Money

Sermon by Rev. Steven McClelland on Mark 10: 17 – 31.  Focus on money dominates our lives and become our God.  Be sure to listen to Simona Frenkel and the choir.  Anthem – Lord Make Me An Instrument of Thy Peace

This lectionary passage always comes around during the Stewardship season. It’s one of those passages that pastor’s use to warn you of the dangers your wealth presents to you and how the church can help ease that load by taking some of it off your hands. But we know that stewardship is about so much more than money.

Stewardship is away of life. It is about how we use everything to glorify God. It’s about our time. It’s about our involvement. It’s about our witness in the world. It’s about what we value and what we do not. It’s about faith and salvation and the power of God to give us much more than a living. It’s about God’s ability to give us an abundant life.

We don’t know for sure how old this guy was who wanted to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life, but I see him as a relatively young man, someone who hasn’t lived long enough to fail at anything important in his life. He’s probably inherited his fortune through the death of his father and wants Jesus to compliment him, pat him on the back saying – Keep up the good work.

But that’s not what Jesus does. The text says that he looked upon him and loved him, in the way that an older wiser man looks upon a young buck full of vim and vigor. And Jesus tells him that he needs to do one thing more to inherit eternal life. He needs to sell all that he has, give it to the poor and come and follow.

When you’re a young man and maybe it’s the same for young woman, but I can not speak from experience, but when you are a young man, one of the most important things for you to accomplish is to prove to yourself that you can make it on your own. That you can become successful and leave your mark, that you can either live up to the potential that your parents saw in you or over come what they did not.

It’s not easy. I remember leaving home at 18 and to me success meant never having to return home to be dependent on my parents for anything. It’s not that I didn’t love them. I did, but it was so important for me to prove to myself that I could take care of and support myself. For me it was a matter of building up my internal confidence and there was no other way to do that then to do it on my own. But Dylan got it right though when he said, “You can feel all alone, like a rolling stone, with no direction home.

In many ways I was like that young man who came to Jesus. I wasn’t rich like he was, but I know why he wanted to be perfect or to use his language to enter into the kingdom of heaven. You see the first half of your life is spent trying to prove to yourself and those around you that you have made it. You’ve arrived with all those who’ve gone before you and succeeded at achieving a measure of the American Dream, which in my case meant being independent and self-sufficient.

But even if you achieve that measure of success you come to realize, if you’re honest with yourself that you have not ever been self-sufficient. It’s also been others in your life – people, family, and friends – who lifted you up and helped you even if from a distance. In the early years it’s like climbing a huge mountain. But in the later years you realize you’re just in a mountain range with valleys in between.

And while its important to achieve that internal confidence it is far from achieving the kingdom. And Jesus knows this. That’s why he didn’t look upon the young man with disdain or judgment. He looked upon him with love and offered the man the prescription that would have led him into the kingdom.

But the rich man went away sorrowful because he had much money.

I like how Frederick Buechner a Presbyterian writer put it in his book: Whistling in the Dark:

MONEY – The more you think about it, the less you understand it. The paper it’s printed on isn’t word a red cent. There was a time you could take it to a bank and get gold or silver for it, but all you’d get now would be a blank stare from the teller.

If the government declared that the leaves of the trees were money so there would be enough for everyone, money would be worthless. It has worth only if there is not enough for everyone. It has worth only because the government declares that it has worth and because (as much as we don’t trust the government today) we still trust the government in this one particular area.

The value of money in stocks and bonds, goes up and down for reasons not even the experts can explain and at moments nobody can predict, so you can be a millionaire one moment and a pauper the next. Great fortunes are made and lost completely on paper.

There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have used up in its pursuit.

Jesus says that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than force a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Maybe the reason for that is because the rich are not so wicked after all, but simply out of touch with the reality that most of us live in and don’t see it as a place they want to be.

This is one of those cool paradoxes that God speaks about. Like when he says the first shall be last and the last shall be first or that to inherit eternal life you must give your life away. And if you try to save your life you will end up losing it.

But in the end it’s not about losing or giving all of what we have away so that we become poor and destitute of financial or spiritual resources. It’s about giving what we’ve been blessed with because that’s the only way we can receive more. And if you don’t think that’s true listen to the promise Jesus offers Peter and all of us who worry about following in his footsteps.

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time … and in the age to come eternal life.”

The key to entering the kingdom or building a meaningful life is something we will never be able to buy, save or give ourselves, because it doesn’t come from us. It has always and will always come from God whose desire is for us to have an abundance of life. It is about so much more than merely making money. It’s about building a life that we can be proud of and at peace with. I like how the Rolling Stones put it: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try you might just find you get what you need.” Amen