A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

THREADING CAMELS THROUGH NEEDLES

Mark 10:17-31, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, October 11, 2009

An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom, or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom. "Done!" says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. At length, one of his colleagues whispers, "Say something." The dean sighs and says, "I should have taken the money."

Our gospel scripture shows Jesus encountering the “rich young ruler” and his question. Jesus’ teaching strikes a jarring note in a world of “have” and “have nots,” those who have possessions and want to keep them and those who lack possessions and desire them. Unexpectedly perhaps Jesus expresses no outrage and makes no denunciation of this wealthy man. Jesus, says the Bible, feels love for the man who loves his possessions. In love, Jesus calls; and in calling, he makes a radical demand.

This is an important story, at least for Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The rich young ruler encounters Jesus in all three. Actually, only Matthew says the man was young; only Luke says he was a ruler; but all three say he was rich. Personally I 'm not surprised Jesus loved this man because finally here was someone who was sincerely asking the right question. Prior to this everyone who comes to Jesus in Mark came wanting something. They wanted healing, they wanted food, they wanted power or they wanted to trap Jesus. Yet none of these things was why Jesus had come. Jesus’ stated purpose in Mark 1:38 was to preach a message of repentance and of the nearness of God's kingdom. Here at last was a man that’s humbly—remember he is on his knees—asking what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. I suspect there was a little bit of "finally someone gets it" in Jesus looking and loving this man. This man wants to do that thing, whatever it is. This endears him to Jesus; Jesus looks at him and loves him, this bit of a perfectionist, who at least when it comes to how he perceives himself in relationship to the commandments. “Good Teacher,” he says to Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus gives him a quiz on the second half of the Ten Commandments and the rich man checks all the boxes. “I have kept all these since my youth,” he tells Jesus. And then Jesus tells him the deal: “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.”

Clearly the man didn't hear this as loving; his face falls and he leaves sad. This has always bothered me because I like happy endings and this isn’t. In fact, it’s downright depressing. Here is a man with his heart in (mostly) the right place, a man who Jesus loves, and things still don’t turn out perfectly. In Hebrew thought, prosperity was associated with God’s blessing, which was the result of faithful living. The disciples were amazed because wealth was thought to be a sign of God's favor, of God's blessing. They thought of all the good they could do with wealth, of how it would free them to spend more time with God. The disciples’ attitude is reflected by Tevia, the main character of the Oscar winning musical, Fiddler on the Roof. In the song, If I were a Rich Man, Tevia sings that if he were a rich man he would have time to pray and would study the Holy Book seven hours a day.

What Jesus said to the rich man was not a contradiction of his love for him however; rather it was the most loving thing he could have said. Jesus came to free us: to free us for the truth, to free us from sin, to free us from ourselves. The one thing the man lacked was true freedom, true hope, true devotion to God. We don’t get eternal life on a ratio of mostly God and a some of the other stuff thrown in. Eternal life is not a really long time of us being us. It’s God only, all the time, free of time. The man lacked eternal life. He said he wanted it. Jesus told him how to “get” it. The truth will not always be our buddy. Even so, seek the truth. It is God’s guideline for your life.

Usually this give-it-all-up-to-God verse elicits a couple of standard responses from preachers and congregations. On the one hand, many people read it and say, “Well, thank goodness I’m not rich!” It must be someone else’s problem. We might observe our own wealthy neighbors and think they’re the ones with a possession problem. But the truth is that if you live in the United States and have even a very modest home and income, you’re still wealthier than the 2.7 billion people in the world who make less than two dollars a day. By that standard, almost all of us are rich and, very likely, want to get richer. The second approach has to do with the force of Jesus’ prescription. Jesus isn’t really asking us to give up everything we have; he’s using a hyperbolic metaphor. All disciples of Jesus shouldn’t really get rid of everything we own, right? Surely, this man’s problem with possessions required a much more radical intervention than we need. Well, maybe. But Jesus’ words here seem to have a more universal application. Even the disciples, the not rich disciples, understood and caught the force of it. “Look, we have left everything and followed you,” they said to Jesus (v. 28). Jesus’ advice/command to the rich man wasn’t lost on those who had indeed done exactly what Jesus was requiring. Somehow, we expect that discipleship shouldn’t cost us that much; we think we can somehow maintain our consumerist lifestyle and still call ourselves followers of Jesus. As Tom Sine writes, Western Christians seem to want “the American dream with a little Jesus overlay.”

Nothing binds more of us to this false god than wealth and all the stuff associated with it. So many of us are caught in the slavish cycle of when we get a raise or a better job we decide to stretch a little and treat ourselves. Maybe it is bigger house or a new car or maybe it is simply a new toy for our hobby. The next thing we know is that we are a slave to our job because we need every penny just to make our monthly payments. We end up chained, trapped in captivity, to our possessions. We don’t own our stuff, it owns us. And it's not like we don't know this, resigned to it is more the truth.

The fact is that carpenters and fishermen were not necessarily the poorest in first-century Palestine. The poorest were the land-less peasants, unskilled laborers and defenseless widows. Yet Jesus was certainly poor, given the fact that Joseph and Mary could only afford to sacrifice a pair of doves, instead of a lamb, when he were born. We, however, miss the point entirely if we think that wealth is all about money. Wealth in the biblical context cannot be understood solely in economic terms. Instead, it has everything to do with status, power, honor, and privileges in life. To be rich not only meant that one had money to live in luxury, it also implied that the person had the social status to live a privileged life, and the power to oppress the poor, as often was the case. Two things must be understood here. First, the poor in Palestinian antiquity were those who lived on the margin of the society and had little social status. Second, "giving" in those days had much to do with enhancing one's honor in the community and the recipients of gifts were expected to reciprocate. Jesus' demand was great also because his suggested way of "giving" would not enhance the ruler's honor, and his recipients could hardly return him anything. The challenge to the rich ruler was thus not simply a matter of giving up money. It was about identifying with the poor and the subsequent loss of privileges and social standing. Too much was at stake for him.

The burning question then is: What does this mean to us today? It depends on our own relationship with God and what he wants us to do as individuals. Those who enjoy financial prosperity not only have to watch out for the "love of money," but also the love of honor, status and privileges. And yet, that is true for all of us. The drive for status, honor, and privilege is the force behind so much of what we do for ourselves and refuse to do for God.

Henri Nouwen was a well-known international conference speaker, writer, theologian and priest, who taught at Yale and Harvard. Few were as successful and highly esteemed as he. But as Nouwen eloquently told us \, the last decade of his life was his best years. He spent those years in a community of the disabled. One of his tasks was to look after Adam, who could not speak, dress or undress, and suffered from severe epilepsy. Everyday Nouwen spent hours to feed, change and bathe Adam, but Nouwen would be the first to say that he was the chief beneficiary of this kind of "discipleship." Caring for Adam taught him love and humility that all his success and achievement could not show him. There is something better than status; it's service. We can't serve both God and money, said our Lord and Savior, which sort of reminds me of the story of the diner who went into a New York City restaurant and asked: “Do you serve crabs here?” The quick-witted waiter replied: “We serve anyone. Sit down.”

Was it wrong of Jesus to say what he said to that man? No, we proclaim. Would it be wrong of Christ to say it to me and you? No, again we confess. Where then are we left? Would we not be disciples then, if Jesus were to come and tell us to "go; sell all you own, and give it to the poor; and then come follow me?" If we don't do what Jesus tells us to do--if we can't, if we are too weak in spiritual things, in faith, in obedience; if the world has us wrapped around its finger, even though we chafe at its bit at times, then what? We have failed this test. And yet we know, we know that true freedom, the real good news, is exactly where Jesus said it was. Jesus looks intently at us and continues quietly to affirm that life is to be had not by accumulating things, nor by pursuing honor, but by disencumbering ourselves. The truth is it's not just difficult for a rich person to give up wealth; it seems equally unlikely for us or nearly everyone to obey Christ in this way. That camel not going through a needle tells our story.

Now everybody knows you can't thread camels through needles. It can't be done; it is truly impossible--for us. But for God, well that's a different story--and that's the story that truly matters. Now don't get me wrong. We aren't off the hook. Christ still demands our heart, our best, our all, and being free in soul and spirit only comes through service to God and for good. So attempt the impossible and do the unbelievable. Rely on the Lord, to do the right thing, to do the Christ thing. And above all, believe that God does the impossible, like it's nothing, like it's everything, all the time, for all of us, for eternal life.  

Return to Sermons (table of contents)

Return to Homepage of the Congregational Church of Boca Raton