Last week we spoke quite a bit about the context of scripture. I heard a lot of feedback about last week’s sermon. I suspect that there remains a general angst about being divorced in the church. We don’t really know what to do with passages around divorce in Scripture. And I tried to offer some reflections that many seem to have found helpful, and I’m glad of that.
If last week’s Gospel produced anxiety, this week’s is sure to be a winner. Not everyone is divorced, clearly. However, on Vashon, many people have a lot of wealth, particularly compared to the rest of the country. Even some people who may be poor on Vashon have a lot of wealth compared to the rest of the world. So, this scripture does not go down easy for anyone really. The people involved in Stewardship for the church may be sitting in the pews, secretly going, “Yes!!!!…Sarah HAS to preach a stewardship sermon!” If God were all about people giving out of fear, this might be an open and shut sort of case; we would never have to worry about a church budget ever again, and although that might be music to Sandy, the finance committee, the vestry, and the stewardship committee, apparently that isn’t really what God is up to.
What am I getting at?
Well, let’s look again at context, like we did last week. We are still in the 10th Chapter of Mark. And it’s still question and answer time with Jesus. What about divorce? What about wealth? What do I have to do to get into heaven? And in between the questions, Jesus is busy explaining how getting into or part of the kingdom of heaven is about being child-like, or perhaps we could phrase this more in our contemporary language, it is having a heart of a child that allows one to draw nearer to God. And Jesus is reflecting that getting into heaven is difficult for rich people, but not for his disciples who have left behind all they had.
This story is present in some form or another in all three Synoptic Gospels (synoptic meaning “same vision”- Matthew, Mark and Luke). The person asking is either a young man with wealth, a wealthy young man, or a rich young ruler. People interpret the upshot of the story in different ways. He goes away crest-fallen because he can’t or won’t do what Jesus asks. However, it may be that he is crest-fallen because he has all intentions of following Jesus; and he has a lot of giving to do. We aren’t told whether the young man follows through with giving his things away and following Jesus. The story challenges what was a common belief that if you were well off that God had smiled on you, blessed you. So, a well-off person is one who had found favor with the Divine. It is not too different than the prosperity Gospel of our day and age. This teaching of Jesus shakes at the core of this belief, which is not really an articulated premise of the faith.
If you were new to the fold of Christian belief, you might actually hear several different versions of what you needed to do. One of the main problems is on the surface, it very much seems like a quid pro quo sort of thing, giving appears to be very transactional. Do this, give away all your possessions and follow Jesus. You might hear about tithing. The biblical tithe was and in some cases is 10% of your income. (And you could always get hair splitting—is that before or after taxes…?) Do all these things and get your reward— transactional.
There are some, and I probably have before, who will tell you that it has to do with where you put your trust. Do you trust God that if you give away things that there will be enough? Are you like a bird, or flower, that neither toils nor spins, but still is provided for? As someone middle-aged, saving for retirement, I would not be the person to look to as an example of just trusting in God that there will be enough. I can put before you that I have flaws and I know that I do not live to the level asked or required by the Gospel, even as I try.
HOWEVER, when you entertain these thoughts together with the other themes running through this Gospel, maybe instead we can see that Jesus wants us to “give like a child.”
What I mean by that is the following: it is true that children definitely can be down-right mean. We all know that. There is just nothing like name-calling by a child. “Poopy-head” captures so much. BUT, have you ever noticed that children just know what is fair? And if they haven’t been “educated” to see as adults do, then they don’t judge. For example, they don’t hold the homeless or hungry person responsible for his or her drug or alcohol addiction, or whatever it is that keeps them homeless or hungry; instead, there is a simple process, “you are hungry, and I have food to share with you.” Children will much more easily open their hearts to a stranger than an adult will. They inherently know what is right and what is wrong.
So if we give like children, then we give with our heart and not our heads. We love with abandon, we love with grace, we give with our hearts. We remove the calculations from our thoughts— we do NOT assume that our wealth is in a math equation with how good we are, and an indication that God has compensated us for our goodness. We do NOT ask the following: does someone deserve my money? has the church been good (however it is that one judges that) with its finances? Are they good stewards? Is the person in need sober? Are they looking for a job? And we certainly don’t imagine that what wealth we may have has been earned by our good behavior. Instead, we are invited to believe that there is enough, and if there isn’t enough, that there will be enough. God has provided, God provides, and God will provide.
I’m not sure we will always be successful at putting aside our baggage of judging others and instead opening our hearts, but that is what we are called to do. Perhaps this is one of the things we must rely on God for; it is next to impossible for us to embrace this thought process by ourselves, but with God, it is possible.
I think one reason that Jesus loves children so much is because children love like God does, with grace. We are invited to love like God, love like Jesus, love like children.
Track 2
Amos 5:6-7,10-15 Psalm 90:12-17 Hebrews 4:12-16 Mark 10:17-31