The setting: sometime in the Old West.
Man dressed in dirty cowboy hat and boots wakes up, startled, his breath coming in gasps. Looks around. He’s alone, without horse or water. In the desert. Can’t remember how he got there or who he is. Looks down. Discovers a gaping wound in his side, a strange metal bracelet on his wrist, and a black and white tintype of a woman he can’t remember. He tries, fails, to remove the bracelet by hitting it with a rock. Doesn’t know that it is a powerful weapon he has stolen from an alien who tried to kill him.
He doesn’t yet remember when the giant creature killed the woman in the photo, the one he loved, for whom he had been willing to give up a life of crime and ill-gotten gains: a pile of gold stolen from a stagecoach.
Unsavory men on horseback approach wounded man and try to rob him. Wounded man beats them up. Heads to nearest town on one of their horses. Enters a shack that appears deserted.
Finds basin, water. Splashes face. Rips open dirty, blood soaked shirt. Winces.
Then, click of a gun against back of his head. Low voice growling, “Palms to heaven!”
Grey bearded man takes wounded man’s gun. Hisses, “Nice and slow.”
Wounded man turns, hands raised. “I’ve been shot.”
Bearded man, who happens to be the town preacher: “Only 2 kinds of men get shot. Criminals and victims. Which one are you?”
Wounded man: “I don’t know.”
This is the story of The Seeker (Jake), The Doubter (Doc), The Preacher, a Scoffer (an old cowboy war hero named Col. Dolarhyde), and other sinners, including cowboys, Indians, a woman named Ella, and a boy named Emmett.
The common enemy brings together a small town, people who mostly dislike and distrust one another. Together, they hunt down the terrible killing creatures from outer space. The creatures have come to study a weakness in human beings—man’s hunger for gold.
The movie is Cowboys and Aliens. And though I don’t agree with all the theology, it does connect with our gospel lesson in Mark.
The account of the rich man seeking salvation appears with slight variation in Matthew, Mark and Luke, so we know it bears an important message for us. Jesus gives this wealthy seeker 5 commands—“go, sell, give, come and follow”—with a promise—“you will have treasure in heaven.” This man’s call story is different than the simple, “Follow me” that Christ’s disciples responded to earlier. Importantly, this is the only call story in Mark when the one to whom Jesus beckons, “Come. Follow me,” responds by walking away.
And yet the story isn’t really just about the impediment of riches for the salvation of human beings. It is the difficulty for all human beings to be saved.
Scholars say the verses that immediately follow the rich man walking away are awkward when translated. The real meaning of Christ’s discourse is: “How hard, indeed, it is for anyone to enter the kingdom, but for rich people, it is quite impossible. In fact, humanly speaking, it is impossible for anyone to be saved, rich or not, but with God all things are possible.”
On this impossibility for human beings, we place our hope. We cannot save ourselves. But with God all things are possible.
***
In Cowboys and Aliens, Preacher sews up Jake’s wound, though Jake is just a stranger and he knows next to nothing about him. He asks more questions, but Jake’s answers are always the same: “I don’t know.”
Preacher speaks from his faith. “I’ve seen bad men do good things and good men do bad.” He tells Jake that he has a choice to make for his life. God won’t make the choice for him. What’s the plan?
And it is true that the choice to follow Christ is a decision we all must make. Christ died for the world and beckons to all sinners to come.
Some will choose to receive Him in faith and turn from their sin.
Some—like the rich man in Mark, worried about what Jesus would require him to give up—will walk away.
Jake doesn’t respond to Preacher. He doesn’t know yet that he is a Seeker. A woman named Ella tells him so while he tips back a shot of whiskey at the town saloon, but he isn’t ready to hear it.
Ella: “I know you are looking for something. So am I.” She offers to help him.
And Jake rejects her repeatedly: “Go away.”
But the Seeker will have a change of heart toward Ella and the others.
Doc, the saloonkeeper, whose wife is abducted by aliens, is the Doubter. He finds it difficult to believe in a God of love who allows horrible things to happen, something many people struggle with.
Preacher tells him, “You just gotta have faith.”
Doc: “Yeah, God’s been real swell to me. I don’t mean no disrespect, Preacher, but either he ain’t up there or he don’t like me much.”
Like the Seeker, the Doubter has a change of heart. The two become allies when an alien mortally wounds Preacher while the preacher is trying to save young Emmett.
Preacher gasps out his final words in Jake’s arms, pressing him to make his choice.
Preacher: “Go get our people back!”
Seeker, in the end, does the right thing. With Ella and the others, he helps destroy the aliens, saving lives and putting his own life in harm’s way to do it. And he and Doubter—thief and saloonkeeper—find peace. All because one man persisted in sharing his faith with words and kind deeds, though their hearts were hard and their sins were many.
At the preacher’s graveside, Doc and Jake (once Doubter and Seeker) stand alone as the others ride off. With hats removed and eyes lowered, they remember their friend and how he helped them. Doc says a prayer, asking the Lord to protect Preacher’s soul. He tells God that Preacher made him feel better and that the world was a better place for having him.
The choice to follow Christ is a decision we all must make. Christ beckons to all sinners to come.
Some will choose to receive Him in faith.
Some will walk away.
What I hope you will take from this message is encouragement to talk about your faith with people who may not know Christ. We all have people in our lives who are Doubters, Seekers, and maybe even Scoffers. God has put them there for a reason.
The seeds of faith you sow today may take root in their hearts tomorrow.
With God all things are possible. On this, we place our hope.
Will you pray with me? Lord, thank you for your Holy Word that inspires us to hear Christ’s call with fresh ears. Help us answer the call to follow and serve with new energy. Lord, please give us soft hearts, grateful hearts, that are never set against your ways. Show us your Will and lead us to choose only paths of righteousness. Thank you for loving us enough to give the world a way to salvation, eternal life with you, through the sacrifice of your Son, Jesus Christ on a cross. Give us the courage and compassion to share your Word and our faith with people who don’t know Christ as their Lord. In His name we pray. Amen.
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