Mark 10:17-31
Money, money, money – it’s a rich man’s world?
What we believe about Jesus is trumped by a bigger matter – how we respond to Jesus’ teaching.
Decades ago G.K. Chesterton, a catholic thinker said
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult, and left untried.”
Today after several weeks exploring cosmos, creation and blessing animals we are back with the lectionary texts.
Straightaway we entered deep waters with Job complaining bitterly about that most felt argument against God – suffering and sense of God’s absence. He was in a spiritual black hole and there’s no light switch. Since we spent some weeks exploring Job a while ago I’ve pushed this difficult experience to the side of the preaching plate.
So we need to turn to the gospel for this week which involves another spiritual matter – money – its getting and giving!
This is a very challenging teaching difficult for everyone of us, and largely untried.
So let’s first go back to Francis of Assisi , the cause of the animal blessings last week and the symbolic name of Jose Bergoglio (Pope Francis). Why did he choose this name – here’s the original story.
Francis was born into a wealthy merchant family in 14th century Italy. Raised as a cherished son, his father intended that he follow into the family business. Francis was a typical rich boy – partying, romancing the girls, gathering his mates around him.
Circumstances intervened and Francis was called up to serve his country – and came back wounded and ill. In convalescence he had disturbing dreams which led to his conversion to the peaceable way of Jesus. He was not a disciple to do things moderately!!
One day he threw many of his father’s goods out of his haberdashery shop to distribute to the poor. His dad was incensed ( quite rightly) and took him to the bishop with the idea that he would be straightened out by the Church.
However it wasn’t to be, for Francis had heard the radical call of the gospel, and famously stripped off everything he wore and gave it back to his father. He left his old life behind to rebuild the church of Jesus through ministering to the poor, the outcasts, the sick, those who needed to receive the gospel.
I understand that tourists still visit the shrine of St Francis which has had a grand basilica built around it. Despite Francis’ evangelical poverty and discipleship it is ironic that the Catholic church managed to contain his call to give everything away for the sake of the kingdom of God.
But … the truth is that Christians have always been doing this because this teaching is an impossible ethic.
The problem of wealth and its side-effects is deeply embedded in Jesus’ teachings where he names it Mammon, implying that it’s a god to bow down and worship.
The New Testament highlights money as a greater spiritual danger than many other possible evils that Christians have conjured up over the centuries, with the potential to destroy social and moral fabric.
Someone combed through the gospels and found over seventy references to the danger of money.
None is more quintessential than –
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
There are four moral issues in Mark chapter 10: marriage & divorce; how children are to be treated; the proper use of wealth; and concerns about power and service. Each is as important now, as then.
A question we might ask Mark ( if we could do so) is who does the rich man represent? Is he Everyman, or just those who are born lucky; those who invest and risk the financial markets; or has he inherited his wealth?
In this story Jesus’ disciples – none of whom were wealthy – were, to use the technical term, gob smacked by Jesus saying it is hard for the wealthy to enter God’s Kingdom, and his illustration of a camel going through the eye of a needle.
It was assumed that divine blessing and personal wealth were synonymous. It still is in some places. Jesus’ image of the camel and the needle conjured up beasts of burden needing to be unpacked before entering narrow city gates. It was a visual joke – and in the early church many of the first followers came from the margins, not the power centres of society.
Wealth can make people revolve around themselves, needs and wants.
Do you remember the parable of Jesus – about the rich man busy extending his barn, accommodating a growing profit margin and blind to everything else – this night your soul will be required of you ?
But, this is not the attitude of the man with a burning question about eternal life. It has been assumed to be a question about the afterlife, but, in fact it is about living God’s kingdom in the here-and-now.
Jesus’ response shows this to be the case – as he underscores several of the Ten Commandments about loving one’s neighbour. Not a problem, says the man – and Jesus raises the bar higher – go, sell what you own …
Can you imagine being asked to do that?! How would you respond?
John Wesley had a discipleship dictum for the people called Methodists: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can”
Jesus’ disciples were shocked at the impossibility of this teaching about wealth. Who can can live like this?
His response is simply this may be a human impossibility, but becomes a God possibilities.
As I said it’s an impossible ethic for middle-class Christians. A teaching which we may acknowledge, but as Chesterton noted – and he wasn’t an ascetic – left untried by most everyday Christians, and left up to those who entered the realm of spiritual athletes, particularly the monastics.
So an important question is how do we hear this teaching? What do we do with it, and what does it do with us?
How may we share our (relative) wealth in a rich man’s world?
David Carter
11/10/15