What we're buying, what we need (Sermon 10/14/12)

A Sermon for the Pentecost 20B, preached at Central Lutheran in Anchorage on Sunday, October 14, 2012. The gospel is from Mark 10:17-31.

 

Does anyone want to get up here and preach about this text? Anyone care to comment on how hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God? What about Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God? Or, my personal favorite: sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor and come follow me. Any takers?

 

In this middle section of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has already set his face toward Jerusalem. He is on his way to the cross. Jesus makes three Passion predictions to explain to his disciples that he will suffer, die and rise again. Our text today is right before the third Passion Prediction.  In these texts between the passion predictions, Jesus explains to his disciples what it truly means to follow him. His words force the disciples to consider what barriers will keep them from following in the Way once Jesus has gone.

 

One of those barriers is love of money or love of possessions. Jesus speaks about money numerous times in the New Testament, far more often than he talks about other things, like sexuality. Money isn’t an evil, per se, but like any good thing it can be misused. It can be worshipped. It’s not so much money that is the problem; it’s our relationship to it and our expectations for it.

What’s our relationship like with money these days? I am suggesting we as a nation have an unhealthy relationship with money and possessions. Many of us (and I include myself) also have unhealthy attitudes about money.  Sometimes we give away our money or possessions out of what’s leftover, as an afterthought, or without a heart filled with gratitude. Sometimes we compartmentalize our money and our lives. We may think God only cares about what we do with 10% tithe of our money, but in fact, God cares about the rest of the 90%, too. God cares about how we spend our money for two reasons. One, because it impacts our neighbor. Maybe this election season we shouldn't ask, “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” Maybe we should ask, “Is my neighbor (think poor, not rich) better off than he or she was four years ago?” The second reason God cares about how we spend our money is that it has an impact upon our own welfare. It has an impact on our soul.

 

Consider unhealthy messages about money and acquisition we hear in our culture. We may say money doesn’t make us happy but we still act like it does. We buy things and expect them to make us happy. At the Luther Seminary conference I attended last week, Preaching Professor David Lose was speaking about possessions. He said his neighbor was going on and on about a new power-washer that he got and how it was going to revolutionize his life. Lose said he walked away thinking, “It may be a terrific power-washer, but you’re still the same old guy.”

 

There's a sociologist at George Washington University, named Amitai Etzioni, who is originally from Israel. He has done a great deal of research about consumerism and what makes people happy. In his Youtube video, “You don't need to buy this,” he talks about a time at a conference, he asked people about what material possessions they really need. He asked people if they really needed inflatable Santa Clauses for decoration. Everyone laughed. Then he asked if people really needed plastic flamingo lawn ornaments. Everyone laughed. Then he asked if people really needed flat-screen TVs. No one laughed. Then he asked if people really needed 4G phones. Again, no one laughed and someone said, “Now, that's enough.”

 Advertisers know how to get us to buy. They know better than to simply advertise that one product is faster, more durable or can out-perform another. Instead, they want you to believe you are not complete unless you buy these shoes or that laptop. Ever notice that in most commercials you often have no idea what they’re selling? They are selling the belief that you are not enough when you don't have enough. It is a lie. It is sick. Yet we are all buying it.

 Because we are all buying it, our economy is becoming more and more dependent on the purchase of consumer goods. Lose told us that 70% of the US GDP is consumer goods, compared to 60% a generation ago. Even though jobs are created when people make more and more stuff that and convince you to buy it, that doesn’t make endless consumerism right. Let us confess that in this nation we have an illness when it comes to our relationship with money and possessions. We are sick. And there is only one cure.

 In the gospel story for today, a rich man comes to Jesus because he knows he is sick. He's not physically ill, but there some kind of dis-ease. If he felt satisfied by his life, possessions and commandment-keeping, he would not have bothered to come to Jesus. But something isn't right. Something is missing. And so he comes. And he kneels at Jesus feet.

 

Every other time in the gospels when someone kneels before Jesus, they are asking for healing. What if we read this story as an account of a man who deeply wished to be healed?

 Jesus gives him an impossible cure: sell your possessions, give your money to the poor and come, follow me. It is the only time in the gospels where Jesus asks someone to follow and they do not.

 I cannot give you a simple answer as to why Jesus was so harsh with this man. Clearly there would be complete economic chaos if every Christian right now rushed out and sold all their possessions. Wealth was this man's stumbling block. It was his sickness. He needed to be healed, and maybe so do we. The rich young man needed to be healed of his sickness around money. But there's another point about money to be made. Jesus didn't ask the man to toss his fortune over a cliff. He asked the man to give the money to the poor, to see the needs of the neighbors around him and to find healing by giving money away, even when it hurts to see it go.

 Much has been made about the poor bruised camel in this passage: the one that keeps trying to get through the eye of the needle. The point is, of course, that it's impossible. No one is good but God alone. No one can actually keep all the commandments. No one can get the poor camel through the eye of the needle. We can't earn or buy anything from God. We cannot purchase our peace of mind, barter for forgiveness or make down-payments on eternal life. It is all a gift, from the God who looks at us in love the way Jesus looked at that rich man in love. God knows we are sick, God knows we have dis-ease. God knows. God sees. And God loves us, right now as we are.

God wants to help us, even if the cure might be harsh. God wants to walk with us as we make choices with our money, so that it works for the good of our neighbors and for the good of our own souls. We also need to be reminded that we have enough. Google “global rich list.” You can see how your annual income measures with the income of others in the world. For instance, I make about $45,000 a year, before taxes. Guess where the Global Rich List puts me? I am the 103,000,000th richest person in the world. I am in the top 1.7%.

The George Washington University sociologist Etzioni says that according to his research, there are only three things that make people happy: relationships, intellectual pursuits (under which he includes Bible study and meditation) and community participation. We do all these things here. You do these things in worship, in fellowship groups at Central, in your own prayer and devotional life. These are all ways that we as a people of faith can bear witness to the alternatives to the culture of wealth acquisition and endless consumption. Here in Christian worship and fellowship we are strengthened in the things that really matter, so that we are not as distracted by all the things that don’t. Amen.