Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, 23B, October 11, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of possibility, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

“Indeed, [according to Hebrews] the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before God no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”

Last week I mentioned that in the Bible, there are nearly 2200 references in the Bible to possessions and giving, which is about ten times the number of references to believing. [1] Our Gospel lesson for today contains a famous one of those 2200. As Jesus is setting off on a journey, a man runs up and kneels in front of him and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Remember that eternal life always includes life before death. Jesus says, “you know the commandments.” The man replies that he has been careful about those commandments since he was a child. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. (Don’t miss that – that is good news!) Jesus replied that he should spend some time figuring out how to sell his possessions, give the money to those who are poor, then follow Jesus in the life of a wandering beggar. [2] (That’s the bad news.)

I’m often reminded of what an Episcopal priest Grant Gallup, wrote from Nicaragua some years ago. He pointed out that “the Jesus we hear of in today’s Gospel could not get a job in the Church today…[the note] in his clergy deployment profile, under the category ‘budget and finance/mission support experience,’ would [contain] the entry: ‘turned away wealthy prospect.’ Gallup offers the critique that “the Church, … has been eager for centuries to get along with the Ruling Class and has frequently said about this story of Jesus and the Rich Young [man] that it really isn’t about the wickedness of wealth and its corrupting influence; what it is really about, we are told, is “detachment.” The upwardly mobile can get into heaven if only they would adopt an attitude like those of the “old wealth,” those very rich who live Spartan and stingy lives, make wise investments and eat sensible salads…[where] the goal is to live on a spiritual plane somewhat above earthly things, and not be conspicuous about your consumption.” But being detached or inconspicuous is not what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus is demanding relief for those who are poor through the redistribution of wealth. Both Torah and Gospel are abundantly clear about the sacred obligation of people who have more to take care of people who have less.

Now this is a very fundamental, literal interpretation of a scriptural command (and not one, I might add, that I have ever seen Biblical literalists putting on signs at marches and rallies). Jesus’ instructions are extreme – actually against the grain of rabbinical teaching of the time, which held that a man should not give away more than one fifth of his possessions during his lifetime lest he become a public charge. [3] This is still our concern about the risk of giving too much. We don’t want to become impoverished as a consequence of giving too much. (That is our concern right?) We don’t want to risk giving away too much and becoming needy ourselves. Heaven forbid? Well maybe not.

Was Jesus using hyperbole? Or was he really serious? If he was serious, does his instruction only apply to that rich young man? to the very rich? Can those of us who are not very rich relax? Although we have a wide range of incomes at Emmanuel Church , I’m quite confident that I’m not preaching right now to the very rich. At the same time, I know that the majority of us are rich by the world’s standards even if we are not very rich by Boston’s Back Bay standards.

You know, the Bible is full of instructions and examples to follow – in fact, a lot of conflicting instructions and examples. You have to be pretty chaos-tolerant to search the Bible for answers to questions about how to live an ethical life. One of the ways I discern which instructions and examples are binding and which ones are not, is to look through the lens of the love ethic exemplified by Jesus. Back to Hebrews, “Since, then, we have a great high priest…Jesus, the Child of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” If we look at this through the lens of the love ethic of Jesus to try to figure out if this is one of the commandments we should follow, what do we see? Is it responsible, caring, mutual, non-exploitative, honest, with genuine concern for the best interests of the other and of society as a whole? Well, yes, for the most part.

Here’s what I notice. The Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus loved this rich guy – and that when Jesus told him to sell all his stuff, give the money to poor people and then follow him, the guy walked away. Mark tells us he was shocked and grieving because he had many possessions. One of the things that I notice is that he didn’t respond, like the Syro-Phoenician woman, who thought that Jesus’ response to her question was inadequate. “Yes, Lord, but,” she argued – but he didn’t argue. He just walked away, maybe ashamed, maybe angry – in any case, shocked and deeply sad.

When I think about that, that Jesus loved him, and told him how to live more fully into God’s realm of eternal life (and the guy just walked away), then I hear what Jesus says next differently than I used to hear it. I used to hear that part about the camel and the eye of a needle as a judgmental reproach kind of thing: “how hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” I used to hear it as recrimination. Now I hear it as a lament — Jesus’ own grief – his own deep sadness that the rich man who he loved just walked away. I have this sense that Jesus showed him the gates of heaven that are so wide that you can’t even see the sides of the opening – and all he had to do was put his stuff down and walk in, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t even want to continue the conversation – and I think that made Jesus so sad. Imagine that the gates are very wide, but they might as well be as narrow as the eye of a needle. Whether it’s an actual sewing needle or, as some teach, the nickname of the smallest gate into the City of Jerusalem doesn’t matter. To me it’s clear that Jesus was expressing his own grief.

What I think Jesus knew then, and what I know now, is that the more wealth we have, the less we tend to need God, and the less we tend to need one another. Oh I can worship God, do my best to follow the commandments, even give my life over to the priesthood – but I don’t need God the way someone who has nothing needs God. I don’t even need to believe in God the way someone who has nothing believes in God. I don’t need other people the way someone who has nothing needs other people I see that every time I go to the prison or to Common Cathedral or Common Art or BostonWarm@Emmanuel – I even experience it from time to time within our own congregation. I don’t really like thinking about it, but I know it’s true.

I also know that I am using far more than my share of the world’s resources just by virtue of living in the United States. I don’t like thinking about that either, but I know it’s true. But I’ll tell you this – I’m not walking away. I want to follow Jesus – I have inherited a strong sense of the expansive and inclusive love of God for me and for you because of Jesus, however rich we are by the world’s standards. I do want to participate in redistributing wealth. I do want to alleviate poverty and provide relief to people who have inadequate food and shelter and clothing, who search for food in the trashcans on Newbury Street and sleep on flattened cardboard boxes on our ramp and steps, whose jackets are too thin for the cool fall days, not to mention the coming winter.

So what does that mean? It means for me, that my own giving is increasingly intentional, proportional and sacrificial. I spend more time thinking and praying about my own access to resources – and figuring out how to use less and give away more. My giving is proportion is increasing – that is, each year, I give away a higher proportion of my income (although I am not yet close to going over twenty percent yet). Sometimes the increase is in baby steps – like a half a percent more than the year before. Sometimes it’s a bigger step. I’ve lived through the very humbling experience of taking big steps and then falling short – that is, making a pledge for giving to the church that represented a significant stretch and not being able to meet it. I can tell you, that’s not the end of the world. And my giving is increasingly sacrificial. What I mean by that is, if I can give away money and possessions and not even miss them, I’m sure that it wasn’t enough. Giving should change one’s life. It should matter.

I don’t know if I’m following Jesus yet. I know I want to. And I know I’m not walking away – I’m arguing with him sometimes, but I’m not walking away. Furthermore, I know that as your priest, it’s my work to be concerned for your spiritual health which includes your financial giving, and it’s my work to encourage you to not walk away. As your priest, I’ve got to tell you that I believe Jesus really meant it when he sadly observed how hard it is for how it will be for those who have many possessions to enter and fully experience the realm of God. But I don’t think it’s because the realm God doesn’t want or welcome us – I think rather, that the more we have – that is, the less needy we are, the less likely we are to want to enter the realm of God, which is open to all. I also believe that Jesus really meant it when he said that for God, all things are possible. And for today, that news is good enough for me. The writer of Hebrews concludes, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

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