied entry into the Conservatorium in Berlin where he is now a professor because a requirement of entry was the ability to pursue keyboard studies. The latter was simply not possible for someone with hardly any arms and only a selection of fingers! But by sheer determination and will power and the steady support of his family, Thomas Quastoff overcame all sorts of prejudice, sheer lack of imagination, and narrowmindedness, to make himself one of the modern masters of song. Even more than that he has overcome obvious physical limitations to perform opera although after several successful attempts he has decided not to pursue that aspect of his career simply because it is too physically taxing.

On the stage at Carnegie Hall was a second podium not unlike the one the conductor would use. As Quastoff comes on stage there was an audible gasp at this short but robust figure with his little legs and stumpy arms. He literally waddles on and climbs onto his podium in order to be seen by both audience and conductor. At first I was fascinated by his physical appearance. In fact it was all too easy to judge him simply by his appearance with all its physical limitations. But how wrong I was. As soon as he opened his mouth in the first concert aria I realized that here was a master of his art. His rich bass baritone filled the hall with beauty and sensitivity and utter musicality. Furthermore when it came to the applause he beamed with a glorious smile and shook hands with the musicians around him and hugged the conductor. He was so at home in his physical body and clearly relished the occasion. At the end of the third aria the audience went wild and gave him a standing cheering and well-deserved ovation. After a few minutes he quietened the audience with a few flaps of his little arms. And then he stood still and launched into a most beautiful rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot which reduced the audience to tears and made Paul Robeson look like a white boy from New York such was the passion and richness of his singing.

Reading the Times article and seeing Quastoff perform made me reflect on what life really means. Here was a man who had suffered much because of physical limitations as well as all sorts of limitations imposed on him from outside but who had overcome them and soared above them to bring beauty, pleasure, joy and laughter to many.

I think that Jesus was on about something similar in the gospel today. He was faced one who is simply described as a man, who could be any man; a representative human person like one of us. He is often called the rich young ruler. But in terms of Mark’s gospel we only know that he was a man who had many possessions. It is Luke who speaks of the young ruler. What is important to say about him and his approach to Jesus is that there is an attractiveness about the man and a genuineness in his question. Not the sort of question we would ask probably. But it is the religious question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Note carefully that Jesus treats him with utter seriousness. This is a big issue for the disciples of Jesus who were following him on his journey. These were people who had set out on the journey or pilgrimage of faith as I talked about several weeks ago. These are not initial enquirers. And do not forget that all this was on the way to Jerusalem and that Jesus had talked of his Passion and Death twice already. Jesus’ immediate answer is stock in trade Judaism. He reminds the man of the Commandments of the Law (or at least some of them). Basically Jesus says “Keep the law and you will live.” Jesus seems to be testing him for the man answers perhaps with a voice tinged with frustration, “Teacher I have kept all these since my youth.” The man is genuine in his reply; he is not showing off or boasting. But what he is saying is “I have done that but somehow it does not bring the peace I seek.” He has tried hard to be a good religious person but is conscious of his lack. I love the next line in the gospel passage: “Jesus looking at him, loved him and said.” Jesus sensed all the eagerness, the enthusiasm, the goodness as well as the frustration in the man’s approach. His heart reached out to him in love, a love which is God’s love for us all. God wishes that we all would so yearn to be united with God’s heart of love. In one sense and thinking of my Thomas Quastoff illustration, the man is feeling trapped by the system, by all the rules, by all those who say don’t and can’t and mustn’t, as well as by his own circumstances, his wealth and his responsibilities.

Then Jesus said those words that so trouble those of us in the materialist West with our emphasis on acquisition and ownership and possessions. “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” It is the same Jesus who had already called the disciples from their boats and Matthew from his job in the tax office and another from his parents. Jesus in his intense gaze into the heart of the man senses that he was not free from his great possessions but that they possessed him. But the step he challenges the man to take is not some step into a void of poverty but is into new relationship, one of a disciple following Jesus on the road, the way of faith, a way that would ultimately lead to life indeed, life in all its fullness. His challenge is to each of us to break free of the things that limit and inhibit us, that stunt our growth and fulfillment, and to step out boldly on the Way of Faith in the Jesus who is God Incarnate and will lead us to our heavenly home, to life eternal, to life in all its fullness; life that is fulfilled.

The gospel is also clearly about our attitude to our money and possessions. The subsequent words about wealth and the disciples reactions make that evident. It is timely to hear this gospel as we head for Stewardship season once again. For all of us get a little nervous when the church talks about money. But the challenge of Jesus is ultimately about the freedom to move. Are we so weighed down by our money worries that we fail to see the true path to life; are we so blinkered by things material that we lose sight of things eternal? Do our possessions possess us?

Sometimes it is hard to break out of a way of being and living and feel free to move forward. It seems more secure to stick with the familiar and the well tried. But in response to the disciples alarm in the gospel narrative Jesus says: “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Ultimately it is not through our efforts alone but by the sheer graciousness of God that we can attain to eternal life; that we can become truly free.

So we are called into life in all its fullness by the love of God which we know and taste through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He calls us to join him as “partners in a heavenly calling” as the reading from Hebrews reminds us. May God give us courage and confidence to step out on the way of faith, the way that leads to life, eternal life.   Amen

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