(Note:
This blog entry is based on the text for “Winning the Lottery”, originally
shared on October 4, 2021. It was the 154th video for our YouTube
Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Do people become rich because God is blessing them? If a person is poor, is it because God is cursing them? Are riches a sign that wealthy people are going to heaven, and is poverty a sign that poor people are not? What did Jesus say about this? Today, we’re going to find out.
Jesus talked about money and the use of
money more than anything else except the Reign of God. Why? I think that one
reason could be because how we get and use our money is a direct expression of
our basic values.
In the Gospel reading for next Sunday, we
see him setting the record straight in Mark 10 starting at the 17th
verse,
17 As he was
setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Jesus
said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
Jesus gets right to the point. The man asks what he has to do to
go to heaven. He says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
I wonder if he knew what he was saying. That is, who gets an inheritance?
A child, or whoever a person decides to give it to, at their death. Does he see
himself as a child of God? Did he already in some way know the answer? Then why
ask? Does he see Jesus as God? If not, why ask? Can he even contemplate the
possibility of the coming death of Jesus on the cross prior to Jesus’
resurrection?
Jesus’ answer is direct. He asks the man if he meant to refer to him as
God. He makes a reference to Psalm 14:2-3,
The Lord looks down from heaven on
humankind
to see if there
are any who are wise,
who seek after
God.
3 They have all
gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one
who does good,
no, not one.
Jesus observes that no one is good but God alone. Is the man saying that
Jesus is God?
Jesus goes on, starting with Mark 10, verse 19,
19 You
know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery;
You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud;
Honor your father and mother.’” 20 He said to him,
“Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”
Jesus starts with the man’s knowledge of keeping the Law, the religious
Law in what we call the Torah, or the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the
Bible and all the laws that grew from them.
The man responds affirmatively, and Jesus loves him for it, but is there
faith behind those works, or just keeping the letter of the Law? We continue
with verse 21,
21 Jesus,
looking at him, loved him and said, “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.” 22 When he heard this, he was
shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Yup, everybody wants to be Bonhoeffer. Until it’s time to be Bonhoeffer.
Everybody wants to be a disciple of Jesus. Until it’s time to be a disciple of
Jesus. Everybody wants to live by faith. Until it’s time to live by faith.
You might remember the bumper sticker that reflected the life philosophy
of many, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” The man in this text had many
toys and went away grieving.
Jesus continues, in verse 23,
23 Then Jesus
looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who
have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And
the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again,
“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 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.”
That’s a pretty good image, not that anyone was thinking about the
image. They were stunned by what Jesus had just said. Mark says, “They were
greatly astounded”.
People believed that those who were rich were being blessed by God
because they were righteous. People who were poor and/or sick were being cursed
by God; they were being punished for their sins.
So, if rich people aren’t going to heaven, who is?
Mark continues in verse 26 with the disciples in shock,
26 They
were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be
saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “For
mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
We can’t earn our way into salvation. It doesn’t depend upon our bank
account. It can only come as a gift from God because of the cross. It comes by
faith, a living relationship with the one true living God. It has nothing to do
with wealth. In fact, Jesus said, wealth may be a problem.
Have you ever heard it said, “Money can’t
buy you happiness.”?
I used to think, “Maybe not. But could I
just give it a try?” I mean, why give up so fast? 😊
The California Lottery is now up to over 650
million dollars. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you won the
lottery? What would happen? It could be devastating.
There would be a lot of good that you could
do. But it would come at a cost.
First, you’d probably have to move. There
would be people at your door all the time, many in great need. How would you know
which were truly in need and which were a scam? Could you say “no”? Plus, your
worth as a target would go up. Way up. The risk of home invasion and kidnapping
of you and/or your loved ones would dramatically increase. You’d need to live
in a secure and undisclosed location. Do you like where you live now? You’d
have to move into a secure neighborhood with lots of other paranoid rich
people.
Second, they say that where there’s a will,
there’s a long-lost family member. And, long lost BFF’s too. You’d probably
have to change your phone number and give the new one only to your closest and most
trusted friends, if you had any. Some of your friends would be asking you for a
“little bit” of your fortune. You wouldn’t miss it. And if you didn’t give it to
them, would they be your friends anymore? And what about those who didn’t ask
for anything. You’d wonder if they liked you or just wanted to be around your
money. If you only spent it on yourself, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with
you. And if you paid their expenses, they would soon resent it or they would
become hangers-on. But, even if they didn’t do any of these things, you’d
always wonder what they were thinking and if they were really still your
friends.
Third, you’d stop trusting everybody. You’d
start thinking that everyone was trying to steal your money. That they were
jealous of your good fortune. That they were trying to take it from you. You’d
have to hire security for your home and your family, and they would go with you
everywhere you went.
Fourth, maybe you’d hire responsible money
managers and maybe you’d sleep soundly at night. Maybe. But maybe not, and
would you always be wondering?
Fifth, would you give your money away? How
would you know that the charities weren’t spending your easy money carelessly?
You’d have philanthropy managers (Could you trust them?) and auditors (Because
you don’t.)
Sixth, maybe you’d live a disciplined and
generous life, but the record among those who have gone before you isn’t good.
Unearned money can be corrosive to decent human life.
Seventh, remember King Midas? The Midas
touch? Everything he touched turned to gold, literally. He was rich, but he
starved to death. There’s a warning in that story.
But do Jesus’ words mean that you can’t be
rich and be a Christian? No.
Does every Christian,
to be a Christian, have to sell everything they have and give it to the poor? Yes.
OK, let me explain that.
With regard to the first question, “Can you
be rich and still be a Christian?” Jesus tells this parable in Luke 12:5-21
5 And he said to
them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life
does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then
he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And
he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my
crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will
pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain
and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul,
you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be
merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This
very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have
prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with
those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
What is wealth before God? Nothing. It is
our lives that matter. And for that, God shows his love for us at the cross. Paul
writes in Romans 5:8,
8 But God proves
his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
Anything other than dependence upon God,
places an idol at the center of our lives.
In Paul’s letter to the young pastor Timothy
he didn’t say, “Money is the root of all evil.” What did he say, in 1 Timothy 6:10?
10 For the love of
money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
With regard to the second question, “Does
every Christian, to be a Christian, have to sell everything they have and give
it to the poor?”
Neither of those passages from Romans and 1Timothy
we just read gets us off the hook.
Giving 10% isn’t enough. The rich young man
in this week’s text from Mark 10 learned that. That’s the point of giving everything.
Giving 25%, or 50%, or 75% isn’t enough.
It’s not about meeting a standard. The
Christian life is about lives of gratitude in response to what God has already
done for us on the cross. We can’t possibly give enough money to pay for that. Jesus
says, in Mark 8:36-37,
36 For what will it
profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed,
what can they give in return for their life?
Most of us are rich by global standards, and
many of us are millionaires. I was sitting with a group of men from our church
at breakfast and one of them said, “Well pastor, I guess we can say we have a millionaire
as a member now. (A member of our church had publicly come into a lot of money.)
I replied, “We have a lot of millionaires in our congregation. If you add the
value of our homes, our life insurance, our cars, our savings and investments
and all our other possessions, a lot of us are millionaires.” We live in a
society of people with many possessions. Do we now think that we are
independent of God? (That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?) How are we to
manage them? As Christians. From the inside out. From faith.
Every dollar we have is a means for
ministry. Everything we buy in some way supports the work God has given us to
do. Everything we spend is an expression of who we are. This is life that is
real life.
Our lives are lived in response to what God
has already done for us, not to get more.
Jesus has already won the prize. He did it
for us.
The cross means that all who believe and are
baptized, have already won the Lottery, the big prize, because of the blood of
Jesus shed for you and for me on the cross. It hasn’t come to us by chance, but
by choice,
16 “For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may
not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)
There is no righteousness in wealth itself,
but there is a problem. The problem in wealth is that it tends to make us think
that we are independent of God. We who are wealthy are to be rich toward God.
There is no condemnation in poverty. In
fact, poverty makes us more likely to know that we are dependent upon God.
But
there is also no romanticization of poverty in the Christian life. We who have
means for ministry are called to use them in service toward those who can be
helped by them, to relieve and seek to end poverty. To build the abundant life
of body, mind, and spirit for all people in accord with God’s will for all
people through the means we have been given.
Martin Luther, the 16th century
Church reformer, once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have
lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”
No comments:
Post a Comment