A guy is walking down the road in the middle of nowhere, when he comes across a farmer.  What was he doing, walking down a road in the middle of nowhere, you ask?  I don’t know—this is a joke!  Maybe he was trying to practice social distancing!  Surprisingly, this farmer has boxes upon boxes of ripe, fresh-picked peaches.  The guy is delighted to buy a few juicy peaches but is curious about the situation.  So he asks the farmer, “What do you do with this massive amount of peaches out here in such a remote place?”  The farmer replies, “Well, we sell what we can, and what we can’t we can.”I love this joke because peaches remind me of summer, and even though it’s only the first Sunday in March, I am getting very excited about warmer days ahead.  I also love this joke because it is so true, what we can’t, we can, and I don’t mean can like process in a mason jar to preserve for the upcoming winter.  Most people, what we can’t, we can, as in eliminate, avoid, deny.  What we can’t, we can.  That’s a quotable quote!But Jesus offers us a different quote to hang onto this morning:  what we can’t, God can!  What we cannot do on our own, what is impossible for us mere mortals, is possible for God.Take, for instance, the story of Rich Stearns.  Rich is the President Emeritus of World Vision, a Christian organization that provides relief to the poorest of the poor in 100 countries around the world.  In 1987, Rich was informed by a friend that the president of World Vision was stepping down, and a search had begun for a replacement.  This friend thought Rich would be the perfect candidate. But for Rich, this was an idea that lined up perfectly with “what we can’t, we can”!  The World Vision job was in Seattle; Rich and his family were comfortably settled in the Philadelphia suburbs.  They had a great house, their 5 kids were in a great school.  He couldn’t imagine uprooting them—again.  Rich had a great job as CEO of Lenox china, a job he landed after being fired twice within a twelve month span a few years before.  He was very thankful for his current position.  Things were, for once, going great in his life.  He was not interested in making a change.When he told his friend, I can’t do this, Rich thought he had put the issue in the can.  But instead, a seed had been planted.  The idea of becoming the next President of World Vision would not go away, and Rich wrestled for months with the possibility that God was calling him to a new role.  Still, it was very hard for Rich to imagine!  So God used other mouthpieces to speak into his life, including this very passage of scripture we are studying today.  In his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, Rich describes how this passage bothered him so much, he wanted to take a pair of scissors to his Bible and cut it out!  There you go—another example of what we can’t, we can!  Rich wished the gospel writers would have never included this encounter between the rich man and Jesus because it was speaking to him so directly. Thankfully, what is impossible for mere mortals is possible for God.  God arranged for the Spirit to guide and support Rich until he could see, giving up his job at Lenox was indeed God’s will for his life.  God worked in Rich’s life to help him see that, even though he had been serious about his Christian faith for many years, he had not relinquished his life completely to God.  Rich wanted to serve God—but on Rich’s terms, not God’s terms.  His job, his community standing, his home, his family—these were all good things!  But not being willing to make changes in these areas was blocking him from fulfilling God’s purpose for his life.  God did not give up on Rich.  After many months of wrestling, Rich agreed to be interviewed for the position, accepted it when it was offered to him, and stayed in the role of World Vision’s President from 1998 to 2008.  That was twenty years, longer than any other World Vision President before him.  In his retirement, Rich continues to be involved with World Vision and to be a voice advocating for the poor and vulnerable in the world.  Looking back, he says, “God really seems to have a sense of humor about these things, so why not choose a guy selling luxury tableware to help the poor?”Rich spent twenty-three years of his adult life as a corporate climber; and then the next twenty plus years as a champion for the poor.  What a remarkable change of course, a change that lived up to Jesus’ promise of receiving 100fold return on investment.  We don’t know how many years the rich man Mark describes had been living his old way of life.  I am in the habit of calling him the “rich young ruler”, because between the Mark, Matthew and Luke, he is described as rich, young, and ruler.  But Mark doesn’t give us an indication of his age.  He only tells us that the man was indeed very wealthy, and that he was not satisfied.  He was looking for something more.“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The rich man was already leading a respectable, righteous life.  In fact, in Jewish thought, his wealth was proof that he had kept all the commandments and lived a life pleasing to God.  But the man was discontent.  Nothing he had done so far would outlive him.  Nothing he had done so far would have an eternal impact.  Nothing he had done would carry him beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary.So Jesus asks him to do something really extraordinary:  to sell all he had and give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus.  We can see why the rich man walked away sad.  Who could possibly follow this suggestion?  There are indeed some Christians who take a vow of poverty.  But Church tradition has rightly pointed out that Jesus did not ask anyone else to do this.  Discipleship always carries an expectation that we will leave something behind to follow Jesus.  But God does not ask all of us to leave behind everything we own. Whew!  We don’t need to get the scissors and cut out this passage if we’re worried about having to give up everything we own!  But we are for sure being called to get out the scissors and cut something in our lives.  God has raised up a friend to all of us, who this very moment, is calling us to tell us about a new opportunity.  Not a job in Seattle when we live in Philly—that was God’s unique call to Rich Stearns.  The details of God’s call for us will be unique to us.  But right this very minute, God has raised up a friend named Jesus who is calling us to tell us that we will reap great rewards if we are willing to let go, to surrender, to hold on more loosely to something we have spent years accumulating—and then follow our friend Jesus where he is leading.  God has raised up a friend to tell us, what we can’t, God can.For instance.  Maybe what you’ve accumulated a lot of over the years is unresolved pain.  All of us are like an iceberg, with a certain side of ourselves that we reveal to the world—and most likely, a lot of hidden hurts under the surface.  The last twelve months have no doubt added to our accumulation of unresolved pain.  Some of this pain may even be because of church!As you may know, the United Methodist Church had to postpone its 2020 General Conference because of the pandemic, and this week we learned that it has been postponed again.  We must wait until late August and early September of 2022 to find out if our denomination is going to split and if so, how, and if not, what then?  It’s been a long wait for people.  On Wednesday I traveled four hours upstate to take my mother to a doctor’s appointment and overhead some strangers talking about this issue in the waiting room.  They were very angry about General Conference being postponed, and the things they said were mean-spirited.  I wanted to go over and remind them that even if we disagree on things, we can still charitable and loving and kind.  But since their words offended me, I didn’t feel charitable and loving and kind myself!  So I kept quiet. As I drove home I realized, instead of feeling offended by these fellow Methodists, I can feel kinship with them.  There are so many factions in our denomination these days, but waiting is hard for everyone.  Division and threat of division is tiring for everyone.  Not knowing is scary for everyone.  I know that anger I saw in the waiting room is just the tip of the iceberg, and underneath of that is a lot of unresolved pain. God did not expect Rich Stearns to say yet to leaving Lenox china and joining World Vision on the spot.  God engaged Rich in a process that unfolded over time.  God led Rich to in a process of discernment and wrestling and compassionate care.  I believe God wants to do that for us, for all of us who carry unresolved pain, whatever its source.  God wants to help us name the pain, and experience God’s presence with us in the pain, and then let it go so something new can be birthed from it.  Even with terrible pain we think can never go away, Jesus wants us to know, what we can’t, God can.We are all being called right now to cut something out of our lives, but we know, most of the time, this is a gradual process.  Mark tells us that the rich man walked away sad, but I have a hunch that is not the end of his faith story.  I have great hope that this rich man was eventually won over by God’s call on his life.  I have heard so many people talk about the “hound of heaven”, and how God pursued them over time, and how gradually what was impossible for them became possible with God.  They were able to leave behind their idols, their fears, and yes, even the hurts that held them back, and walk freely into the new.  And while Jesus never promised the new life would be easy—how could it be when we know that pain and joy live side by side—they saw Jesus’ promise of 100fold return come true.  They knew there was a part of their life that would last forever.  They were able to move beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary.This might be what I love most about being a Christian:  what we can’t, God can.  On my own, how could I ever hope to participate in the things of God?  How could I ever take part in something eternal?  There’s no way I could do that.  But what is impossible for mortals is possible with God.  God WANTS us.  The question is, do we want God?  Do we want what God has for us RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE?  Or will we walk away from this encounter with Jesus today sad, because what we think Jesus is asking us to give up is simply too much? I don’t know anyone right now who has boxes and boxes of peaches.  But we all have boxes and boxes of other stuff.  Some of it we consider good, like income and savings.  Some of it we consider bad, like past hurts and unmet expectations and disappointments.  But whatever is in those boxes, it is really only bad if it blocks us from fully following Christ.  And it is really only good if it helps us see and know and serve Christ.  That is why Jesus said that many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.  The people we assume are last—those with only a box or two of good stuff—are often more able to experience God’s gracious alchemy and transform their negatives into positives with God; while those who have a lot going for them are often resistant to letting their good stuff go.  That is why it is so hard for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus promises that we will reap 100fold of whatever we sacrifice to follow Jesus.  No matter what it is that Jesus is calling you to leave behind in this season of your life, thanks be to God, this is not a “What we can’t, we can” situation.  This is a “What we can’t, God Can!” situation.  Thy will be done, O Lord.  Thy will be done, in us, and through us, now and forever.  Amen.