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RICHES AND RELIGION

Writer's picture: stphilipseasthamptstphilipseasthampt

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31]


The conspiracy theorists among us might smell a rat, given the fact that our parish’s annual fund-raising program (what we refer to as the “Canvass”) will officially begin next Sunday and that this Sunday’s gospel focuses on a young man who has too much money.  I mean, what a slow pitch over the center of the plate: just waiting to be hit out of the park.  But this situation is not the set up some might perceive; nor is beating parishioners over the head about financially supporting St. Philip’s my style or perspective. I say this because the story Mark tells about the interchange between Jesus and what tradition refers to as “the rich, young man” is, in fact, a profoundly “religious” story.  To some people’s surprise, this story stems from the truth I so frequently share with you: namely, “everyone is religious; the problem is what we worship”.


So, given this, I’d like to take a close look with you at the interaction between Jesus and this “rich, young man” and to see ourselves and our condition in this meeting.   For my point is that at its heart this gospel story is not a morality play but rather a story about what we worship, what we hold at the center and its consequences.  


The first observation I need to make is not a new one, at least for those who have been paying attention to Mark’s gospel narrative for the last month or so.  As in a good dramatic play, the opening line of this gospel lesson sets the scene and re-establishes the scene’s context.  Specifically, today’s gospel opening line is this: As Jesus was setting out on a journey…[10:17]  


Clearly, Jesus is on the move yet again.  In fact, for the last six weeks we have followed him on his peripatetic loop into the Gentile lands of Phoenicia and back again to Judea, and ultimately to the climactic events in Jerusalem.  Yes, in today’s lesson, Jesus is on the move – again.


But telling us that Jesus is on a journey overlooks a key point: this is not “a” journey but “thee” journey – the journey to Jerusalem, where Jesus will ultimately demonstrate what life with God is like and what that God-life means for us.  So, on this cross-covered journey, today’s action begins when from the street crowd a man came running up to Jesus and asked a most startling question: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 


Curiously, the man didn’t present himself to be healed, as most people evidently did when Jesus was in the neighborhood.  Nor did he want a selfie with Jesus.  Neither did he ask for an autograph on the back of his tunic with a magic marker.  No, what he did ask for was an answer to what it takes to gain “eternal life”.  Imagine a question like that!  Who is this guy with such a question?  Yet, just as startling is Jesus’ rather terse response to this young inquirer.  Why do you call me good?  Only God is good.  Indeed!


As if to rescue this meeting from ending as quickly as it began, Jesus begins to address the young man’s concern directly.  You know the commandments, he says.  At which point, as if in one breath, Jesus runs off the last six of the Ten Commandments: Don’t murder; don’t commit adultery; don’t steal; don’t lie; don’t cheat; honor your father and mother.”  Breathe!


I can imagine the young man needing to blink his eyes at such a response and taking a reassuring gulp to re-steady himself in front of this “Good Teacher”.  And when he did, I can see the young man, lowering his head and quietly, shyly saying: Teacher, I have – from my youth – kept them all. [10:20 – The Message]


Among all the meetings with Jesus, I think that what follows next stands among the most dramatic, emotional, and humane moments in all the gospel accounts.  The text simply says: Jesus, looking at him, loved him…[10:21].  Of course he did!  In the face of such unpretentious honesty and unveiled vulnerability – not to mention devoted effort to be faithful, what else could Jesus do but love this guy?  


Now, if this scene were produced for the screen or stage, this would be the moment for the violins to swell in tear-producing sweetness.  Jesus, the Good Teacher, knows he has met a very good and young man; and his compassionate heart goes out to this brave seeker.  And in the musical silence of the next moment, Jesus speaks with a sudden resolve: You lack one thing … You lack one thing: go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, [and] then come, follow me.  [10:21]


As sweetly soaring as the violin’s background music was a moment ago, with Jesus’ words about what is lacking in this man’s life, the strings collapse and crash, matching perfectly the look on the man’s face.  As the lesson says in its post-mortem report, When [the man] heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.[10:22]


“Everyone is religious.  The problem is what we worship.  And we become what we worship.”


I, for one, do not denigrate this “rich, young man”.  He may have more money and more play-toys than I do, but I also believe that I know him in his hesitant faithfulness.  I realize to a significant degree how our possessions can and do possess us, that they can unconsciously creep into our souls and take invasive root at our centers.  As such, they bend our sense of what we worship.  I’ll use myself as an example.


During the pandemic’s shutdown, amidst its creeping isolation in our lives and of necessity finding myself on the computer to do my work, I received offers from commercial operations to take advantage of sales.  The logarithm that is my online profile knows that I fancy tools, especially tools and gadgets for my workshop.  As I look back now, the pandemic advertisers zeroed in on me, and there was not a day in which several woodworking offers came across my screen to tempt me to procure what in a significantly emotional sense felt like salvation in a lost time.  If I only had this router bit or that jig or if only I could take that special building class, my life would be better, be ok.  Somehow, I’d be ok in a time and circumstance that was not ok.  Don’t ask what “better” or being ok actually mean; but whatever being “better” or ok entailed, reaching that undefined stage was always a matter of a reaching a goal line that insidiously and steadily moving away from me: a situation, however, that seemingly could be solved by buying more stuff.


And here’s my confession: While I was pretty good about not buying “a stairway to heaven”, the sad irony is that when my eyes occasionally fall on an items I did purchase, I feel ashamed – ashamed not only that I fell again to the false salvation game; but also I feel guilty because now I have to find a place to keep the stuff I ordered.  Remote storage facilities are a booming business; aren’t they?  More to the “religious” point, did my buying make me feel ok, less worried about life; or is the life-worry still there?


You lack one thing … go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, [and] then come, follow me.  


There are some people who have so much stuff in their lives that there is literally no more room available at or in their centers for anything else, including most especially God.  And while I am fully aware that as a good rabbi, someone the “rich, young man” saw as a “Good Teacher”, Jesus frequently employed hyperbole to make his points.  In this case, people with so many things in their lives need to sell off everything in order to liberate and save their souls.  Evidently, the “rich, young man” of the gospel text was one of these people; and because Jesus loved him – loved him for sincerely wondering about the state of his soul and what appears to be his irrepressible desire for life on God’s terms (a term that is often referred to as “eternal life”).  But as things often do, the “rich, young man’s possessions possessed him, to the very real extent that he couldn’t let go of them.  They were what made him him.  And I recognize the element of idolatry in some of the things I have that I won’t easily let go of.  And in this, I see myself in this man.  I also keep working on accepting the fact that, in spite of my hedge fund management of my life, Jesus loves me, too.  


To be sure, there are some basic needs in our lives that God knows we need: things such as safety; health; a place to live; food on the table; good work to do; love and the sense of belonging that only love can convey.  We are not meant to be without such necessities, but neither do such “things” automatically provide a true sense of being “ok” in our lives.  And by “ok” I mean having the life that God gives, which is a life that not only does not end, but it is a life no one can take away from us.  


So, what is it in our lives that tends to crowd God and the God-life out like an invasive plant?  More to the deep spiritual and existential point, how do we know when we have enough?  As a toehold on a living answer to these questions of “how much is enough”, I pass along the words of Joan Chittester, a Roman Catholic, Benedictine nun.


We lie in a culture that sees having things as the measure of our success.  We strive for a life that sees eliminating things as he measures off internal wealth.  Enoughness is a value long dead in Western society.  Dependence on God is a value long lost.  Yet, enoughness and dependence on God may be what is lacking in a society where consumerism and accumulation have become the root diseases of a world in which everything is not enough and nothing satisfies.1


Call it a “Theology of Enoughness”.  What is this for us?  Moreover, if (like the “rich, young man”) we are even willing to consider such a probing reflection about “eternal life” in our lives, how do we incorporate it into the way we live?  As I say, my own response to the “enoughness” issue springs from this gospel encounter and the example of the “rich, young man”.  I think the implicit question this scene raises is: What do I have and hold tight to in my life that squeezes God out?  In my sense of wanting my life being “ok”, what squeezes God out of the center?  What fights God for my focus, for my worship?


Of all the dramatic and challenging elements resident in this “rich, young man’s” story, taking stock of our “enoughness” issue begins with daring to hear Jesus’ response to the young man: You lack one thing.  


Contemporary poet, Steve Garnaas-Holmes, composes this illuminating insight about the place of “lacking”:


What you lack is lack.

     You have so much, you don’t need eternal life, 

     don’t need God.


     To receive eternal life you have to be empty enough.

     You have to sell everything, give it all away

     You have to lie in radical trust.

     Sometimes trust is deepest when it’s all there is.


     Be mindful of what you cling to, 

     and what you would gladly spend to find blessing.

     what you would drop to be free.

     And [then] drop it.


     Practice trust and generosity.

     Practice letting go and giving away.

     When you’ve given away what you can,

     what you’re left with is what can’t be taken from you:

     infinite life.2


God has given us what we need and cannot provide for ourselves; Say “thank you” for the gift; Share, don’t hoard, the gift.  Amen.

 

1.  Joan Chittester ,The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, p. 144

2. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Daily Poem: 10/10/24

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126 Main Street
Easthampton, MA 01027

 

413-527-0862


stphilipseasthampton@gmail.com

The Right Rev. Douglas Fisher
Bishop of Western Massachusetts

The Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock, Priest-in-Charge

Karen Banta, Organist & Choir Director

Lesa Sweigart, Parish Administrator

 

David Brown, Sexton

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