Possessions

Somniodelic Workshop

Propers: The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 28), AD 2024 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I miss monks. While living in Boston, I used to frequent an Anglican monastery on the Charles River right across from Harvard: the Society of St John the Evangelist. These were a friendly lot, who cooked hearty meals and held the most amazing Christmas liturgies. They would festoon the sanctuary with garlands made from oranges spiked with cloves. That sacred scent in the midst of the New England winter proved nothing short of sublime.

They were highly educated. Their pews held worship books in seven different languages. One of the monks had wanted to learn Japanese, and so the whole community learned it together. To be in the midst of the world, apart from the world, dedicated to learning and prayer and service in brotherly love—it was all so attractive and so easy to romanticize. I’m not sure whether I’d have made a good monk. Probably not. But sometimes I wonder.

There aren’t many monks in northwest Minnesota, but we do have quite the influx of the Amish. We might not immediately associate Mennonites with monastics, but the impetus for both communities remains the same: the rejection of worldly riches, of worldly attachments, in order to seek a simpler and more spiritual life. I also find the Amish rather easy to romanticize; that is until I see some poor girl driving a horse-drawn buggy down the highway in a blizzard. Then I’m thankful for my minivan.

Wealth and Christianity have a long and sordid history. Jesus had no wealth, and no place to lay His head. He was, in effect, a beggar, living in the homes of His friends—such as that of Peter’s mother in Capernaum, or Mary in Bethany—supported in His ministry by well-heeled women. After Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension, His brother James took over leadership of the community in Jerusalem. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that the Christians of that city sold their property, pooled their resources, and lived in a sort of proto-monastic commune, holding all things in common, giving to any as they might have need.

Elsewhere St Paul set up a system whereby Christians did not sell all of their holdings, but would bring any excess they possessed to Sunday worship, where it would be offered up to cover the needs of the clergy and the poor. This is the source of our weekly Offering. Paul himself accepted no salary because he didn’t need it. He liked to call himself a tentmaker, but let’s be clear: St Paul had money. His family probably provided tents to the Roman Legions as military contractors. He was well-educated, well-travelled, and had access to the halls of power. And a good thing too.

Because that commune in Jerusalem? They soon ran out of money. And so Paul collected offerings from the churches that he had founded in order to support the mother church of James. And that’s the thing with monasticism: it relies on the kindness of strangers. They can try to be self-sufficient, to carry their own weight. But even the Amish wouldn’t be around for very long without the rest of society supporting them. We can’t all reject the world. We can’t all abandon profit. Someone has to pay the bills. It’s the tragedy of the commons.

I think we need more monks. And I’m glad that the Amish are growing. They have a way of reminding us of the higher things in life, unveiling as unnecessary all that we don’t need. American Lutherans have a monastery in Michigan and a friary down in Texas, both looking for people who’d be drawn to religious life. But we can’t all be monks, nuns, and friars—any more than we could all be pastors or postal workers or pastry chefs or paralegals. We each serve Christ in our winding, wondering way. God help us.

In our Gospel reading this morning, a man runs up to Jesus seeking eternal life. “What must I do?” he asks. Jesus tells him to keep the Commandments, just as Moses taught him. “Oh, but I have,” he replies. And Jesus, looking at him, loves him and says: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow Me.” And the man goes away grieving because he has many possessions. Brother, don’t we all?

Right about now, some of you are hoping that you’ve paid me enough that I can explain to you how Jesus doesn’t mean the very thing that He just said. Let’s see how we do.

First a word of sympathy, for this man whom Jesus loves. By all that we can glean, he proves a decent fellow. He honors his mother and father, stays true to his relationships, refuses to harm another, as laid out in the Ten Commandments. And he earnestly and honestly seeks out eternal life. Now, for pious Jews of Jesus’ day there is hope for the world to come, for the resurrection of the righteous. But eternal life ought never to be relegated to the other side of the grave.

Eternal means timeless, a Kingdom to weather all ages. And that life starts now, by participating in the Spirit of God, the Word of God, the life of God, active in our world. “How do I do that?” he wants to know. And Jesus says, “You’re so close! I want you by My side. Go and sell your possessions, then come and follow Me.” It’s the same opportunity that He gave to His Apostles: drop your nets, and I shall make you fishers of men.

And we do not know what this man does. He goes away grieving, yes, but it isn’t clear whether he’s grieving because he cannot part with his possessions, or because he’s about to. He may have sold everything and come back. We simply do not know. There is a single hint of wrongdoing, just one: when Jesus says that thou shalt not defraud. That isn’t one of the Ten Commandments, yet He sticks it in there. And Mark’s is such a sparse Gospel that it’s hard for me to imagine such a detail being insignificant.

Are the man’s gains ill-gotten? Is that why he must give them up? Well, maybe. In Luke’s Gospel, Zacchaeus gives half of his wealth to the poor because he got it as a Roman stooge. Yet many of Christ’s Apostles were but fishermen, and, as Peter states, they all gave up their lives to follow Jesus. The Hebrew Bible has no beef with honest wealth. The New Testament, however, sees Mammon as a god: our riches as false idols to which we bend the knee.

Wealth does separate a person from God’s Spirit. That’s just how we work. Study after study indicates that the poor are always the most generous in our society. The more people gain, the more we fear to lose. Even billionaires who trumpet their supposed acts of charity are hardly giving pocket-change away. And what do the people with the most always want? The people with the most want more, every single time.

That’s what we call Mammon. That’s why Jesus says that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom. And make no mistake: this is not some metaphor for a narrow gate through which we must squeeze. No, Jesus means that it’s literally easier for a full-sized camel to pass through an itty-bitty needle than for people who have riches to know God. The Talmud uses the same image for impossibility, only with an elephant instead of a camel.

And Peter gets it. Peter, once again the voice of us all, cries out, “Who then can be saved?” Because that’s what we want to know, right? We want eternal life too. We want to know God in Jesus Christ. And we’re really hoping that we don’t have to go bankrupt in order to do it. Thankfully, Jesus here is at His most Lutheran: “For mortals it is impossible”—impossible!—“but not for God. For God all things are possible.”

That’s pure Law and Gospel right there. You can’t earn the Kingdom, not by riches, and not by poverty. Yet God will give it to you in His grace. God gives to us His Kingdom, His own eternal life, here and now in Jesus Christ our Lord. Phew, right? That’s a relief. For a minute there I feared that it might actually cost me something.

There is no earning of the Kingdom. There is no earning of God’s grace. We all are sinners here, in need of Jesus’ mercy. And so I say to you: release the things you fear to lose. Whatever might obstruct the flow of Jesus’ love in life, let it go. Gifts are intended to be given, to be shared. The wealthy must care for the poor, the strong for the weak, the wise for the foolish. This is not the cost of admission. This is the Spirit of the Christ alive in you.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout
Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RDGStout/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqiJiPAwfNS-nVhYeXkfOA
X: https://twitter.com/RDGStout

St Peter’s Lutheran
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Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/
Donation: https://secure.myvanco.com/L-Z9EG/home

Nidaros Lutheran
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026