Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:1-8, 12
Hebrews 3:1-6
MARK 10:17-31

Sermon – October 15, 2006

May God be in my head, and in my heart, and in my actions (said while making the sign of the cross.)

“Jesus, looking at the man, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; so 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.”

This is a story about a good man, a man who had followed God’s commandments all his life and came and knelt before Jesus and asked him “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is a story about a man who Jesus loved – and, remember, Jesus was very tough with many people, especially self-righteous ones. This is a story about a man to whom Jesus said, “Come, follow me!”

This is a story about a man who, Jesus knew, “lacked [only] one thing” to be able to join the circle of disciples.

He had to let go of his “many possessions” so that he would have his hands free to receive what Jesus had to offer him.

Daily companionship with the Savior of the World. A chance to hear the most important words ever said. A chance to witness wondrous miracles. A chance to be close to the Son of God in person, walking the earth.

And then: eternal life. Life with both the length and the quality of God’s life. Imagine.

All he had to do was to be generous as well as to be good.

“When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

“He was shocked.” Perhaps the man thought his wealth was a blessing God had given him to keep and to keep all to himself and never share.

Perhaps he thought a person could be good without being generous.

Perhaps he thought he’d earned his ticket to heaven just by “coloring between the lines” like a “good boy” all his life, and “living simply so that others simply may live” never crossed his mind.

“And he went away grieving.” Was he grieving because he was upset he’d have to stop letting his possessions possess him if he was to turn over his life to Christ? Or was he grieving because he thought he’d be able to have it all – daily companionship with Christ and all his money to fall back on in case things didn’t work out?

Or was he grieving because he realized he wasn’t quite as good a person as he had thought he was, and because he knew he didn’t really want to be that good, if it was going to cost him something.

Perhaps he was grieving because he loved Jesus, but he knew he loved his money more, and he grieved for the image he used to have of himself before he faced what he was really like.

“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.’”

Now it was the disciples’ turn to be shocked – or “perplexed”, as this translation puts it; “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing” as The Message says. Their assumption – the common assumption in their day – was that rich people were pretty close to heaven already – didn’t their homes look “heavenly” to the average guy or gal? – and if getting into heaven was a matter of fulfilling religious obligations, then someone with a big bankroll surely could buy more religious stuff than other people.

No, Jesus says. Wealth is a barrier to entering the Kingdom of God. Only by God’s grace can anyone enter the Kingdom of God.

Folks, this is good news for us. We all have just as good a chance to be saved as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet do.

But…if a person has a home to go to which that person either owns or rents, has food in that home when he or she returns to it, owns some means of transportation other than two feet, has indoor plumbing, and owns more than one pair of shoes, by world-wide terms today, that person is rich.

(I look out at the congregation like a sailor scanning the horizon.) I see rich people. (Then I look in the mirror.) Me too.

So this story is meant for us. Oh.

Uh, was Jesus just having a bad day? Or, was he just doing a “populist” riff that week? Uh no, afraid not. One sixth of all Jesus’ words as recorded in the New Testament and one third of all of his parables are about the relationship between people and their possessions. He talked about stewardship more than about heaven and hell and the sacraments combined. It’s not even close. This was and is a very important spiritual issue to Jesus – so it had better be one to us.

It’s not enough to avoid doing bad things, like the man in the story did, or to do good things just to those closest to us. We are meant to share with others, as well, out of the abundance with which God has blessed us. And compared, say, to the more than one billion people on earth who have no ready, reliable source of pure drinking water, we have all been blessed with abundance. If we don’t let go of it, our abundance will possess us and we will be left out of the Kingdom of God.

Letting go is far, far harder in a culture as materialistic as this one. Letting go is hard when the average person under 18 in this country sees or hears 40,000 commercials a year, most of which are telling them to want something they don’t need. Letting go is hard when money and what it can buy is constantly glorified, and priceless things – like good health, good values, good family, good community – are ignored, belittled or are considered as commodities which can be bought. And yes, salvation also cannot be bought, it can only be given by God as a gift, and if we have our hands too full of stuff that is as perishable as we are, we will never have our hands free to receive the most precious gift of all: eternal life.

Eternal life comes to its fruition in the Kingdom of God, but its seed is planted now, and we can see what the first, young sapling sprouting from that seed might look like, received as a gift from God by people who give away enough to have just one hand free to receive it, plant it and nourish it as a community.

If we have a notion that Christian church communities today are supposed to be the advance scouts of the Kingdom of God commissioned to make the world in them and around them a little more heavenly, then we could imagine what that might look like in one place.

Imagine a church which once was like a little band huddled around a campfire worried that it would go out, and then turned outward and opened its circle to new people carrying firewood – so that no one would ever again worry about the fire going out.

Imagine a church which has grown to include people from five continents and from down the street, people young and old, male and female, gay and straight, “conservative” and “liberal,” married and single, all joined together in a shared purpose: “to bring people together in Jesus Christ, to know him personally, and to strengthen the love of God and for all people…”

Imagine a church which cares about kids so much that dozens of people spent hundreds of hours building the best facilities they could for them.

Imagine a church which cares so much about each individual kid, that when a kid with cerebral palsy wanted to be an acolyte and carry the cross at the head of the procession, nobody said, “Sorry, that’s impossible” but instead, that church made it happen.

Imagine a church which cares so much about an individual kid’s total life, that when a kid with Asperger’s Syndrome, who had been classified with additional learning disabilities since the age of four and had other life challenges as well, made the National Honor Society, the whole congregation cheered because the whole congregation had been there with him and for him all the way.

Imagine a church which opens its doors to six A.A. meetings a week because the struggle against addiction is one of its mission priorities. Imagine a church which has people willing to go 9,000 miles to help someone get sober. “Go the extra mile?” It takes more than that to get to Kenya.

Imagine a church which offers survivors of domestic violence a hand up, not just a hand out, by helping these “domestic refugees” with furniture, household goods and a decent chance for a safe, fresh start.

Imagine a church in an increasingly prosperous and expensive suburb which makes the struggle against hunger and homelessness a mission priority.

Imagine a church in which Martin Luther King’s dream that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners could sit down together at the table of brotherhood” comes true every week. Imagine a church which knows that is just the beginning of what God calls it to do.

Of what God calls us to do.

Imagine what such a church might do next if its members truly take its “theme song” to heart: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness…”

Unlike the man in today’s Gospel, we know that generosity is needed to make dreams come true. Generosity of time, generosity of talent, generosity of treasure, as part of long-term committed relationships with God by individuals who are part of a Christian community with a mission to start living with one foot in the Kingdom of God now.

The world needs love now. The hungry need to be fed now. Those who hunger for justice need allies now. Lives need to be saved and lives need to be transformed now.

Imagine there is a heaven. “It’s easy if you try.” And imagine that we, here, in the midst of this suffering, broken world beset by so many challenges, have been called by God to come together to be a heavenly community now, to treat others as we want to be treated, to love our neighbors (near or far) as ourselves, to love God – all in ways that invite our generosity with discipline, commitment and joy.

Imagine what we could be and do together if we all did that.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, NJ