Empty Handed Helpers

Sermon for 20th Sunday after Trinity – 13 October 2024 – All Saints Little Bealings

Text: ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’  (Mark 10v21)

God give you peace my sisters and brothers.

[Raise clenched fist in ‘Black Power’ Salute and say] 

Amandla!  Do you remember the first time you saw the clenched fist – sometimes called the Black Power salute – in a protest?  For me, and perhaps this may also have been for several others, it was at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.  Tommie Smith, along with Australian Peter Norman, stood on the podium during the medal ceremony and during the playing of the USA National Anthem, pulled on a black glove each and raised a fist into the air.  If I remember correctly (and I was just 12 years old at the time) I felt somewhat offended by it.  Having been sent by his nation to represent the USA on the world stage how dare he disrespect the Star Spangled Banner under which he had just competed? 

Hopefully, and I thank God for having spent time living and working amongst Black People oppressed by the Apartheid regime, I have grown a little since then.  I have come to learn that the clenched fist is not just a ‘Black Power’ salute but a protest for Human Rights.  In Southern Africa raising a fist and shouting ‘Amandla!’ will garner the response, ‘Awethu.’  – Power to the people. 

The origin of the clenched fist was explained to me this way.  The forces of oppression could break down resistance one person at a time, one separate finger at a time.  However when the fingers closed around each other to form a fist they could not be broken so easily.

It is a powerful symbol but can, as with any other public action, be abused.^[1]  For this reason some African political groups (such as the Zimbabwean Movement for Democratic Change) replaced the clenched fist with an open hand to demonstrate that they were holding on to nothing and their open empty hands proved that they were hiding nothing from the people.

The problem faced by the Rich Young Ruler in our Gospel reading today is that he was living a life that was all about holding onto things – a clenched fist – instead of getting rid of things – an open empty hand.

This young man, a deeply religious person, wanted to follow God more closely but was unable to let go of what he was holding in his hands.  

This meant that he could not hold on to Jesus. 

He had a clenched fist when he needed empty hands. 

And so he becomes a living parable of Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel:

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6v24)

Wonderfully not all wealthy young rulers have fallen into the mammon trap as the sad young man in today’s reading.

One of my personal heroes is Francis of Assisi.  I call him ‘The Rich Young Ruler who Could’.  Growing up as the playboy son of a cloth merchant he hears the call of Jesus in the hug of a leper.  He gives away all of his possessions to beggars, he goes on to give away his father’s possessions also!  His father takes him to the bishop demanding that something be done about this boy of his who has ‘got religion’.  Francis responds by stripping naked in front of the crowd, renounces his earthly father, proclaims God to be his Father, and walks naked through the streets of Assisi to the ruined church at San Damiano that he is rebuilding.  If you want to know more of the story why not watch the movie ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon?’….

Francis learnt to let go of the things of this world so that he might hold on to eternity.  

And there are modern day ‘Rich Young Rulers who Could’ around still.  Some very close to Little Bealings.  The Honourable Mary Jill Ganzoni daughter of the 1st Baron of Belstead, philanthropist awarded the Cross of St Augustine by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be known by her reputation to many of us.  She was my sister in the faith both of us being Third Order Franciscans.  Jill was one of the most honest and transparent people I have ever known who had learnt to open her hands to all around her.  She lived out our Rule of Life every day and these words from it challenge us all:

Clinging to life causes life to decay; the life that is freely given is eternal.  Jesus calls those who would serve him to follow his example and choose for themselves the same path of renunciation and sacrifice.  To those who hear and obey he promises union with God.  (The Principles of the Order)

It is indeed hard for the rich to enter Paradise but people such as Francis and Jill teach us that it is not impossible.

Most of us here, neither rich nor rulers (nor young for that matter!), find that the words of Jesus challenge us about more than our goods and our money.  The disciples of Jesus are very quick to realize that wealth is not only about unrighteous mammon.  Hear again the words of the Gospel:

Jesus said again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’  ²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, ‘Who then can be saved?’  (Mark 10v24-26)

Everyone is wealthy in one way or another, almost all people hold on to money, goods, power, privilege and, at our darkest moments, we find ourselves possessed by our possessions and hiss Gollum like ‘My Precious’.

‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’

The answer lies in learning to unclench our fists and letting all that we have deemed as precious tumble out of them.  

Too often people of good heart, like the Rich Young Ruler, don’t do great things for God and God’s people, or do them from the wrong motives, because they have held on to Stuff and so find themselves unable to grasp the grace of God.

Let me give you a picture of what might happen when we learn this lesson…

At the turn of this century a fellow priest and I wanted to run a Summer Holiday Club for 24 Middle School children in Halesworth.  When putting our plan to the PCC we were asked how much we would be charging for the week of activities at the beach, funfair and tenpin bowling.  We replied ‘Nothing, but we will ask parents of the children for donations to cover the costs.’  We were then told we could not go ahead as the PCC did not have any budget for Youth and Children’s work.  We decided to go ahead anyway paying several hundred pounds each out of our own pockets for the events.  At the end of the week the total in donations was twice the amount the Holiday Club cost!  We were reimbursed our costs and the remainder was given to the PCC with the request that it become the budget for next year’s holiday club!

Through this my friend and I, though neither of us had much of this world’s goods to spare, learnt this lesson, 

‘If you give what you’ve got, 

you’ll receive what you need’.

But we know this don’t we?  

It’s living it that’s the hard bit

The words of the old hymn Rock of Ages continue to challenge us;

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace:
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully  (2 Corinthians 9v6)

May we learn again, and again, and again, when you give let go!

This blog  ‘Empty Handed Helpers’  is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2024.  It may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.

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^[1] This article gives some ideas as to how Amandla Awethu has been recently changed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amandla_(power)