Pentecost 19B
Amos 5:6-7,10-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
So I’ve been waiting to tell this joke and today it will finally work. There was a rich woman who insisted that she could take it all with her when she died. Eventually she did indeed die. When she got to the pearly gates, St. Peter was waiting. “What’s in the bag?” He asked, for she was holding a large, very full bag. “All my wealth”, she replied. “Gold Bricks” “What?” Saint Peter said. “You’ve brought paving stones?”
[Thanks Mom and Dad for that joke!]
Pretty good, huh! Goes to show us that what we value doesn’t always have value to other people. Heck, you just have to go to a garage sale or an auction to figure that out.
It always says a thing or two about greed.
There was a young man who came to Jesus. He “ran” even and breathlessly asked Jesus “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Then the young man admits that he has kept all the commandments since his youth. I’m a good guy, Jesus. I don’t kick dogs or talk back to my parent’s. I am a faithful husband and an honest neighbor.
Jesus says, “Okay, just one more thing than, go, sell all you have, and give you money to the poor…then come follow me.”
He couldn’t do it. The young man went away shocked and grieving. Anything but that. How about I give a little? Or start a foundation? Or just keep on keeping those commandments?
But Jesus, looking at him with love, sees that there is something holding him back. There is a barrier, a wall, built out of gold bricks.
“How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the
Hmm…that is obviously meant for those in the tax bracket above mine. Say, for folks with a $250,000 house and a new Humvee.
Then again, I have a
lot more wealth than say, a welfare
mother, or a refugee. Certainly a lot more than someone living in
the
Because I have a nice house, with a mortgage, and we have 2 cars, clothes, lots and lots of books…
We all have what we need to live on, even if it doesn’t seem like it some
days. In the great scheme of global
economics, we in
So what is this? How
hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the
That would be us, right?
Us who buy things at whim, who need just one more CD or DVD or computer gadget to be fulfilled. If only I had the right outfit, the good shoes, the perfect paint color, the high definition television.
We are wealthy. And it keeps us from trusting. There are times we don’t believe that we could live on less or with less and still be okay. We want to fill the emptiness in our souls, fill less susceptible, keep us from seeing how needy we really are.
We don’t stop and see our wealth as greed. As individualistic, as self-centered. We would rather see our wealth as a blessing from God, a sign that we are doing well in the eyes of God. We are favored…
But Jesus sees our consumption/our wealth as the opposite of being engaged in the world. Possessing, consuming, collecting as opposed to giving, sharing, helping the world around us.
Jesus looks on the young man with love, looks on us with love, and says “Why can’t you trust me?”
The disciples miss the point again. They were not wealthy, yet I’m sure they valued that tunic their mother made, or the nets their sister was watching over, or the house they had left behind.
They also lived in a society that saw wealth as a sign of God’s favor. But now Jesus is telling them it is a detriment!
What is it with Jesus, always reversing the order of things. Last week it was children in the middle, this week it’s about riches.
Jesus says it will be hard. And keeping the commandments isn’t enough. And bringing your own paving stones to heaven isn’t enough. And having a fancy car isn’t enough.
What then, Jesus, is enough? Who can be saved?
Who indeed? Who can fit that fat humped camel through the needle’s eye?
We can’t. We can’t. We can’t. We can’t save ourselves. We can try. We can try.
But at the end of the day it isn’t about us. About what we surround ourselves with, about how much we’ve accumulated, about how much we are worth.
It is about God.
It is about God. With God all things are possible. God saves us. God saves us from ourselves. God is the one who can fill our emptiness. God is the one who can teach us to trust. God is the one who can teach us to let go.
And if it about God saving us, we don’t have to work so hard to save ourselves, protect ourselves, fill up our emptiness.
That is what makes us free to be generous, loving, sharing people.
We don’t keep the commandments; give away our wealth to earn brownie points with God.
When God comes first, we live as best we can, give away all we can, trust in God because God comes first, and has already, already, already saved us.
All that is left is to live a life of gratitude, of thankfulness, of engagement with the world.
Let God worry about threading needles with camels, and let God worry about paving stones of gold, and let God worry about saving the world.
We are free to live fully, generously, gracefully here and now. Showing by word and deed, by what we trust in and by what we give away, that we ultimately trust in God’s love and God’s providing.
Amen. May it be so. Amen.