What should I do to inherit life? What should I do?
The rich man wants to know what he should do to live a godly life.
Jesus speaks to him directly. “You lack one thing – go sell all that you have and give your money to the poor.”
Before he can do a new thing, the rich man must give something up. The question for the rich man isn’t so much, “what shall I do?” but what shall I let go of, what shall I relinquish, what shall I leave behind, what shall I give up?
According to the rich man, he has kept the commandments of God but he still desires a life with God, a deeper relationship with the eternal one.
“What shall I do?”
Jesus directs him, first of all, not to doing. Instead, Jesus points him to surrendering, surrendering all that serves as an impediment in his relationship to God.
To ask what we shall do is a great question when it comes to a life of faith, but I’m not sure it is the first question. The first question is one that requires self-examination or discernment. It is a question of letting go and giving up.
Keeping the commandments is a good and holy thing and it is more than a check-list. Jesus wants us to know that the commandments of God are to be taken to heart.
No wonder Jesus addresses the man personally with great insight into the rich man’s circumstances. “You,” he says, “lack one thing.” Give it up, your possessions and give to the poor. Loving neighbor often requires, first of all, a letting go, a giving up.
In our after worship class we are looking at Luther’s Small Catechism and we spent the first two Sundays on the Commandments. I was reminded once again that Luther doesn’t treat the commandments as a set of rules to not do this or not do that. Luther goes a step further by describing the opportunities and freedoms that each commandment brings. The freedom to love.
“Do not bear false witness” is more than taming your tongue, it is to actually put the best construction on your neighbor’s actions. “Do not kill” is more than simply refraining from such cruelty, it means doing what you can to ensure your neighbor’s well-being. More than a stopping to covet what your neighbor has or seek to outdo your neighbor, be proactive in loving your neighbor. Look out for them and be in relationship with them.
And in loving your neighbor you are truly free. That which you thought was free is really a trap. So, give up those things that entrap you.
For some of us it may mean giving up anger so that awe may cultivate patience or giving up gossip as fun as it seems when we are engaged in it and so take on kindness. Then there’s the difficult yet necessary business of letting go of our addictions so that we may live more fully, or let go of making idols out of people for that kind of obsessiveness blocks real relationship.
What gets in the way of fuller life in the Kingdom of God? Whatever it is, give it up!
It is a popular thing to give something up for Lent. In those 40 days of preparation for Easter, giving something up hearkens back to the ancient practices of fasting, giving alms, and praying.
At its best, giving up chocolate or beer or something like that during Lent or fasting from meals are ways of being in solidarity with our hungry neighbors and finds us in a spirit of dependence on God.
Almsgiving is about giving your resources to the poor or engaging in acts of love toward your neediest neighbors. Such giving up requires a sacrifice of time and possessions.
Going deeper with the gift of prayer is a way to give up time and space to seek the Kingdom of God.
We struggle with giving up these things. We prefer to avoid sacrificing much of anything. It has become an art. So, the act of giving up can be easy or misplaced.
When I was a kid, I remember a friend of the family who gave up smoking during Lent only to light up again on Easter Sunday and resume her addiction. What’s the point?
Some boast of taking something on or someone I know once posted a photo a day. You know, stuff like that can be a substitute for the real thing.
On the other hand, a thoroughgoing exploration of one’s heart may lead to the new things of God. I had a parishioner who gave up reading books. When she explained it to me she came with great self-awareness. She knew that reading had become all-consuming and it had cut her off from others. She certainly read books again following the Lenten fast but this time with a different perspective and with a different approach making more room for her neighbor.
When something like a discipline for Lent invariably becomes about you – what benefits my livelihood or appearance or passing a spiritual exam or serves as a kind of self-help, the needs of my neighbor may not even appear on the radar screen.
The giving up that Jesus requires is a giving up of that which we think is fulfilling but really is not and obstructs our vision of the Kingdom of God.
The rich man lacked one thing. Jesus bid him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor.
The rich man did not like one Jesus said and walked away sulking and distraught. And what go in the way for him gets in the way for us.
Wealth and possessions and stuff can become an idol, a way of clinging tightly to what we believe will save our lives.
The lie of consumerism is that the more we get and the more we purchase and the more we have will make life more meaningful, but listen closely to Jesus. Beyond his word to the rich man in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool who had gleaned so much from his harvest that he had to keep building bigger barns to store what he had. Sharing or giving to the neighbor didn’t occur to him. Then there’s the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Poor Lazarus lays at the gate of Dives who feasts scrumptiously and has the best of everything and doesn’t even see the poor man.
By believing “more is more” our lives get caught up in building more and bigger barns or not even noticing the neighbor who is poor, the neighbor in need, the neighbor who is hungry.
The other day I heard a mother on the phone with her daughter. Her daughter is in college and gets tutoring from her Mom around writing. More than once, I heard her say, “less is more.” In other words, you can say what you need to say in your essay with less words. Less is more.
I thought, that’s not a bad way to describe following Jesus, especially in a culture of privilege and wealthy where the creed has become “more is more.”
When Jesus confronted the rich man honestly, Mark tells us that he loved him. Jesus loved him. Jesus wasn’t interested in belittling him or punching him, but out of love spoke the honest to God truth to him. He knew that by giving up his idol of wealth and giving to the poor was the very thing that would bring him to purposeful life, neighborly love, and treasures in heaven.
It’s as though he was whispering in the rich man’s ear: “Less is more” and the more he promises is a rich life in the Kingdom of God.
Today you will find a pledge card in your bulletin. You are invited to fill one out and you have several weeks to pray about your pledge for next year. You may want to fill it out today, but I want to suggest refraining from that and taking it home to parry about it, ponder it, think about it.
Yes, you, with your money offerings keep this building going, the staff paid, and contribute to the outreach of FLCWS. That’s important to think about AND there’s something else to ponder and pray bout and that is to explore your offering and pledge as a critical piece of your relationship with God. Maybe you want to ask what gets in the way or where are you spending money and resources needlessly. Perhaps you’ll want to focus on the offertory prayer that is said most every Sunday:
Merciful Father, we offer in joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us, ourselves, our time, our possessions, signs of your gracious love. Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I like this prayer and how deeply counter-cultural it is: ourselves, our time, and our possessions are usually framed through my needs or my desires or my comfort.
But to see them first as signs of God’s gracious love is all together different. It means we are stewards of that which belongs to God.
What we like to hold tight – possessions, money, time, our very selves – May, in fact, become offerings of gratitude to God. In letting go or a giving up of what we deem be ours.
And we offer them with joy and thanksgiving.
We do not offer grudgingly or in order to fulfill a rule. We offer joyfully and in gratitude for all that God has done for us, especially the love and mercy and forgiveness that has been poured out upon us and continues to be poured out upon us in and through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
And our offering here spills out into everyday life practices of generosity, sensitivity to neighbor in need and a joyful response to God’s amazing love.
What good news! Giving away money and possessions and our very hearts is no onerous burden but an act of joy.
The good news is emphasized at the end of the prayer when we say, “receive them for the sake of him who gave himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
You see, Jesus gave it up. Jesus gave up all, everything so that we may know life. We do not give in order to be saved. No, that’s already been taken care of. Our offering is a response of gratitude to this amazing grace.
We will ever get this right? Will we finally be released from the shackles of greed? Will we live in complete generosity? Will we ever completely give up that which gets in the way of our relationship with God and neighbor?
No, not completely. In fact, it’s impossible, but not for God. Not for God. For God all things are possible. Amen.