Mark 10:17-21
Here we are in the second week of our Trails Through Tellico stewardship campaign. In hearing today’s Gospel reading, you might think, “Oh no! He’s going to talk about money again! He talked about it last week – talking about it this week – he’ll probably talk about it next week, too! I just wish he’d stop talking about money and start talking about Jesus!”
Can I get an “Amen!” to that?
Well, I want to assure you that I’m not going to talk about money today.
No, I’m going to talk about Jesus…talking…. about money.
After all, Jesus had more to say on the subject of money than anything else! Did you know that? Some brilliant Bible scholar has calculated that about 25% of Jesus’ teachings have to do with wealth and money issues, far outweighing anything Jesus said about prayer, worship, morality or any other ostensibly religious topic.
Jesus was unafraid to talk about the important relationship between our faith and our wealth. But it wasn’t REALLY about money, per se. It was about something much more important. And we get a glimpse at that “something more important” in the story about the young man who one day came to Jesus, hoping to find eternal life.
It could just as well have been
me in this story – or you – or anyone here at the
And that’s not a bad thing to want!
Back in the Spring
when we were cleaning out my mother’s apartment after her death, I found myself
thinking, “How short life really is! Just yesterday, it seems, my mother was
the pretty young girl growing up in the house on
“Not that long ago,” I thought, “she was dashing from the mailbox to the privacy of her bedroom, anxiously tearing open the love letter written by a young Sergeant fighting somewhere in the South Pacific. After reading the letter a hundred times, she would put it in the stack with all the others and re-tie the red ribbon that held those love letters together. Not that long ago, he came home from the war, and they were married in a small ceremony in the backyard of the house on Beacon St., and that was the beginning of the Singley family, and the eventual birth of three children, including me.”
“It seems like just yesterday
that we kids were growing up in our house on Calumet Avenue in Worcester,
Mass., and our dad was playing ball in the street with us, and Danny LaMarche, and Dennis Astrella.
Seems like just a few hours ago that my dad fell victim to a sudden heart
attack, dying at age 50 and leaving my mother a widow at just 48 years of age.
And when she died last Spring at the age of 80, my
mother had been a widow longer than she had been married.”
“It’s just not fair,” I thought to myself as we looked at photographs and cleaned up the small apartment space into which her whole life had become compressed. “Life is just too short.”
I don’t think I realized how brief and fragile life is when I was a kid. But it hits me hard now, especially when I think about the fact that I am now almost 8-years older than my dad lived to be. Life is just too short. I want more of it – for my mother and my father, for our fellow church members to whom we have said goodbye, and for you and your loved ones too. I want more of life! Don’t you?
The young man wanted to know how he could inherit eternal life.
Just like us.
And just like us, the young man saw some hope of life eternal in Jesus and his teachings, and so he came to him just like we have come to Jesus. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“You know the commandments,” Jesus said. “Don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, don’t defraud, honor your father and mother.”
The young man smiled. “All these I have kept since the time I was a boy.”
“Great!” Jesus said. “But…there is one thing you lack.”
What do you suppose it is? What do you think is the one thing people often lack, that stands in the way of our inheriting eternal life? What do you think YOU lack?
Well, here’s Jesus’ answer to the young man: “Go and sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come, follow me.”
Well, the young man was not ready to do that. Are you? Am I? Mark tells us he was very wealthy, although I suspect his wealth wasn’t anything in comparison to our wealth today. He went away that day because he thought Jesus was meddling with his money.
But it wasn’t really about money at all!
A while ago, I was at a meeting where a fellow who has been very successful raising money for church-related organizations was teaching us some of the principles behind his success. One of the interesting comments he made was about why charitable foundations are very reluctant to approve grant requests submitted by religious organizations.
“Churches usually want money,”
he said, “to support programs, or build buildings, or to have conferences
and meetings. But charitable organizations are not interested in any of that.
They are only interested in OUTCOMES…and a meeting is NOT an OUTCOME!”
Neither are beliefs. Beliefs are not OUTCOMES! Neither are doctrines. Doctrines are not OUTCOMES! Neither are the commandments. The commandments are not OUTCOMES!
So you’ve never killed anybody…never committed adultery…never stolen…never falsely testified in a court of law…never defrauded anyone in business…never dishonored your mother and father…
…you’ve NOT DONE any of those things…
…but what, because you are a Christian, HAVE YOU DONE!
How is the world a better place because of YOU? How many fewer children go to bed hungry at night because of YOU? How many poor families are better off today because of YOU? How many disenfranchised people have been re-enfranchised because of YOU? How many oppressed people have been set free from the shackles of injustice because of YOU??
What are the OUTCOMES of your faith?
For the young man, and for many of us, there are no outcomes. There’s just a long list of things we don’t do – we don’t kill…don’t commit adultery…don’t steal…don’t perjure ourselves…don’t defraud…don’t dishonor our parents. And all those things are good…but they do not lead to eternal life!
Do you know why?
Because heaven is not a place where people sit around all day long not doing anything.
The promise of Jesus is eternal LIFE!
And all Jesus ever asks us to do
to follow him is to go into the world and BRING LIFE to others. GODLY OUTCOMES!
Can you imagine how much LIFE that wealthy young man could have brought to the
kids who lived in the orphanage outside of
No, this is not a story about money. This is a story about how to avoid having a religion, but missing the very point of it. This is a story about using whatever resources we have received – using our very lives – to bring life to others.
You see, eternal life does not begin when you die! Eternal life begins in the here and now! And the only way you can inherit eternal life is TO LIVE IT!
The real question framed by our Trails Through Tellico stewardship campaign has nothing to do with how much time, talent or treasure you give to the church. The real questions are far more important:
How will Loudon and
How many members of the Church Alumni Association can we win back to Christ? And, more important than anything, how many people who do not know the all-inclusive, redeeming love of God will be introduced to Jesus and his eternal LIFE?
So what’s it going to be for us? A new year of not killing, not committing adultery, not stealing, not perjuring, not defrauding and not dishonoring our parents? A new year of not doing stuff?
Or will it be a year overflowing with OUTCOMES of eternal life-made-real right here in this community and this world?
The young man in the story had to make that choice. He chose to walk away. But can you imagine how many people he could have brought eternal life to, if he had chosen differently?
With the resources God has given you, how many more people do you think you can help? How many more mouths do you think you can feed? How many oppressed people do you think you can help set free? How many more kids can you protect? How many more families can you strengthen? How many more of God’s lost children can you help find?
The possibilities – the OUTCOMES - are unlimited!
That’s why it’s called eternal life!
And it’s yours….for the believing, and the LIVING!