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Memorial United Methodist ChurchWhite Plains, New York 10605
Desacralizing Wealth
A Sermon by Joe Agne, PastorBased on Mark 10:17-31
October 11, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)
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Jack has died. This is the wording of his will. “To my dear wife, Esther, I leave the house, 50 acres of land and $1 million. To my son, Barry, I leave my big Lexus and the Jaguar. To my daughter, Suzy, I leave my yacht and $250,000. And to my brother-in-law, Jeff, who always insisted that health is better than wealth, I leave my sun lamp.”
I often hear quoted that one never sees a hearse pulling a U-Haul. Annie Dillard says, “One thing I know is this. Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for later; give it, give it all, give it now. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly give becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
There are three approaches to today’s gospel story that one often hears. 1) Jesus is opposed to wealth of any kind. 2) Wealth is neutral and it’s value is determined by what you do with it. 3) Wealth in this story is not about wealth at all; but is used to represent anything the keeps people from relationship with God. Here is the gospel story.
The Biblical Story
Mark, in his telling of this story, says a very faithful man, one who lives by the expectations of his faith community, finds Jesus. In another Gospel he is a “young ruler” and in another he is a “rich man.” Sometimes our tradition combines these three stories and calls him “the rich young ruler.” In all three of the stories he lives by the relationship rules of his community but wants something more in life. It appears to him that something in missing. He is looking for things that are eternal. Don’t confuse “eternal” with something that is added on to one’s life after one dies. He is looking for something that makes life more meaningful now. Jesus looks at him and the word for “looks” at him indicates more than Jesus notices or observes him. He looks at him deeply, appreciatively, and the Gospel says that Jesus, in fact, loves him. Jesus takes him seriously. He is not dismissive of him. Jesus responds to his honest question. The man is shocked by what he hears – “sell all you have and give it to the poor.” The rich young ruler walks away in grief.
After this story Jesus talks to the disciples about wealth and the power it has to keep us from living the lives we want. He uses a metaphor of a camel getting through the eye of a needle and suggests that a wealthy person is as likely to live a full life as the animal with large humps is to squeeze itself through the space designed for thread. Jesus doesn’t say this is impossible as nothing is impossible with God. Peter points out that each of the disciples has left everything to go with Jesus. Like the man of wealth, Peter is trying to figure out what Jesus means and probably whether the disciples fit the criteria given by Jesus. Then Jesus says again what he has been saying throughout the stories Mark has been telling, “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Three responses
1. This is a story about a wealthy person. How we respond might be related to whether we think we are wealthy or not. Most of us say we are not. Yet I wonder. We do have debt. We are worried about retirement. We are not sure if we will have access to the medical care we need or that our family will need. We wonder if we can provide the education our children need. Many of us have modest incomes and modest homes. We are still wealthier than 2.7 billion people in the world who make less than two dollars a day. By this standard we are rich and most of us want to get richer. So we have to decide which direction we will look. If we look toward those who have more wealth than us, we say this story is not about me. If we look toward those with decidedly less we, say Jesus is talking directly to me. You get to decide for yourself. It is not my decision to make for you or about you. I do need to decide for myself.
2. This story includes a non-compromising “give it all away.” As a result, if we are not willing or not yet ready to do this, we wonder if this story has anything to say to us. This results is interpretations over the ages that explain away the camel/eye-of the needle metaphor and even say Jesus was only using wealth as an illustration of all the things that block our relationship with God. In a sense, the story gets spiritualized. The “power” of money in our lives is not addressed. We can get defensive and miss that the person who asked the question was a person of faith, searching for something more in his life. If we are happy with our lives the way they are and are not looking for anything different in the meaning of our lives, this story doesn’t offer us much.
3. If we decide to respond to these words of Jesus, the passage is clear what we are to do with our giving. We are to give it to the poor; ie, persons with even less resource than we have.
Desacralizing wealth
Sometimes when we place money on the worship table and it becomes our offering we think we are making sacred a worldly thing. Money is “of the world” we think. Its nature changes when we give it to God. It becomes part of the holy. What if the opposite is true? In another story Jesus says we have to choose between mammon and God, wealth and God – which will we serve? Will we serve money or the unnamable one. They vie to be treated with ultimate worth. When we place our offerings on the table we are saying that money does not have ultimate worth. Only God is of ultimate worth. We are desacralizing money. This doesn’t mean money is not important. It just means it is not God. God alone is God.
Let’s assume we are in the place of the person who came to Jesus. We know something is not right in our lives. We want more meaning and fullness. Yet, we are not soon going to sell all we have and give it away. I suggest we might consider tithing. We could give away 10% of our money. I don’t care if it is before taxes or after. I don’t care if we consider our income or our “worth.” Recently I heard a Rabbi remind her congregation that 10% of their wealth does not really belong to them. I wouldn’t say it exactly the same way but I like the idea. Actually I propose what I call a modern tithe – 5% to our congregation and 5% to other organizations who work for the poor and “for others” in the world. God doesn’t just work through the church. What if giving away 10 % is more than we can do now. How about taking our present giving and increasing it by 1% of our income (not 1% of our giving)? If we increase each year by 1% of our income we could soon be tithing. Some day we might even give it al away.
Any of these plans; giving all of our money away, giving away a tithe or increasing our giving by 1% of our income; desacralizes money and helps us to declare with our lives what we think is ultimate in life -- God.
In Senator Ted Kennedy’s autobiography he tells of an ancient and legendary world poetry contest that was held each year. The 3rd place winner received a rose made of silver. The 2nd place winner received a rose made of gold. What did the 1st place winner receive? A real rose, a beautiful living rose that soon wilted, dried up and died. Senator Kennedy asks, “Is there single one among us who would not choose the living rose?”
Tom Sine says that some Christians in our part of the world seem to want, “the American Dream with a little Jesus overlay.” We want to worship God and wealth. The rich young ruler knew something was the matter in his life. He wanted more. He was not ready to make the full commitment that Jesus asked of him – the total commitment that would have addressed his emptiness. Some of us are in the same place. Things are just not right and yet we, too, are unable or unwilling to respond fully to this same request Jesus keeps making in the world and to us. It may be that the rich young ruler began to change his priorities in response to Jesus’ words to him. Maybe he took some steps that Mark did not record. We will not ever know. We will know what we do. We can begin the process of desacralizing wealth in our lives.
