Deeply shrouded in mystery, we may never fully understand how he affects our lives and the lives of our children. Do I have to spell it out for you? M-I-C-K-E-Y Come on I know you want to do it. M-O-U-S-E. (Now, I know what you are saying. The last thing you want to hear is a Baptist preacher talking about Disney) Many of you who have made the pilgrimage, the trek to Disney Land may find this story to be true.

Seven year-old Brian was a Mickey Mouse fan. With consistent prodding, his parents were convinced that this year the family vacation would take him to see the “real life” Mickey Mouse. The night before they were to depart Brian was too excited to sleep. On the way from the hotel all he could talk about was meeting THE Mickey Mouse.

They entered the park and his parents glanced down, hoping to find catch that Kodak moment of childlike wonderment and adoration. You know that look that makes you feel that all things are “possible and right with the world.” Instead they found a look of horror in Brian’s eyes. Brian’s cheers had turned to streams of tears with he saw the “real” Mickey.

After the tears subsided, he said to his Father, “Daddy, I like the Mickey Mouse on my pillow in my room, not the one that can reach out and grab me.” Brian preferred the two dimensional mouse of his cartoons to the one that was larger than his life.

The same can be true for us. We are intensely attracted to the idea of encountering God. Like Brian, we prefer to hide behind two dimensional doctrines about God rather than living a life in relation to a God who may reach out and grab us.

It is easier for us I guess if our faithful journey with the living God may be transformed into a mere set of proposals to which we must give mental assent.

I often wonder if we realize the importance of our language. Do we really know what we are saying? I mean it seems funny then, that when we commit ourselves to following Christ we say that God “enters our heart.” Don’t get me wrong, God indwelling our hearts is a good thing … as long as that extends to our hands and feet as well.

Truths about God and the truth of God must come together in our lives. It is more than just our minds and our sentiments. We proclaim a God whose very presence threatens to reorder our personal desires and preconceived notions. God comes to us in Jesus, telling us who we are and what we are to do. It is not up to us. Our identities are not our choosing. That surrender of control to the presence of God, my friends, is truly terrifying.

Now, from our passage today we see that both Job and this wealthy “Would-Be” Disciple are terrified and saddened respectively, when their prior conceptions of God met the challenge of their encounter with God.

For Job it is the maxim of Wisdom that states only the wicked fall upon despair and only the good are blessed. In this state of crisis, Job, an upright man, cannot sense the presence of God and feels cut off from his community and his former life. A feeling of isolation and desperation takes hold when the realization that the kind of God he once knew is missing.

Longing for the safety of the once thought “safe” God, Job must wrestle instead with a deity whose ways are not understood and whose intentions are not clear to his human mind. His former conceptions of God gone A.W.O.L., and there is no sign of them returning. Job reacts in terror at the image with which he is left: a Lord who does not act in ways we can explain. Instead of surrender to this God whose presence makes the heart faint, Job wishes for a blanket of “darkness” under which to hide. “If only I could vanish in darkness and thick darkness would cover my face,” he says. Now, we laugh at the absurdity of the child-like reaction: hiding under a security blanket! But the lessons of Linus teach us that we will not come our from under it until we feel safe.

When was the last time we recognized the blankets we curl under our chins when the going gets … misunderstood. The fuzzy blanket of doubt, the always cozy defensiveness, the soft layers of selfishness all comfort us against a God who may threaten our wooden perceptions of what should be. Dear friend, blankets are a sure thing in the face of terror! Surrender them? I think not.

It was a dark November night and I was the driver. We were a determined group of Samford undergrads intent upon driving to Jackson Mississippi to pick up a couch that would really tie the dorm room together. [very fung shwei … you know]

We found ourselves out of gas for the truck, but full of blame for its driver. Our battered band of brothers began to roam the surrounding back roads of Yazoo, MS, in a neighborhood of questionable safety searching for a little southern hospitality . . . and gas. None was found…mind you. So, we began to walk back towards the truck when along came some unlikely aid.

A truck stopped and the driver offered to give one of us a ride to the local gas station… You may guess who my buddies chose to go with the stranger. Their two steps backwards were the only votes cast, but I found myself elected as I hopped into the cab of the stranger's pickup.

Taking advantage of the tension…our strange savior threw his truck into reverse, throwing a hail of gravel on my friends. Over the squealing tires they heard him yell “I got yo friend and I ain’t bringin him back!” You might ask if I was terrified…

Sometimes the Savior that finds us is not the one that we wish for… or wanted. Sometimes Christ the Savior meets us and asks us to give up, open up, lift up parts of our heart that we didn’t realize were open to his to touch. The terror of realization strikes as we question, "what are the things that are hindering a life of following Christ?"

Enter our “Would-Be” disciple. Like Job, the Rich Man of Mark 10 is a self avowed keeper of the Law from his youth. But it would take more than technical holiness to become a follower. He is told to sell all that he has and give to the poor. Unwilling to allow this kind of claim upon his life, he leaves with money in the bank, but full of sorrow. Jesus’ response seems to only underscore the impossible task of being a disciple. “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

It doesn’t take a trip to a Mid-Eastern petting zoo to realize that Camels don’t go through needles. So what is he talking about here? This play on words might have been heard differently by earlier listeners. You see the “eye of the needle” was a slender gate at the outer wall of the city. Travelers with large packs on their camels would have to unload their burdens if they were to enter the city through this tiny gate. I guess Narrow is the path and all that….

The warning here is for more than wealth generally. As if … But rather those kinds of connections, the kind of wealth, material and power that might hinder us from entering the Kingdom. It calls for the unloading of any connection that would prevent entry into the city of God. Are we willing to risk that openness? I mean believing in Jesus is one thing, but allowing him in my personal space is quite another. Isn’t there something that we reserve for ourselves?

While teaching at Notre Dame, Theological Ethicist, Stanley Hauerwas received some unexpected lessons in love while spending time with special needs children and the mentally handicapped. Many lessons were learned I’m sure … Once such revelation came while touring the campus with a special needs group. We say that we want a God, whose love will overcome all of our difference, giving us meaning. It seemed that Stanley had made friend for the day, a young boy with downs syndrome who spent more time in Stanley’s arms than following by foot. After that day he remarked…How is it that we can say we want a relationship with a God whose love threatens to breakdown our boundaries …when I can’t stand the loving touch of someone who just won’t get out of my space.

Jesus gets in our space too, doesn’t he? With unanswered questions, with reasons that are not our own … with challenges that threaten the comforts that we know, with offers of treasures in heaven instead of on earth, Jesus gets in our space, folks. And what does he do there? While we hide under our blankets, question the Savior, and react in terror of a God who we did not form, Jesus begins to reform us.

In Jesus the impossible reforming of our lives is made possible. Reforming happens in that word called discipleship: becoming a learner, allowing surrender to come into our lives, forming our very lives to that of Christ’s. This is hard for us in America sometimes, to see the life of cruciform discipleship as one that we must take up daily. Our faith has been so shaped by the excesses of the Revivalist traditions of the 19^th century that “believing” in Jesus can merely mean an assent to a proposition about Christ instead of a life of discipleship. Along with believing comes following too.

It’s dangerous and mystifying, unsafe and terrifying, this life of discipleship, this graceful mystery. But the Grace Jesus offers can lower our blankets, ease our terror stricken faces, frame our questions and strengthen us to meet those challenges. Are we ready to surrender to such a Grace?

[The last part of the passage in Mark promises that that which is taken from us will be restored in this life and the life to come. Now, where might that happen? Could it be that it is in the community of the church that we find those relationships restored? Those who lose father and mother, son or daughter find it regained in the family of God.

I am reminded of a story of a great mansion with two rooms. Walking into the foyer you found them to be identical. Turning to the right you found a grand banquet hall with a feast laid out before you. There were people sitting in their perfectly set places … starving because the only thing they had to eat with were long handled spoons … So they couldn’t quite get the food to their mouths. Now, if you turned and went into the other room you saw the same scene: the same feast the same long handled spoons that prevented their feeding. But, they were feeding each other. They had formed a community of care that could nurture health.

What if the church could be that kind of community in which we could have true discipleship: modeling the life of Christ for each other day to day? Can we offer up our fear and terror at a God we cannot understand or foresee and let Grace bridge the gaps between our abilities and our weaknesses? Of your life allow the Savior to say, “I’ve got you friend and I ain’t bringin’ you back” Let us surrender all to that kind of Savior.

Embrace the journey … .even though it can be a scary one.

Amen.