I stepped out on the ledge last week. Up at the top of Willis Tower, formerly known as Sears Tower, you know that there is the new glass box that protrudes from the west side of the building at the 103rd floor. “1353 feet over Wacker Drive and the Chicago River!” exclaims the brochure. Here is a photo of me with a nervous smile on my face as I stand with the city laid out behind me, and below me.

I was experiencing an approach-avoidance conflict before I did it. There is something exciting about doing it and then telling you about it. But there also is something daunting about stepping out into nothingness at 1353 feet. It was the woman on duty on the 103rd floor who gave me the advice that made it doable. She said, “You may want to turn around and face back toward the inside of the building. Look at us and the security of where you have been, and then just take a step backward unto the glass floor.  Then, if you wish, look down, and finally you can turn around and look out.”

And it worked! By looking back I could take a step out. I looked down . . . not so bad. I turned around to face west and saw a beautiful sunset. It was good . . . and what made it possible? “Look back and take a step out.”

That instruction was in my mind when I looked at our gospel episode for today, and there is a similarity, of sorts. This rich man rushes up to Jesus, throws himself at Jesus’ feet, and blurts out, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus points him backward. He has him face the age-old dictates of how to live a faithful life, a portion of the Ten Commandments. “Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not lie; do not cheat; honor your father and mother.” Look back; see from where you have come.

 “I have done all of that,” the man asserts, and Jesus believes him. Not only does he believe the man, Jesus loves him. He now tells the man to take a major step into the unknown, into nothingness, into a place where he will look down and see no safety net to catch him if he falls. “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.”

Here is a rich man who has everything, and Jesus has the audacity of love to say, “You lack one thing.” And he challenges the rich man at the one point he is weakest – his strength. Is that not often the case, that our greatest strength is what holds us back from following Jesus? Maybe our wealth. Maybe our power. Maybe our intellect. Maybe our beauty. Maybe our cleverness. Maybe our sense of duty. Maybe our busy-ness. Maybe our ego. Maybe our sense of inadequacy; some of us have honed that into a “strength” of sorts. Maybe our fear of failure. Maybe our family entanglements, mistaken as commitments. 

In our gospel account Jesus discerns that it is the man’s riches that are keeping him from stepping out in faith. So, Jesus turns him around and shows him the tethering point that will keep him safe, the laws of God handed down to us to show us how to live together, and then says, “Step out.” And the man, once so eager to hear Jesus’ answer, now wanders off in shock, grieving because he had many possessions. We do not know for sure that he avoids Jesus from this point on. We certainly do not see him again. We can only assume that this is a call to discipleship that is answered in the negative. No, I will not take the step that requires me to let go of security in order to move forward, even if that forward step is accomplished by stepping backward from the known into the unknown.

I cannot tell you what it is that Jesus is asking you to give up so that you might move forward, but only to suggest that it may be at your point of greatest strength. I think of two notable public examples. Henri Nouwen, a hero for many of us who have been engaged in pastoral ministry because he wrote several very helpful books on the discipline of pastoral care, left a prestigious teaching position at Yale University and went to live in a group home for disabled people in Canada. And in the subsequent decades he wrote and spoke about that community such that he ennobled the place of people with disabilities in our society.

Parker Palmer, who grew up in the United Methodist church in Wilmette, turned down an invitation to become the president of a liberal arts college, the very thing for which he had been hoping, when, after talking with a circle of close Christian friends, it became clear that what he wanted was the prestige of being a college president. He did not want to do the work of a college president, especially the fund-raising. He had to let go of his pride in order to become one of the most influential sociologists writing about education today.

The gospel encounter of the rich man and Jesus is not about generosity. We ought not to read it and conclude, “Well, I must give away all of my possessions and follow Jesus in poverty.” Now, a conflict of interest here. Our stewardship drive is coming soon, so if any of you really want to give away everything that you have please call me, and we will see if we can work something out.

No, this is not a morality tale about generosity; it is about power. What has control over our lives so that we are afraid to step out in a new direction and follow Jesus? It is about priorities, what claims us. Jesus points back to something that is not at all radical, the Ten Commandments, and then draws a radical implication from them . . .go and sell all that you have, and then come and follow me.

On second thought, maybe the Ten Commandments are radical, in the strict sense of the word “radical,” going to “the root” of things. It simply is bedrock truth that if we are going to live together in a coherent community then we must not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or cheat, and we must honor our elders. In another strict sense of the word, the Ten Commandments are “political,” and Jesus employs them for political reasons. 

A need for careful definition here. People will say, “Don’t mix religion and politics,” and we see plenty of examples of what people are worried about. But that is based on an impoverished understanding of politics. In our public discourse we have reduced “politics” to partisan politicking, a shameless, self-promoting, truth-obscuring grab for raw power. And the Church must stay far away from that.

But once we get back to the Greek base and discover that it comes from a word that means “civics” and refers to how citizens can order themselves so that the common good can be served . . . that we can experience public safety, so that there is a healthy citizenry, so that there is a public caring that serves the well-being of all. That is what it means to be a civil society. That is the work of politics.

In that case, not only do religion and politics mix, but they must relate to one another. The religious truths of our Hebraic and Christian traditions suggest a structure by which we can live peaceably with one another. No murdering, no adultery, no stealing, no lying, no cheating, honoring one another . . . those religious laws transcend politics, but imagine how wonderful it would be if we all abided by those laws, if all our politicians abided by those laws! 

When we reduce politics to what happens in Washington D.C., or Springfield, or across the street at City Hall, we have robbed to of its radical power, of its rootedness in things that are universal, of its power to call us from safety to new life. Even the most staid of formulations, the Ten Commandments (we cannot get more orthodox than that; they were “written in stone,” weren’t they?), have radical implications for our lives.

Jesus goes to the root of the matter with the rich man and calls him to step out, and the man runs away to hide behind what he thinks is certain, that his wealth will save him. A call unanswered.

Here is a call answered, at least by our divinity school intern this year, Katherine Raley, and by me, her supervising pastor. This is a call to all of us, I submit. It was spoken last Wednesday at Bond Chapel in the form of a Litany of Vocation, “vocation,” a “calling.”  The leader read God’s call to Abram to leave his father’s land and go to some place new, and we responded “God calls us away from our homes to follow into the unknown.”

Then we heard the call of Moses out of the burning bush to leave behind his father-in-law’s flocks and lead the people of God, and we said, “God calls us away from the daily-ness of our lives into the holiness of God’s presence.”

Then, the call of Isaiah as he dreamed of being in the temple, and we responded, “God calls us from reflection and worship to God’s active voice in the world.”

The call of Mary by the angel Gabriel, and our understanding that “God calls us in our humility to be bearers of God’s greatness.”

Saul, soon to become Paul, lying on the ground, blinded by the light, hearing God direct him to go to the city and await further instructions, and we said, “God calls us in our rebellion to be leaders among God’s people.”

 And finally, the affirmation, “In every age, God has called faithful men and women into service, raising them up and sending them out into the world.” And we concluded with, “God calls us away from ourselves to become more than we are. Amen.”

The radical implications of taking our faith seriously . . . if we strive to organize ourselves in accord with God’s politics, the values that assure civil life, then we will hear God calling us away from home to a new place, away from our routine to the extraordinary, away from mere reflection to action. God calling us in our humility to greatness, in our rebellion to leadership, from our reliance on our own strengths to something greater.

It takes courage, it takes faith, to answer the call, to step out where there appears to be nothingness. If we can step out confidently and frontally, then fine. If we have to turn around to face the familiar and then step back in order to move forward, that is okay, too. But Jesus says that we must take the step if we are to experience life in its fullest.  Amen.