Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Pentecost 19, October 15, 2006
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Mark 10:17-31
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
I am on a Frontier Airline flight that goes from Seattle to Denver and then on to Washington DC. It's very early in the morning. The seat back in front of me has a small screen on it tuned to something called "The Wild Blue Yonder Network." This network shows snippets of film, television and commercials that are meant to be of interest to transcontinental travelers like myself.
The fist snippet begins. It's all about, you guessed it, Frontier Airlines. I watch as a cartoon businessman looks up at a cartoon clock, picks up his cartoon briefcase, gets directly on a cartoon Frontier plane, soars into a cartoon blue sky with puffy white cartoon clouds and arrives at his cartoon destination on time. It is a complete fantasy, and I enjoy it.
The second snippet is a delightful short "claymation" film about Antonio, a young boy who after watching an exciting science fiction program, wants to go to Mars. In the film he gets to do this by riding in a magic tow truck driven by his grandfather. It is a complete fantasy, and I enjoy it.
But then the third snippet comes on. It's an investigative report from something called Wealth TV. Wealth TV, the commentator explains, is the premiere luxury lifestyle and entertainment network. The purpose of Wealth TV is to entertain and to inform high-end business and leisure travelers like me.
At first I think it's a joke, another fantasy, a tongue-in-cheek poke at prosperous American culture, something that I will enjoy like the Frontier Airline ad or the claymation trip to Mars. After all, who in their right mind would be so frontal about this idea of wealth? Ridiculous, right? And so I look around to see if others are in on the joke too. But what I find is a plane full of faces lit by the flickering light of Wealth TV, a plane full of faces joined by my own, looking at and listening to Wealth TV's undercover investigative report about how to tell a real Gucci handbag from a knock-off.
"As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
With these words our gospel for this morning begins. A man whom we know nothing about runs up to Jesus and kneels before him, compliments him, and asks him a big question: what do I have to do to have the kind and quality of life that feels like eternity is freighted in every moment? Another way of saying this might be: what do I have to do to live in the kingdom of God here and now?
First, what does Jesus do? He refuses to return the compliment and then he proceeds to remind the man of Jewish law, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, a description of how to live a life with eternity freighted in every moment. More specifically, Jesus reminds the man of the commandments that have to do with relationship with others: that "You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother." Wait a minute “you shall not defraud" I thought it was "you shall not covet."
The commandment is "you shall not covet." Why would Jesus substitute "you shall not defraud" for “you shall not covet"?
And so one of the first clues to this passage is that Jesus' variation on the commandments, his insertion of "you shall not defraud," meaning you shall not hold back the wages of the poor unjustly, is intentionally added for this particular occasion and for this particular person.
But the man doesn't hear what is meant for him, for he maintains that he has kept all these commandments since his youth. Without contesting this, Jesus then speaks his mind directly: "You lack one thing" he says "Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor and then come and follow me."
It's then and only then that we get even more information about this man, information that is consistent with Jesus' insertion of the comment about defrauding in the earlier dialogue. This man is a prosperous landowner who like many landowners in the ancient world has come by his wealth through the defrauding of the poor. He is, therefore, shocked by Jesus' insistent invitation that he is make restitution to those he's defrauded. All that he can stand to do is to go away grieving.
What, then, is the problem with wealth? Wealth, our passage seems to say, is a problem when the wealthy have come by their wealth at the expense of the poor. When this happens—and it often happened in the ancient world—God's groans. And, of course, God is still groaning today when this happens.
But there's something else that also makes wealth a problem. And this was some of what was going through my mind as I watched Gucci Bags and Tiffany jewelry and Hermes scarves dance across my Wealth TV screen. Wealth—having lots of stuff, lots of wonderful, beautiful stuff can seem to be the ticket to a life with eternity freighted in every moment, for it all looks and feels and tastes and smells so good. But it isn't. It isn't. Having too much of something can end up running your life and can actually cut across the core experience of gratitude for and enjoyment of the things we have. Yet we're afraid of letting those things go.
And so just like the man in today's gospel, God keeps inviting us to go beyond these fears and to let go of our attachment to wealth, to possessions, to allegiances, to addictions, to idols or to destructive or distracting habits, because as long as we hold onto these, as long as we're caught by these, we can't receive the greater gift God keeps trying to give us: a life that paradoxically tastes eternity through having less, a life that has more freedom in that it is less attached to the things that bind us up or that hold us in thrall.
And this, as our gospel asserts, is connected to those in the world who have little or nothing. Often, when we let go, when we give over, someone somewhere in the world receives something that will enable them to have the kind of taste of eternity that comes from receiving the humblest of things—a full belly, a coat in the cold, a doctor visit when sick, or a chance to make a living.
The Biblical witness tells us over and over that God wants us all of God's people to live lives that taste eternity. To those of us who have a lot, God keeps saying that we don't have to be afraid to let go of some of what we have, that we don't have to keep holding on for dear life to some of the things that even may be killing us. God keeps telling us that we are worth much more than the things we have.
So I'll end today with a story of someone discovering that less can indeed be more.
Physician Rachel Naomi Remen tells the story of a friendship she struck up with Kenny, the young son of two of her friends. Kenny owned two matchbox cars, and so Rachel spent a lot of time playing cars with him, Rachel with one of his tiny cars and Kenny with the other one, running them from one windowsill to the next, parking them and racing them.
At that time tiny Hot Wheels cars were all the rage and were collected by most six-year-old boys. Kenny dreamed of them at night, and Rachel yearned to buy him more, but she couldn't think of a way to do this without embarrassing his parents. Kenny's father was an artist and a lay preacher, and his mother stayed home raising their son.
Then one of the major gas companies began a Hot Wheels giveaway: a car with every fill-up. I was delighted. Quickly I persuaded the entire clinic staff to buy this brand of gas for a month, and organized all twenty of us with checklists, so that we would not get two fire engines or Porsches or Volkswagens. In a month we accumulated all the Hot Wheels cars then made, and I gave them to Kenny in a big box. They filled every windowsill in the living room...(But then I noticed something)â?|.(Kenny) stopped playing with them. Puzzled I asked him why he (didnâ??t) like his cars anymore. He looked away and in a quivery voice said, 'I don't know how to love this many cars, Rachel.'"
I was stunned. Ever since, I have been careful to be sure not to have more Hot Wheels than I can love."
Works Cited or Consulted
The Bible Workbench: Living our Story through God's Story Volume 13, Issue 7
Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus
"Owning" in Rachel Naomi Remen's My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging.
