Full service HERE. Gospel reading begins at 22 min.
Pentecost 20B
October 10, 2021
Mark 10:17-31
INTRODUCTION
“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” I feel like the writer of Hebrews wrote this line about today’s lectionary texts, both Amos and Mark. Both texts deal with wealth and poverty in their contemporary times, but also, as one would expect from the “living” word of God, both speak pointedly to our own contemporary issues around wealth and poverty. Jesus, turns out, talks more about money than almost anything else, and so as easy, or I should say, convenient, as it would be just to dismiss the tough teachings we will hear today as somehow not relevant to us… we do so at our own peril. Economics are clearly important to Jesus, and today’s texts in both Amos and Mark show us that faith and economics are very much related. Keep in mind also that Mark’s intention is that we would read ourselves into the story – he leaves lots of gaps in the story, that serve as spots to place ourselves.
So, listen carefully, and take the words of all these texts seriously, and consider how your faith calls upon you to live as a person of wealth. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
There was once a rich young man. As a child, he had always tried to do the right thing, though his circumstances certainly didn’t always make that easy. He was determined that he would ultimately succeed. He worked hard. He got rich. He had a nice house filled with lots of possessions, which he could afford to both acquire and keep. By all metrics of his culture, he was blessed. He was living the dream! But as he looked at his “blessed” life, nice house, and many possessions, he started to wonder… why, when I have everything I thought I wanted, everything I dreamed of… why am I still so unhappy?
Then one day he had an encounter with a friend who had long loved him. His friend seemed so at peace. So, he blurted out, “Why are you so happy? What is the secret?” The friend told him, “You should get rid of all your stuff. Then you will find what you have been looking for.”
This is the story of Josh Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, two men from Dayton, OH, who have come to be known as The Minimalists. They have multiple books, two Netflix documentaries, a blog, a podcast, and have helped some 20 million people minimize their lives and find true contentment. Nicodemus observes, “There was this gaping void in my life. So I tried to fill that void the same way many people do: with stuff, lots of stuff.” As sought-after speakers, who have spoken at Harvard, Apple, and Google, as well as twice on the TED stage, they proclaim a message of how to have a richer life with fewer things.
The Minimalists’ wild popularity shows what a pervasive need this is among those who are considered “rich” by the world’s standards – that is, people whose household income is at least $40,000, which would put you in the top 10% of wealth, globally. Especially in this country, we have so much stuff, that we pay other people to store it – the storage industry is one of the most lucrative in America, with a 2019 revenue of nearly $40 billion, a nearly 50% increase since 2010. And yet, even with all that stuff, Americans are also facing record unhappiness, an increase in depression and anxiety, an increase in loneliness and drug use… and while yes, some of that is pandemic-related, the picture wasn’t that much better in 2019.
In this way, while Jesus was speaking to his own contemporary issues, he was also very much before his time, wasn’t he? A rich young man approaches Jesus. The man is a good person and has been since his youth, he has a big house filled with many possessions, and he is, by all metrics of his culture, blessed. And yet there is something missing, something his many possessions are not providing him. When this rabbi, Jesus, comes to town, he hopes he might gain some insight, and figure out what more there might be. Falling to his knees before Jesus, he says, “I’m looking for life. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”
It reads like a healing story. Throughout the Gospel, people are falling before Jesus and begging for healing, and this man is no different. For all of his wealth, he is lacking something. He has a dis-ease; he is unsatisfied. And he is looking to Jesus to satisfy his longing.
In response, Jesus rattles off a bunch of commandments, several of the ones that have to do with love of neighbor. The man nods along – this is how he has been striving to live all his life. And yet he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Nothing has healed his dis-ease.
And then there is this wonderful moment, mentioned only in Mark’s version of this story: Jesus looks at him, and loves him. He doesn’t judge or condemn the man, nor question his intentions or his insistence that he has followed the commandments, just as Jesus doesn’t judge or condemn the hemorrhaging woman, Jairus’s daughter, or the Gerasene demoniac, whom he also healed. No, Jesus loves the man – he sees the man is in pain, he sees the man’s longing and his deep desire to find healing from his dis-ease. Perhaps this man has every-thing he could want or need on the outside, but inside, he lacks, and he knows it. And Jesus loves him in his pain.
And then Jesus names the trouble: “You lack one thing,” he says. And then, ironically, he tells the man to get rid of the things he has. Why would Jesus say, “You lack something,” and then, “Get rid of some more”? Wouldn’t that cause more lack? Ah, it would if physical things could indeed satisfy our longings, like so many of us believe they can. But of course, no-thing can satisfy our deepest longings, nor could they satisfy the longings of this man. And indeed, the one thing he lacks is not a physical thing. What he lacks, is trust. He lacks trust in God. The side effect of having such wealth and riches is that the man has learned to put his trust not in God, but in his possessions, and in the status, security, and comfort they afford him. And so, the antidote to his longing, his dis-ease, is to rid himself of those things that get in the way of his trusting God, that convince him instead of his own self-sufficiency.
The man is not thrilled with the diagnosis, nor the treatment. Indeed, it shocks and grieves him – not unlike a cancer patient who has just learned they must lose a breast, or a testicle, to be rid of the cancer, or suffer other difficult side effects. The cancer patient experiences first a shock at the extent of treatment needed, and then endures a grief process for all that will be lost in order to regain life. The antidote Jesus offers to the man is indeed a tough pill to swallow. And so, Mark tells us, “he was shocked, and went away grieving, for he had many possessions” – so much to lose and to grieve.
We don’t find out what happens to the rich man after this encounter. Did he throw up his hands and say, “Forget it, it’s too hard. I might as well be a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle” and then go about his wealthy, comfortable life, still filled with a sense of dis-ease? Some would say he did, but I don’t believe it. If he is grieving, it is because he knows something’s gotta give, and that it is going to require some loss, and so he is doing the thing that is healthy to do in the face of loss: he grieves. Maybe he didn’t get rid of everything right away. Maybe he decided to have one last hurrah with all his stuff before he started posting it on 1st century Ebay. Maybe Jesus’ treatment needed some time to work its way into his heart, and he had to spend some time in prayer, listening to that nudging of God moving him toward trust, toward generosity, toward healing, toward transformation.
But I believe he finally made it there. I do. I believe he did, because if he did, maybe I can, too. If he, with all his many possessions, could learn to let go of his trust in himself, and instead put his trust in God, maybe I can, too. If he could turn his heart away from hoarding that which has given him safety, comfort, and status, and turn toward generous, genuine and joyful connection with his community, maybe I can, too. After all, with God, all things are possible.
Or maybe my, our, connection to this man is even closer. Maybe the reason this character is not named (as he really should have been, if he was really so rich and thus important!), is that the character’s name is… Johanna. Or Mike. Or Jim. That is, Jesus isn’t talking to this particular young man, but rather, to each of us, wherever we happen to be in our relationship with our stuff and riches. He is bidding us to turn toward God, to trust in God rather than ourselves, to be generous with that which we believe has provided our security.
And if we are, indeed, the rich person in the story, then guess what else is true? That Jesus looks also at us, and loves us – yes, loves us even before we have done anything, loves us even when the prospect of true discipleship is shocking and causes us grief, loves us even when we aren’t quite sure that we can do what Jesus calls us to do. Jesus looks at us and loves us just exactly how we come, with all our longings and desires, with our dis-ease, with our questions. And he assures us that in the end, there is nothing we can do to inherit eternal life, just as there is really nothing the man in the story could do – not even keeping the commandments or selling all his stuff. The gift of eternal life depends not on our morality and good works, but on God’s grace. Because for humans, it is impossible to earn that reward. But not for God. For God, all things are possible, even granting eternal life for a bunch of sinners like us. Let us trust in that God who can and does do all things for us.
Let us pray… Benevolent God, we often seek our safety and comfort from the physical things we can provide for ourselves. Turn our hearts to you, that we would put our trust in you, and then turn them toward our neighbor, that we would be generous. For you look upon us, and love us always. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment