A Sermon for Sunday, October 25, 2020. Emory Presbyterian Church. The Second Sunday of Stewardship Season. Matthew 19:16-22.
Please join me in prayer as I pray the words written by the Rev. Sarah Are, from A Sanctified Art’s Our Money Story Stewardship materials:
Gracious God,
We release our hearts to you.
First, we remove the pressure,
For release requires the freedom to be moved.
Then we allow our hearts to return to their original resting position—
In sync with you, with the rhythm of summer cicadas, and this whole wild creation.
Then, we pray that you will find our hearts available—
Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
So like the mockingbird releases her song,
We release our hearts to you.
Move in them.
Stir us awake.
Speak to us now.
We are waiting.
Amen.
In 2009, I attended the annual Festival of Homiletics—a week-long preaching and worship conference—when it came to Atlanta. Sitting in a room at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, I listened to a lecture by pastor, author and activist, Brian McLaren on the intersection with faith and economics. Toward the end of his presentation, McLaren offered a nuanced interpretation of the story of the rich young ruler that I hadn’t previously considered. He said:[1]
A rich young ruler comes to Jesus. The only way you can become a ruler is by working with the Romans. And the only way you can become rich is by figuring out how to work the Roman system to your advantage, especially to become rich at a young age. So this is a guy who is deeply embedded with everything that is wrong with the economy of Jesus’ day. … What if what Jesus is saying to the guy is this:
“Listen. You’ve already made it. You’ve got a lot of wealth. Your part of a corrupt system and it’s worked for you. (If) you really want to be part of life of the ages, you understand that obeying the Ten Commandments, which focus on personal morality, that’s not enough. You’ve got to go beyond personal morality and you’ve got to be concerned about social morality. Because the kingdom of God doesn’t just focus you on worrying about your own moral score card. It actually invests you in caring about your neighbor. So, stop working for the kingdom of Caesar that is all about climbing to the top and achieving riches, and instead join me in the kingdom of God, join me in working for the poor. Join me in leveraging your obvious intelligence and gifts and moral rectitude. Invest that with me for the sake of the kingdom of God for the people who are most in need. Switch sides.”
For the longest time, I’ve always thought the takeaway message in this encounter between the rich young ruler and Jesus was that anyone with wealth, possessions or means was supposed to give away everything to the poor less they be considered too selfish, greedy and imperfect to follow Jesus. Thus I have avoided preaching, up until now, sermons on this story because it seemed awkward and guilt inducing—a mismatch with our reformed Presbyterian beliefs about God and God’s call of us. God doesn’t view the possession of money or things purchased with our finances a sin. Nor does God consider us to be unworthy if we don’t give away all of our possessions, or even ask us to do such a thing to be a disciple. Remember that Joseph of Arimathea, who helped bury Jesus, was both a rich man and a disciple.
What God asks of us is that we have right relationships with God and other human beings. Jesus says elsewhere in the gospels: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Loving our neighbor (whether they live next door or in another neighborhood, state or country) means we are to love and care about others as much as we care for our own welfare and as much as God loves and cares for them, especially the poor and vulnerable. This is what it means to be a disciple, a Jesus follower, a Christian. As Christians, our identity is not defined by our socio-economic status or the things we possess but by how we love in the name of the One who calls us beloved and loves us unconditionally—something that the rich young ruler is having difficulty grasping.
The late biblical scholar and seminary professor, Douglas R.A. Hare observes that the rich young ruler wasn’t concerned about giving more of his wealth to the poor. He writes:[2]
“What he minded was giving up all that wealth means: privilege, status, and economic power. He was not ready to surrender his comfortable and secure world for the unknown, frightening world into which Jesus was calling him. He was identified by his wealth; he did not want to find a new identity. He knew what we was ‘worth’ in this world, and by those standards Jesus and his disciples were ‘worth’ nothing.”
This story is a cautionary tale about how, if we’re not careful, we can become wrapped up in the wealth and possessions we have obtained and lose sight of who we are and who God calls us to be with the gifts we’ve been given.
It’s no secret that we inhabit a consumeristic society that centers on having the most and the best. The mobs of people that descend upon stores on Black Friday, resulting in brawls and sometimes death over the latest “must-have” toy, smart device or flat screen TV; and the hordes of people buying up all the toilet paper at the outstart of the pandemic are just two examples of the economic behavior that is baked into civilization. Those whose basic necessities (food, clothing and shelter) are regularly met often waste an inordinate amount of energy, time and resources acquiring too many things—things that only get used once if ever at all.
How many pieces of clothing or shoes do you have in your closet that haven’t been worn more than one time since you bought them two, three or seven years ago? How many appliances do you own that have never been plugged in? How many books do you have on your shelves that you’ve never read? How many coffee mugs do you have in your cabinets that hold little to no sentimental value? How many superfluous, “this looks really neat” or “I’ve got a coupon for this!” type items are laying around in junk drawers or your garage? How many items have you upgraded like a car, TV, computer, or furniture because you saw the same product at your brother-in-law or friend’s house? How many barely used purchases were made during a moment when you felt sad and needed to do retail therapy?
I raise these questions rhetorically because if we’re being honest with ourselves, many of us—at one point in our lives—have had (and still do) the tendency to want and consume more than what we need because we believe it will make us happier, increase our self-worth or give us better standing.
Granted, there seems to be a shift in the past 10 years toward ridding ourselves of the stuff we accumulate and adhering to the philosophy of tidiness expert Marie Kondo who says, “keep only those things that speak to the heart, and discard items that no longer spark joy.” And I suspect numerous people are committed to this practice, which is wonderful.
But as we discard the things that don’t bring us joy and that we haven’t used in a while, are we also reducing the number of things that we purchase and don’t need in the first place? Are we simultaneously putting time, energy and resources toward assisting neighbors or giving to churches and non-profits who seek to do ministry for those on the margins and share love, hope, and peace in our community?
Living as disciples requires that we constantly work toward claiming our identity as God’s beloved over society and culture’s demand that we be defined by our wealth and possessions. We have to release ourselves from those notions and expectations that solely obtaining money and possessions leads to happiness, and alternatively embrace the reality that sharing what we have with others is what brings true bliss.
The Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, artist and member of A Sanctified Art, focuses on this idea of release in the “Our Money Story” Stewardship resources that various churches, like Emory Presbyterian, are using this Fall. In an entry regarding her painting of the rich young ruler entitled “Finding Release,” Pittman reflects:[3]
As I write this in the midst of a global pandemic, we are collectively grieving countless losses and desperately seeking answers to quell our fears of what’s to come. The economy is nosediving and many face grave illness or even death. Some can’t see past the fog of new living restrictions and are calling to reopen the economy because they believe it will save us. Others are choosing to stay home, risking economic fallout, to protect the lives of the vulnerable.
When afraid, we turn inward. I see fear and loneliness in the rich man. He’s focused on an individual path, leading to his personal salvation, while missing the full picture. The man’s wealth may cause him comfort, but it does not exist in a vacuum. His wealth affects the lives of others—particularly those at the margins of society.
Jesus offers the rich man spiritual grounding that completely threatens his financial stability, but it’s good news just the same. Jesus reveals to the rich man the truth that we are all connected. Jesus chooses to name commandments concerning interpersonal relationships and community. Jesus offers the rich man freedom from his entanglement with wealth, and gifts him belonging and a way forward. The rich man feels the weight of this truth. To “enter this life” he must recognize his responsibility for his neighbor, because our lives are interwoven.
Instead of grasping to Jesus’ lifeline, the rich man turns away because he cannot fathom losing everything. His grief feels palpable in this time of upheaval. I meditated on his grief, layering dusty purples, muted greens, and chalky blacks. I imagine the rich man isn’t turning away from Jesus altogether. Perhaps he’s taking space to feel his grief, processing all he will lose so he can truly find release.
Jesus invites us to enter into a life of generosity and gratitude, recognizing how we are designed to care for and love our neighbors to whom we are connected. Jesus reminds us that we are not identified by how we consume but by how we too release.
Amen.
[1] Festival of Homiletics 2009, Atlanta, Georgia. Lecture by Brian McLaren—”Preaching and the New World Reality: The Seismic Economic and Social Shift Happening Now”
[2] Interpretation Series: The Gospel of Matthew by Douglas R.A. Hare, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009
[3] Artist’s Statement on “Finding Release” based on Matthew 19:16-22. “Our Money Story” Stewardship Curriculum by A Sanctified Art, LLC. sanctifiedart.org
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