Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Mark 10:17-31

We’ve had some challenging readings from Mark’s gospel lately. Jesus and the disciples have been walking toward Jerusalem. They all have different ideas about why they’re finally headed to the capital. In a series of different kinds of encounters, with his friends, with people who meet them, or who have illnesses, Jesus is like that teacher or parent, who is going to make each moment a learning opportunity. He’s getting everyone to think about what dying and rising looks like in all these different contexts. It raises (so to speak) the issue of greatest to least, a common way of lining everyone up.

Last week Jesus used one of the kids to point at who should be center of community life. Before that it was the brokenness of family and life and marriage; before that it was a dispute about which of his followers is the greatest. This week: money, wealth, power.  So friends, if you don’t like to hear about money in church, if you have issues with money, either blessed by a lot of it or just struggle with it, this is for you. It’s also the day we starting talking about our own giving to this enterprise. Our pledge drive theme is, “Fill the world with love divine.” Tomorrow or the next day, you might get a pledge card in the mail. If you don’t get one in the mail, in the next six weeks, we’re going to make sure you have the opportunity.

You would almost think that today’s reading makes it all crystal clear. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Sell all you have and give it to the poor. So for this year’s pledge card, we’ve simply asked you to figure out your net worth—count up the value of everything you have—and then just write that number on your card and bring it back. And, then, of course, Gloria Dei will take all that and pass it on to those who are without wealth. And, while we’re all figuring out how to put a value on the junk at the back of the closet, Gloria Dei will start doing the same thing. What do you think we can get for that new organ if put it on Facebook market place? According to the new Jesus rule, we can’t keep any of that money to do the ministry here.

The Stewardship, the finance team, and the council–and probably our new administrator who is supposed to start on Wednesday–just went pale. This includes me, who at 61 years of age can no longer pretend I’m just trying to break even, pay the bills, or compare myself to Episcopalians, who have a lot more money than Lutherans, and imagine that I’m sort of poor. And, truthfully, even those of us who have the least amount of dollars, when we stand in line with most of the people on the earth, we are so far ahead in the line, we can’t even see the end of the line.

If this is the new rule for inheriting eternal life; if it’s not being a good, nice person or getting passing grades on the ten commandments, we may be nervous about the line at the heavenly gate. Let’s just be honest: if this is the new rule for getting in–the price to pay–the admission fee, I need to tell you that it will be impossible for any one of us to get in the door. We are stuck in a global economic structure that works for those at the top. The rich man is right. For Americans, this is going to be like stuffing an animal that has humps through the eye of a needle.

I noticed something this time when I was studying the text. The Greek word for eternal comes into English through a word like eon, a period of time that stretches on but that has already started. It’s also used to describe the qualities that you can count on lasting longer anything else. It’s a quality of time, an experience of real life. The rich man’s question is really not, “How do I get in?,” but “How can experience it in a real way in my real life?” When Jesus gives him the list of commandments, he’s saying that law is designed to help us grab it now and stand on it. But this man’s issue is wealth. For him, taking his wallet out of his pocket before meeting John the Baptist on bank of the Jordan River, letting his financial life be washed by the quality of God’s time, is where the question could really have some impact.

Jesus looked on him and loved him. Did you miss this? He takes the man so seriously.

But the man walks away because he hears it like we do. A new rule that is absolutely impossible. No one gets it. The disciples are disturbed, frankly because they’re in it to get to the top, or it’s the only way they think they can have a good life, or an eternal one. But what if Jesus means exactly what he says AND he knows that with God all things are possible, a Jesus who never cuts folks off, who invites them to be in communion with him, in a relationship that makes some things hard but for the sake of standing more firmly, of living with peace and depth. The work of dying and rising, giving up and giving away, letting go of what we thought we had to have, is the beautiful and worthwhile work of being marked with the cross of Christ? What if you don’t have to start by accomplishing the final goal, but by agreeing to be in, taking it seriously, practicing it? How do you start dealing with wealth, not to get in, but to experience more divine love? To have a life that frankly is a better one than the one power, wealth, and all that privilege does. In the language of Brother Boy in the movie, “Sordid Lives,” while looking at what the world expects, he finally gives it up and steps into a life of freedom, saying, “Well, this ain’t a workin!”

Our solution friends is simple and so hard: start giving it away for the sake of the world. And the only way we’re going to do that is by being a community of Jesus’ friends, who have been captured by the eon that will last. We just jump in. We just start acting generous until we become it. This is going to mean something different to all of us.

We didn’t know the gospel text when we planned the launch of our stewardship campaign. Maybe this annual surfacing of money in church is the place where we get a chance to intentionally think about how following Jesus is connected to our spending, giving, earning, borrowing, saving, striving, and the heart’s desire to be part of something bigger than we have been. It’s not about meeting a budget, or paying bills or salaries or whatever we think of during pledge season. It’s certainly NOT about making anyone ashamed. It’s about trying to stand on the values of God’s eon that will last and hold us in a way that the world around us is not right now.

In fact, this where our stewardship team began last spring when thinking of themes. They knew that we would be in a season of high anxiety, an election around the corner, fear on both sides of the political spectrum, angry words at family gatherings, a war in Gaza that is so heartbreaking it can hardly be held in our hearts too long, people streaming across borders all over the world looking for something better, two hurricanes into an eon of climate change. What, Jesus, do we do? How do we find a place to stand that’s not so anxious and unstable?

We are already standing on the impossible. We’re in. Now we just start acting like we are. We engage. We hold on to each other. We challenge each other to stand on different ethics than self, accumulation, consuming. We dare to say, “I not only have enough, I have enough to share.” What would it look like if generosity was the lens for looking at our resources. Maybe it is the pledge card that we need. Maybe it is a church that says, “Okay, if we are going to put our money in, we’re going to figure out how to use it to fill the world with love divine.” Our budget serves the least. We’re going to turn dollars into expressions of love, for children, for those who are stumbling in spirit or losing physical ability, or without a place to sleep at night, for people who want a community that will both love them and keep them accountable to the things that last, for hearts that need beauty if we’re to survive the ugly, for neighbors that need a place to gather to strategize overturning the tables of racism, wealth, and power, for native peoples whose land we stole, for our own hearts that need to be loved desperately.

Ann Lamont’s book, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” is named by a story that comes from a time when Lamont’s brother was overwhelmed by a report on birds. He put it off and put it off. On the night before it was due, he didn’t know what to do. His father put his arm around him and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Bird by bird.”

How are we going to lean into that which lasts. Bird by bird. Dove by Dove. Bread by Bread. Sunday by Sunday.