OK, my mom and dad like to read my sermons once in a while (which is nice of them), and since our website at church is pretty much down, I figured I'd post this. Here you go M/D!
Love, J
Sermon: “The Things I Just Can’t Give You”
Text: Luke 18:18-30
Date: April 2, 2006
Our Gospel lesson for this morning is one of those passages of Scripture, to be honest with you, I wish was NOT in the Bible. I just wish it wasn’t in there. Have you ever come across passages like that before? Words of Jesus or his followers that make you nervous because of its implications; it makes you cringe because it strikes a nerve.
I read this passage and my immediate reaction was in this order 1)Hunt down John and say, “Thanks a lot for assigning this passage today!” 2)To just avoid it all together and try to find something else to talk about in the Scriptures, 3)or make the story palatable with my lifestyle by spiritualizing it, giving my spirit a little shot of novacane if you will, so that I still endure the passage but be numb to its message.
But while I’d love for us to ignore it or hyper-spiritualize it, we can’t. Because whether we like it or not, you and I are the Rich Young Ruler in our stories, and in this story as well.
Let’s hear the story again.
We are told that a ruler came up and asked Jesus, “What must I do, Good Teacher, to inherit eternal life?” We don’t know much about this man. Matthew’s Gospel (in his telling of this story) says that he was young in age. Mark’s Gospel says that he came and literally knelt before Jesus as he asked his question, a clear sign of respect for the Rabbi Jesus. But all three gospels are clear one thing; that this man owned a lot of stuff that presumably gave him status, security, influence, and comfort in the world. And while there was much that he was giving to God by living out his life in faithfulness to the Commandments (at least the ones that Jesus’ mentioned), presumably serving at his church/synagogue, there was something that he just couldn’t give – his possessions.
After the ruler answered in the affirmative to following the Commandments, Jesus said there was one last thing he needed do to inherit the kingdom, “Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
“Follow me,” Jesus says. You would think it was different, but actually in the Gospels, Jesus does not make this personal invitation very often – for someone to actually follow him as his personal disciple. Who knows -- maybe Jesus was already sensing Judas betrayal coming, and he knew he would need a replacement disciple very soon, and he saw the traits in this man that would fit the bill. And so he invites him to follow.
Sadly, this last action requested by Jesus proved to be too much for the young wealthy man. He could not trust and let go of that much. His possessions were things that he just couldn’t give up to Jesus, and he walked away – the only story in the Gospels where someone walks away from Jesus personal invitation to follow him.
Now we might feel ok about our own security for the moment since this invitation wasn’t aimed at us, but then Jesus comes back with a blanket warning that certainly covers every one of us in this room, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” If that doesn’t make us squirm in our seats I don’t know what does.
Now certainly this passage does have other elements to it, beyond just dollars and cents. For the stuff we own (or the stuff that owns us) is legion and can take different forms. Some of us especially hold money and things close as this rich young ruler did, some of us maybe could care less about that stuff, but hold other things like our families and comforts close (which is what Jesus teaches touches on in the second half of his teaching when he says no one who has left home and family for my sake will go without), some of us hold our comfort zones themselves close, or our futures, or our place in the community. And in many ways, I guess it is up to each of us to figure out what it is that is standing in the way of full discipleship to Jesus Christ.
But I think we do this passage a disservice if we cruise too fast past the rich young ruler and his vice of wealth and possessions. For I would argue that all of us, all of us hold things close (especially in a community like ours), the stuff that we have worked so hard to get, the stuff we count on, that we just can’t give up. Our homes, our cars, our kids college savings accounts, our luxuries like $3 coffee and country club living, our antiques, our investments, our securities – we are owned by the things we feel like we own. This is a suburban American problem to be sure, but it is a human problem as well, which is why Jesus hits it so hard.
When the listeners hear it, they know exactly what Jesus is saying. They throw up their hands and say, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus says, “by yourselves, impossible. With God, very possible.”
So…what is the answer? How do stop owning our stuff? How do we sell it and follow Jesus? Is the answer abject poverty for all of us? Instead of a rummage sale at church, should we have a reverse rummage sale and sell all the stuff we really like and keep the rummage we old stuff we can’t wait to get rid of? What should we do, and how should we do it?
I guess my first thought is that selling everything is probably the answer for some of us. That might sound crazy, but there have been folks even in our church who have done exactly that out of response to God’s call to serve him. Maybe that is the answer for some of us.
But I’m guess that probably isn’t the answer for others of us, at least not in total. Certainly poverty itself isn’t a holy thing, if Jesus is telling the young ruler to give money to the poor to get them out of poverty, and the Scriptures Old and New are filled with instructions to serve and care for those who do not have enough.
But I think the answer lies in verse 22, Jesus command to this man and to us, to sell what we own and distribute it to the poor. For in this one command, Jesus is telling us about our core relationships, our relationship with our stuff and our relationship with our neighbors in this world. Because for this young ruler, it turned out that his stuff ended up meaning more to him than helping those who were living in poverty. When forced with a decision to choose his lifestyle and helping his brothers and sisters in need, he chose his lifestyle.
And therein lies the clue for us today I think.
Here is Jesus’ rule of thumb, WHEN MY STUFF GETS IN THE WAY OF ME LOVING AND TAKING CARE OF THE POOR AND DESTITUTE, I AM IN DANGER OF WALKING AWAY FROM JESUS.
For Jesus tells us that what we have done to the least of these, we have done unto him. In other words, when we refuse to allow those in the world who are suffering from physical and spiritual poverty to remain so; when we are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that they have what they need to live both in body and spirit; when that is our first concern, then we are seeing the world as God sees it, not as a place to find worldly security, but a place where we care for our brothers and sisters in need.
And friends, when we start to do that, we see Jesus, and we live in God’s kingdom.
Shane Claiborne, in his book The Irresistible Revolution tells a story of serving in Calcutta with Mother Teresa before her death. He says, Mother Teresa was one of those people who sacrificed great privilege because she encountered such great need. People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like. Sometimes it’s like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a litter ornery, like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget – her feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn’t going to ask, of course. “Hey Mother, what’s wrong with your feet?” One day a sister said to us, “Have you noticed her feet?” We nodded, curious. She said, “Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them. And years of doing that have deformed her feet.” Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet.”
Now, we might say, “Come on that’s Mother Teresa! I can’t do that!” But I disagree.
For the question asked to the rich young ruler and to each of us today is the same – are we willing to let ourselves be deformed out of love for our neighbors? When it comes to the things we own, whether it is our wealth of money or family or security, are we willing to risk them out of love for those in need.
For friends, Calcutta isn’t just in India. There are Calcutta’s everywhere—filled with economic and spiritual lepers. It is easy to keep it at arms length, as we cling to our luxuries and securities. It is easy to skip over this teaching of Jesus and say it’s not for me.
But hear Jesus’ words, “Truly no one who forsakes these things will not get back very much more in this age and the age to come.”
Today, here in church, we commission a team of folks to go to Cancun to serve the poor and love people and build a church in the process. They have in a small way forsaken some of their wealth of time and money out of love for the poor. At 11a.m. we are baptizing a child, which in itself is a revolutionary act if you think about it, in essence saying that we the parents are forsaking the future we have planned for our child, and placing her future in the hands of God to with as he pleases, out of love for God and love for our neighbors who she will bless. Both of these events are revolutionary acts. And those involved will get much more back in the transaction than they will ever give, Jesus says.
But that is only the beginning.
May we have the courage as individuals and a church to face the things we just can’t give up. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, may we too be willing to be deformed out of love for the least of these, and in turn see Jesus more and more and more in this world.
AMEN.
