Grace and Peace to you from the Holy Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Relationship, the promise that holds people together. 

The Holy Trinity is a relationship of our Triune God; One in three- three-in one. 

Throughout our lives we have many relationships; can you think of a few? 

I have a relationship with God, my wife, my children, my family, and many other people. 

God made us to be with each other. 

I also have a relationship with all of my stuff. 

What does Jesus tell us to do with all of our stuff? 

After 38 years in a one bedroom, one bath condo, with a square footage of just under 800 feet and a small storage locker I can honestly look at this question in light of moving my mother out to California with my sister. 

“For she had many possessions.” 

As you may already know and for those of you who don’t, Misty and I, quite frankly, Misty, my wonderful wife and partner, helped move my mother out to my sister’s in Los Angeles. 

What started as an idea over five years ago slowly took shape to get my mom to where she needed to be. 

For some context, my mom is 88 years old and she has been a very independent person her whole life.

She made the difficult, but life giving decision to get a divorce from my father in 1972. 

For 52 years she has been looking for joy, meaning of her life. 

Over that time she had a good job and the support of her family and two great kids, my sister and I. 

When I was 17 years old it was time to downsize, we simply didn’t need our large suburban home, especially with my sister in college and me heading off that fall, after graduating my high school. 

The decision was made to sell our home in Roseville, where I had lived my whole life. 

I moved in with my dad, for the summer before I went off to college and my sister and mom moved into an apartment together in the far western suburbs of the Twin Cities. 

They lived together until my sister moved with a new job closer to St. Paul. 

My mom then found her dream place on the 22nd floor of the Towers Condominiums in downtown Minneapolis. 

She had a sweeping view of the river and a place to really call her own. 

Who would have ever thought that her birth place in South St. Paul, an area close to the Mississippi known as “Pig’s Eye” would now reward her with the broad expanse that Father Louis Hennepin saw, that is now the Falls of St. Anthony and the Stone Arch bridge that spans the Mississippi. 

My mom traveled the world and we have about 200 pounds of pictures packed into photo albums documenting her adventures, including many smiling faces of the people she met along the way.

Along with the photos were all of the keepsakes and treasures obtained from exotic locales. 

The pictures were like the tip of an iceberg, the real thing was just below the surface. 

I know many of you have also helped care and sort through all of your parents belongings. 

There was the furniture and appliances, some could be resold, some needed repair or other things just didn’t seem to make sense why she kept them. 

Did you know that my mom had three clothes irons? 

Four Coffee makers and there must have been quite a sale on plastic storage bags, I think I’m set for life. 

I say this with love as my mom was a survivor, born out of the depression, blue collar families in the meatpacking industry, and her dream of a house, two kids, and a collie dog rudely awakened by a divorce. 

Many of those things that she had were hard earned and held meaning beyond what I understood. 

I’m sure we all have a few things around that would be really hard to part with. 

“She had so many possessions.” 

By the grace of God when we mentioned that perhaps this year my mom would not only visit my sister, but may actually move there. 

In February she said yes.

Just like that, the plan was in motion and now the reality began. 

We needed to figure out what to pack, how to sell the condo, and when to move. 

As the summer quickly approached August would be her departure with a preparation to clean and prepare her condo for sale. 

After 38 years my mom said goodbye to her home. 

With her suitcase that took her around the world she was headed to my sister’s, going home to family. 

My mom said goodbye to her possessions, she didn’t need them anymore. Today my mom is happy. 

Happy to experience a sunrise that now brings her joy, even though she used to have one of the most beautiful sunrises in Minneapolis. 

For the last eight years she has seemed like she was waiting. Waiting to die, rather than following her heart to inherit eternal life. 

Like the man who runs up to Jesus, kneeling before him, and addressing him with, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

Jesus was setting out on a journey, only to be interrupted by this stranger. What is this man really asking for? 

It would appear that the man has it all. 

It also seems like he is looking for a relationship.

In our reading the man hears Jesus recite the relationship between the commandments that all deal with our community. 

“You shall not; murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, defraud, and honor your mother and father.” 

I think the man, like us knows, even feels that something is missing. 

You follow all the rules, take care of yourself, and feel like you have it made. 

But that feeling is empty, what does it mean to have it made? “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

Jesus looks at the man, recognizes him for who he is and loves him. “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.” 

We are told the man was shocked and left grieving. 

After all that is exactly what the disciples have done to follow Jesus. 

Yet all too often I hear what Jesus says and sometimes fall short, or I think that it doesn’t apply to me. 

We are left wondering about this man who went away, aware that he had many possessions. 

Jesus invited the man to turn those possessions into gifts. Like the unconditional gift of love that we receive through faith.

Relationships that are based in love and compassion. 

Relationships that see the other as ourselves. 

God so loved us that he gave his only begotten son. 

Again the gospel message turns our understanding of giving to getting. 

The message is that we can’t save ourselves, for that is what God does, and for God all things are possible. 

There is nothing wrong with wealth and possessions unless they are substitutions and obstacles to our loving relationship with God. 

Peter and the disciples are well aware of what they have given and Jesus even interrupts Peter with the acknowledgment and promise that they will receive a hundredfold now and in the age to come eternal life. 

God created us out of love and loves us all. 

Have a relationship with God that recognizes that gift of love, the gift that we are all siblings in Christ together. 

By faith our grace is the promise of eternal life. 

A life to look forward to, while looking at where we are at right now. God is here and will be there. Our gift is to be with God now and forever. For this gift we can say, Thanks be to God. AMEN