“You can’t buy
your way into heaven.”
There are
many obstacles to following Jesus. In the gospels, people turned away because
of anger, fear, grief, pride and jealousy. Today’s Gospel tells the poignant
story of a man who turned away because “he had great possessions.” In all other
respects he was ready to be a disciple. He was a God-fearing man, an observant
Jew who knew and followed the commandments. He knew that Jesus was a prophet
and came to him for spiritual advice. Basically, he wanted to know how to get
into heaven. The Gospel tells us that when Jesus looked at this man, he loved
him. He knew him to be sincere. But he had one problem and Jesus figured it
out right away--his wealth.
What Jesus
said next shocked the man and it shocked the disciples as well. He told the man
to give away all his possessions to the poor and then he would be ready for the
kingdom. Back then, people believed that wealth was a sign of God’s favor. If
you were rich, you were more certain of going to heaven. This same attitude has
existed in Christianity as well and it is certainly a part of our secular
culture. People are obsessed with listening to and reading about the rich and
famous. Would people listen to Warren Buffett, the “oracle of Omaha,” if he
were not worth billions? Despite all evidence to the contrary, we somehow think
that wealth equals wisdom. Jesus, as he usually does, flips the conventional
wisdom on its head. It’s your wealth that is your only problem, he tells the
man. You’ll be much better off without it. It is not surprising at all when he
turns and walks away.
This week our
stewardship letters went out. I am delighted to announce that for all of you
who want to give all of your earthly possessions away, St. Luke’s will be happy
to receive them. Cars, boats, houses, IRA’s – we’ll take them all. Simply sign
them over to St. Luke’s Church or to me personally and we’ll send you one “Go to
heaven free” card.
You may
laugh, but dealing with money and possessions is one of the trickiest questions
we face in our Christian discipleship. We have these dramatic statements of
Jesus, but then we face the real struggles to pay the bills, take care of our
families and plan for the future. If we look into our hearts we must admit that
most of our decisions about money are not governed by faith, but by fear—fear
that there won’t be enough. And so money becomes for us a source of shame and
guilt. Whatever we do seems to be inadequate. It would be so much simpler if
God told us exactly what was required to buy our way into heaven. If we knew
that, we would pay it.
That’s what
the man in the gospel was really asking. How much does it cost to get into
heaven? But it doesn’t work that way. You can’t buy your way into heaven. No
amount is sufficient. Even asking the question proves that we are way off
base. We, like the man in the Gospel, need an attitude adjustment. Jesus tries
to help the disciples see it. “Who then can be saved?,” they ask. With mortals
it is impossible, says Jesus, but with God all things are possible.
The point is
that we don’t have anything to offer God. All that we have, all that we are, is
God’s in the first place. We can’t bribe God with it because he already owns
it. What God wants is for us to offer it back to him freely, gratefully. That
is called worship. “All things come of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we
given Thee.”
And here is
the wonderful mystery of the kingdom: What we give to God, he takes, blesses,
transforms and gives back abundantly to us and to the world. This pattern is
repeated endlessly in God’s plan of salvation.
A boy offers
to Jesus 5 loves and 2 fish. Jesus takes the gift, blesses it, transforms it
and gives it back in a meal that feeds 5,000 men with their families and there
is such abundance that the leftovers are more than he started with.
In the
Eucharist, at the offertory we present to God some little disks of bread and a
chalice of wine. God takes that gift, blesses it, transforms it and gives it
back to us as the Body and Blood of his Son. That bread and wine wouldn’t even
satisfy our hunger for a day, but it becomes the Bread of Life that feeds us for
ever.
Today Andrew
and Hope present Tyler for Baptism. God gave Tyler to them and now they are
giving him back to God in a very special way. Through this service of Baptism,
God will take this child, bless him, transform him into a member of the Body of
Christ and give him back to bless Andrew and Hope and the world abundantly.
Or how about
another example? Our Thrift Shop collects clothing that people have no use
for. The volunteers clean it, press it, and sell it for almost nothing to
people who are thrilled to get it. Every penny they make goes back to the
community in the form of gifts to the agencies that help the poorest and most
vulnerable people. In other words, God takes the gift of useless clothing,
blesses it, transforms it and gives it back to us as money and as life-changing
ministry.
The exact same principle works with money. The Biblical standard of giving is
the tithe, 10%. Most of us do not tithe, however, because we are like the man
in the Gospel story. We are too unwilling, too selfish, too afraid, to trust
that God will actually make good on his promise of abundance. Our problem is
not a lack of money; our problem is a lack of faith.
As you think
and pray about your pledge this year, I invite you to remember the ways that God
has blessed your life with so much abundance. Know that whatever you pledge,
whatever you give, God will take that gift, bless it, transform it and return it
abundantly for you and for the world. But here’s the thing. The less you turn
over of yourself to God, the less he has to work with, the less of you he can
transform and bless.
But in then end we need to
remember that our salvation does not depend upon our own efforts, but instead
upon the sacrificial gift of Jesus, a high priest who is able to sympathize with
our weakness because he himself became like one of us in every way.
