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What would you do if you met Jesus? It is the ultimate stewardship question. When people in the Bible met Jesus, they didn't all respond the same way. Take, for example, the woman with the bad back. She had been crippled for eighteen years, Luke tells us. "She was bent over, and could not straighten up at all." When she met Jesus, Jesus said to her, "Woman, you are free from your infirmity." Then Jesus put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. But when the rich young man in today's Gospel reading met Jesus, "his countenance fell," says Mark. Literally, in the Greek text, he "gloomified." His posture and outer appearance of gloom reflected an inner reality of sadness upon meeting Jesus, just as the posture and outer appearance of the woman with the bad back reflected her inner reality of joy when she straightened up and praised God. Why the difference in the reactions of these two people who met Jesus? Well, the reason for the woman's joy seems obvious. She had received a gift, the gift of health, and she responded with gratitude and praise for the gift, which was something she received which she could not do for herself. But what about the rich young man? He was, apparently, a pious, devout, God-fearing man, a good man. And he must have heard about Jesus before he met him. Perhaps he had even heard about the woman with the bad back and some of the other people Jesus had healed, because he clearly believed that Jesus possessed something important and valuable, perhaps even the key to salvation, because he ran straight up to Jesus and asked him about it. "Good teacher," he said, "what must I do to win eternal life?" And Jesus reminds him that no one is good, except God alone, but that in any case the man himself knows what is needed: keep the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And the young man is astonished. "But teacher," he says, "I've done all that. I've kept the commandments ever since I was a little boy. If that's all there is to it, then why do I sense the need for something more? I am a good man, and I've got much wealth. Why do I feel that I'm missing something somehow?" He was, apparently, a sincere young man, not one, like the pharisees, who were always trying to test Jesus. And Jesus looked at him, and loved him, says Mark. And I wonder if this moment, this moment while Jesus is deciding what good news he can offer the rich young man, I'm wondering if this moment isn't perhaps the source of D. T. Niles' well-known definition of evangelism, which is that "evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food." Because Jesus tells the rich young man, "You lack only one thing. Go, sell everything you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And then come follow me." But at this, says Mark, the young man's countenance fell. He "gloomified." His outer appearance and posture reflected a deep inner sadness upon this meeting with Jesus, a sadness he took with him as he turned and walked away. He was, you see, a man of great wealth, and Jesus had just told him the truth about it - that as far as blessing was concerned, as far as eternal life was concerned, his wealth could do nothing for him, if fact, it was blocking his way to eternal life, so if blessing and life are what the young man really wants, he should give it all up and try something else, something like following Jesus to the place where real food can be found. Will Campbell notes that this is a hard reading for biblical literalists, a Bible text that he always likes to hold before those who insist that the Bible must be taken literally, because he wants to see if they practice what they preach. The story of the rich young man reflects what is so wonderful and exasperating, even irritating, about Jesus. He is forever making us look at the facts, forever making us look at the truth, at reality, forever making us look honestly at who we really are and at what we really want, and then leaving us free to do something about it, or not. "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," Jesus goes on to say, "than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," which is an absurd hyperbole Jesus employs to say that it's impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom. Jesus is, in effect, asking the rich young man, "What kind of life do you want? If eternal life is what you really want, all this wealth you have has nothing to do with it and cannot lead you to it, anymore than keeping all the laws can. But if you follow me, I will show you where real food for eternal life can be found." One of the speakers at our diocesan convention last week shared with us this same good news. He is Nathan Dungan, who runs an organization called "Share, Save, Spend." Dungan is committed to teaching young people the principles of financial health. One of the facts of life in our country today is that Americans no longer save enough. Our late-twentieth-century culture taught us to spend, spend, spend. It taught, and still teaches, that you are a cipher, a "nobody," if you don't wear $300-dollar-a pair designer jeans. Walmart jeans won't do. And, of course, along with the designer jeans, anybody who is anybody has to have a sports car and a Hummer for the weekends and all the latest tech gadgets and the biggest possible house with the biggest possible mortgage and, believe it or not, credit cards for the children. And every economist I read says that unless we begin to save more as a nation, we Americans are headed ultimately, and perhaps fairly quickly, toward financial catastrophe. So Dungan is determined to teach young people not to spend all the money they can get their hands on, but to save prudently. And, of course, because he is bucking the culture big time, he first has to teach us, their parents and grandparents, because in recent decades we have learned little about money except how to spend it, so that there is little left over for saving. But that's not all Dungan is committed to teaching. As a Christian, saving, for Dungan, is not the first principle of financial health. As a Christian he is committed to teaching not only the principles of financial health, but also the principles of spiritual health with regard to money, because, like Jesus, he understands that money, and the way we use our money, reflect the spiritual truth about us as well as the financial truth. So his organization is called "Share, Save, Spend," not "Spend, Then Save and Share a Little if You Can." Sharing is the first principle of financial health for Dungan, the first thing a healthy person does with his money, because sharing is the first principle of spiritual health as well. So his program for teaching children the habits of health with regard to money is this: He tells parents to provide their children with three banks, one labeled "For Sharing," one labeled "For Saving," and one labeled "For Spending." And when parents give their children their allowance, he recommends that they insist that their children decide, with their guidance, what they are going to do with this gift. Because that's what an allowance is, a gift. The children have not earned it; it has been given to them by their parents. And since the first principle of receiving a gift is the virtue of gratitude, the first portion of the gift is deposited in the bank labeled "For Sharing." And since the second principle of health with regard to money is prudence, not spending, the second portion of the gift is to be deposited in the bank labeled, "For Saving." The remainder is available for spending. This is why Dungan's organization is called "Share, Save, Spend," not "Spend, Save, Share," or "Spend, Share, Save." Getting the priorities straight is the first principle of spiritual health, just as it is of financial health. But when Jesus offers these same priorities to the rich young man, the rich young man "gloomifies," and the disciples are as gloomy as he is. The rich young man gloomifies, because Jesus tells him that he's carrying baggage that he can't possibly get through the narrow door of heaven. And the disciples ask in sympathetic astonishment, "Who, then, Jesus, can be saved?" because they too haven't yet figured out that everyone who enters heaven enters as a supplicant. When Jesus says that he must get rid of the baggage of his wealth if what he really wants is eternal life, the rich young man is gloomy, because what Jesus is telling him is that his baggage, his wealth, is actually blocking his way to eternal life by blinding him to the truth about life - which is that all life, this life and life eternal, is gift, and that the only appropriate response to a gift is gratitude, which, when put into Dungan's contemporary stewardship language, is that the first principle of eternal life is sharing. The rich young man, and you and I, have done nothing, and can do nothing, to claim a right to life, to this life or to the life to come. Our births as well as our deaths make that clear. Our births make it clear since we did nothing to bring our births about, and our deaths make it clear since there is nothing we can do to avoid them. All life, including a life of wealth, is gift. That's why the woman with the bad back praised God; she knew that what she received was gift, and she was grateful for the gift, which is spiritual health. The rich young man was gloomy because he did not realize it, because he thought the load he was carrying was his life, which is spiritual disease, a disease that can kill. Philip Yancey was another speaker at last week's convention, and he told an insightful story that relates to the rich young man and Jesus. It's a story from the Orange Revolution in Ukraine just two years ago. Orange was the color of the party of Victor Yushchenko, the presidential candidate who was opposed to those in power and who were in charge of the elections. In the weeks leading to the election, you'll remember, Yushchenko was poisoned (presumably by the opposition), horribly disfigured, and almost died. And on the night of the elections, the state-run television station was announcing the results. "The party in power has retained the presidency today," the station announcer read from the officially scripted text, "and there have been no irregularities in the election." But down in the corner of the TV screen there was a little inset, a small picture where a woman named Natalia Dmytruk was signing the newscast for the deaf. Dmytruk was a member of the Orange opposition, and here is what she said in the language of the deaf: "[The election committee says that the election was not rigged, but they are lying through their teeth.] I am addressing everyone who is deaf in Ukraine. Do not trust the results of the central election committee. They are all lies.... And I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you. [Bring your friends with you to Independence Square for a rally at ten-o'clock tomorrow night.]" And they did. All the deaf got on their cell phones, and they text-messaged all their friends, both hearing and deaf, with the good news, and as a result of their good news a rerun of the election was scheduled, and Yushchenko was declared the winner. Yancey's point is that Jesus, the one with good news for the deaf and the blind of the world, is the signer in the little square in the lower corner of the big screen of the culture. "Do not believe the reports on the big screen of the world," he says. "What they tell you about money and designer jeans and what they mean for your life is a lie. Money, and what it can do for you, is different from what they say." Later I thought of Yancey's story, and of the rich young man and his gloom in Mark's Gospel today, when Dungan told a story about a rich young man full of spiritual health. Dungan told about a little boy whose parents had been teaching him how to handle his money with Dungan's three banks. The boy had been faithfully placing his nickels and quarters in his banks labeled "For Sharing," "For Saving," and "For Spending," waiting for a time to use the money in each appropriately. While the boy was waiting, some misfortune befell one of his classmates - I forget the details; it may have been that a classmate had been diagnosed with a serious disease, and that the medical costs were more than the family could bear; or maybe his classmate's home had burned down, and his friend's family was without a place to live, something like that - and the school had started a fund to raise money to help the family. And the next week when our young man's parents gave him his allowance, they noticed that all three banks were empty. They asked their son what had happened to his money, and he told them that he had given it all to the fund for his classmate's family. And when they asked him why he had given away his money for saving and his money for spending as well as his money for sharing, he said, "Well, because when I thought about how much I have, I decided to share it all." That is a story of spiritual health, a story of gratitude, a story of the kingdom of God. It is the story of the crippled woman in Luke's Gospel. She realized that all she had, including her restored health, was gift, pure and simple, and she stood up straight and thanked God for it, because the only appropriate response to a gift is gratitude. The rich man, on the other hand, was burdened with an illusion, with a lie, with the illusion that his life and his wealth were not gifts, but entitlements, rights. Wealth, he thought, was something that belonged to him that he could use to leverage future blessing, future entitlement. He saw it as the source of his security, the trump card he could play to gain the future, to gain even eternal life. But Jesus said to him, "Do not believe what the big screen of the world tells you about money. The big screen lies. Money cannot save. There is one thing you lack: let go of your illusion. Give up your notion of life as a matter of leverage and entitlement and right. Sell everything you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Let go of whatever it is that is more dear to you than God himself and his promise of life. Whatever it is - whether son or daughter, trust funds or endowments, obedience to the law, good works, power or pride of achievement, even pride in your righteousness, whatever - let go of it as a guarantee of any lasting blessing or meaning in life, and hang tight to the promise and grace of God." And at this the rich man "gloomified," and he went away sad, because he had placed great hope in what his wealth could do for him. And the gloomy disciples asked, "Who then can be saved? If we can't leverage our way into heaven by the use of our money and power and influence, or by the laws we obey, or by the good deeds we do, who then can be saved?" "Well," says Jesus, "it's impossible. With man salvation is impossible, but not with God. With God all things are possible, even salvation, even eternal life, because all life, this life as well as the life to come, is gift." In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells those he meets along the way, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." But you know, the word that is translated "truth" here - aletheia - could just as accurately be translated "reality." "You will know reality, and reality will set you free." This is what is so wonderful and exasperating, even irritating, about Jesus when we meet him. He tells it like it is. He shows us reality. He asks us to look honestly at ourselves. He shows us who we really are - gift-receivers, people like the rich young man and the woman with the crippled back who haven't a leg to stand on other than the promise of God, all of us beggars seeking food and a kingdom that can only be given to us, never earned. And then he asks us if we can live with that. Death, of course, trumps all our human tricks. And that's the truth. That's reality. In time, reality strips us of all our illusions, all our wealth, even all our future. And that's the truth. But there is food. "There is good news," says Jesus - "and that is that faith, hope, and love - and gratitude - trump death." What Jesus offered the rich young man was an opportunity. He offered the opportunity to accept life as it is, as gift, not as entitlement or right. He offered him the opportunity of faith and hope, faith and hope based solely on the promise of God. Jesus knew before Joseph Campbell that "we must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." And Jesus offered this opportunity to the rich man because the opportunity of faith and hope, along with love, are the enduring truth - enduring reality, not illusion - the only enduring reality of this mysterious gift we experience as life. Faith, hope, and love are the reality that can free us to accept life on God's terms, life as gift. Life is grace. From birth to death to life eternal, life is the gift of God, not anything we can earn or have a right to. And the only appropriate response to a gift is gratitude. And that's why I close with the ultimate stewardship question I asked at the beginning: What would you do if you met Jesus? What posture would you assume? And I? What would our countenance be in this parish church, what would our response be, if this morning we were to hear the good news of the Jesus of Mark's Gospel? In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |