Readings: 1 John 4:16b-21; Mark 2:18-22
I love Horace Rumpole. He`s a fictional Old Bailey Barrister created by John Mortimer and wonderfully acted by the late Leo McKern. He has a number of endearing characteristics, one of which is to quote Wordsworth at the least provocation. And one of his favourite quotes has been resonating with me lately. Let me share it with you.

It comes from a Wordsworth ode on immortality. It is quite long – over 200 lines - but I want to quote just nineteen lines. To give you some context, Wordsworth is suggesting that when a child is born it has a memory of the place from which its soul came, but that that memory, that image, is gradually, unwillingly, lost as the child grows up.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life`s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature`s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

It is a beautiful image - that the child has this memory of the God from whom we all originate, and arrives trailing clouds of God`s glory!

The word that started me on this thought path came from the liturgy in the Ash Wednesday Service at the Church of Christ. I think the phrase was `We come from nothingness` and I remember how it grated with me at the time. I far prefer Wordsworth`s image.

Then when I discussed my thoughts with Sandy she said, `Well what does the Bible say?` The answer seems to be not all that much. The Old Testament does not talk about a soul as an entity separate from the body. Rather, man is made from the dust and God breathes into him and he becomes a living soul, with both body and spirit.

The New Testament, as we know, talks of eternal life, but we generally understand `eternal` as referring to a quality of life here and now, rather than a part of us that goes on living forever.

In today`s reading the rich man asks Jesus `What must I do to inherit eternal life`. That seems to be a strange way to put it. We usually inherit something from someone else when they die. Perhaps he was rich because of wealth he inherited from his father, and maybe that tells us something about him and his priorities.

But Jesus doesn`t confront his use of the word `inherit`. Here is a young man who wants to tick all the boxes. `You know the commandments`, says Jesus. `Yes,` says the young man, `I`ve kept them all my life.` You can almost hear him asking for congratulations, but there`s a surprise.

Jesus looks at him, loves him then tells him something that wipes the smile off his face. `Sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.`

He went away grieving, says Mark, for he had many possessions. But that isn`t the end of the story. Jesus says to his disciples `How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.`

I`ve heard a number of suggestions that Jesus didn`t really mean what those words say. There is talk of a gate of that name with an archway in the city wall so low that a camel could not pass through unless its load was taken off. But I think trying to explain the impossible image misses the point. Jesus goes on to say, `For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible`.

The whole point, it seems to me, is that the rich young man misunderstood what the commandments were for. They were never intended as a minimum list of requirements – tick all the boxes and you will get an elephant stamp. Rather, they were a picture of the sort of behaviour that marked the God-filled life.

Elsewhere Jesus made it clear that compliance with the commandments was not enough. You recall his series of statements `You have heard it said … but I say to you`. In Chapter 5 of Matthew`s gospel there is a clear picture of the commandments and what Jesus expects.

`I`ve come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill. You have heard don`t murder, but I say to you don`t be angry. You`ve heard don`t commit adultery, but I say don`t look lustfully at someone. You`ve heard don`t swear falsely but I say don`t swear at all. You`ve heard an eye for an eye but I say turn the other cheek. You`ve heard love your neighbour, hate your enemy, but I say love your enemies, just like God treats the good and the bad alike.`

No wonder there was no elephant stamp for the rich young man. So he hadn`t murdered anyone? Big deal! Compare his response with that of Zaccheus who has Jesus for a meal and then volunteers to give half his possessions to the poor.

`What must I do to inherit eternal life?` was the wrong question! It is not a question of the things we do but the sort of people we are.

As Wordsworth`s baby knows and we adults have forgotten, we all `inherit` the possibility of eternal life, but you can`t achieve it by complying with a list of rules and ticking the boxes. As Jesus makes abundantly clear, even the Ten Commandments don`t come close!

The ones who enter the kingdom of God haven`t passed a compliance audit, they`ve committed to a different way of living that Jesus summed up in Matthew 22 in two lines – love God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

The first letter of John makes it clear that those two are tied together. If you don`t love your brother, whom you can see, how can you love God, whom you can`t see. Indeed, for me the most meaningful way that I can show my love for God is by living that out in love for the people I meet.

That, it seems to me, is the `vision splendid` that Wordsworth refers to and that God is calling us to reclaim in our community of love. Trailing clouds of the glory of God, who is our home!