Transcribed from the sermon preached October 15, 2006
The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor
St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
Telephone 510-845-6830 Fax 510-845-6837
office@stjohns.presbychurch.net http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net
Scripture Readings: Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31
Once again we come upon the strange family values of Jesus. On the one hand, when the man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus affirms the Ten Commandments, which include, " you shall not commit adultery..." and, "Honor your father and mother." But then at the end of our reading Jesus affirms that "There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundred fold now in this age ..., with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." Still, notably absent from those we leave are husband and house and wife.
Why does Jesus include leaving family in the same breath as "field"? The wealth and possessions of the patriarch were not just an ipod, the Cadillac SUV, and a TV with Tivo. Land and family together were wealth. The man owned the family inheritance that very well could have gone back hundreds of years. These were the resources that supported the rich man's family, his primary possession and the primary sign and symbol of his wealth. Not only that, but it is quite possible that the family traced his land back to the land grant from God to Joshua. In essence, his land wealth was a sign of inclusion into the covenant between the People of Israel and God. It is just such signs and symbols, which can become an obstacle to acting like the people of the covenant.
That is, I think, where the rubber hits the road for Jesus. If you look at Jesus' life and teaching, you do not see him hunting down atheists and pagans to tell them how rotten they are. Other nations are not explicitly implicated, but are only threatened in juxtaposition against the "Kingdom of God," which Jesus is intent on building. His challenge comes to those, like this rich man, who already claim to be followers of God.
This conversation of Jesus with this one man is not just about him, but also about the leadership among God's people, Israel. Thus, after the man chooses to go away, Jesus asks, "How hard is it for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."
Many preachers will tell you that the kingdom of God is in another world. But Jesus is not changing the time of the Kingdom of God; he is changing the location. The Kingdom of God in Israelite tradition is the physical nation of Israel, and a metaphor for the spiritual identity of the people, and, deeper still, a cosmic reality. Recognizing the corrupting aspects of power and wealth, Jesus emphasized the spiritual identity and the deep cosmic reality of the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is not a prize individuals get, but a present reality that unites the individual with the whole community, past, present and future. It is something we are to live now, in the present tense, and through doing we meet the eternal.
Why is it so hard for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God? First the most obvious: we like stuff; we like comfort and pleasure. We get accustomed to it and we start to think of it as our right. We will fight to keep it even if others must suffer. But there is more to the problem of wealth than our own personal comfort and pleasure. As we are blessed with family, they become an extension of our own identity, our own ego. For the patriarch in particular, wives, children, cattle, sheep and land are possessions in which the man gains pleasure and power; he also has a sense of responsibility toward those possessions. Thus he can justify his actions to expand his power and pleasure, against the claims or threats of others, as an unselfish action of protecting and administering the assets of the family. The more we have the more justified we feel in our actions to protect and expand what we have. The more we have, the easier it is to claim that our selfish acts are actually unselfish acts, done to protect what we already have. Then our unselfishness in our own eyes, justifies our claim to more stuff, to more power and pleasure.
Think about it. How easy is it to justify buying more or more expensive stuff. These clothes will help me look successful. If I look successful, people will think I am good at what I do and will want to employ me. This cell phone helps me be more efficient. These cell phones for my family help me keep track of them and make sure they are all right. This big car is safer for my family. This house is too small for my growing family, and we need more storage space. This big house is a good investment. This new TV is for family enjoyment and educational programs as well as football. This wine helps reduce by stress. I do, after all, have a lot of responsibility.
This kind of thinking expands for classes and nations as well. And it is here where our collective values begin to justify our personal power and wealth. Here we begin to identify ourselves as the people of God, the Kingdom of God, the free and the brave, or the dictator of the proletariat. Niebuhr points out that the powerful tend to forge an identity of uniqueness, on the one hand, and of the embodiment of universal ideals on the other. Baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet: the American Dream on the one hand, and the force for freedom and democracy on the other.
We are the people who follow the Ten Commandments. We uphold God's laws and values; therefore, we deserve our wealth and power. More, God has blessed us with wealth. We must protect and expand our way of life, freedom and godly Christian values, by any means necessary, even through sneaky business practices, taking over markets, denying scientific evidence of our destructive consumption, imprisonment of our perceived enemies without trial, torture, and war without end.
Those of the wealthy class justify their special status by arguing that they have the talent and responsibility both to maintain our unique inheritance and to promote superior values. For all those reasons it is harder for those who are rich to see their own hypocrisy, how they not only consume with gluttony to the detriment and neglect of others outside their group, but also twist the laws and values of society, and the Word of God to serve their own purposes.
Thus for Jesus, family values and wealth are tied to the values and wealth of the entire society, and indeed, all creation. The Kingdom of God is tied not to our specific inherited land and family, but to those who embody it through their self-giving acts and sacrifice. The sacrifice, even when we suffer in the short term, or in the immediate context, will pay off in the long term, or in the cosmic context.
Again, by cosmic, we are not speaking about the future alone, but about a deeper, broader understanding of what is truly valuable. The Word of God is not a petrified tradition from the past which leaves us alone in History to do as we please, nor a prize at the end of time alone, but living and active, sharper than any two edge sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
It touches our individual soul, blesses our family, and draws up toward the spirit of God and in all people and Creation. The truly universal values are their own reward. Those who abide by them are a part of a unique community, the family of God. The Good News for those who are not rich, for those who struggle to put food on the table and pay the light bill, is not simply found in the castigation of the rich by Jesus, but in the affirmation that joy, thanksgiving, and righteous living are not dependent on our having material wealth. While justice is a goal, imitation of the greedy and idolatrous is not. There are two ways to be rich: in abundance of possessions or scarcity of wants.
So is Jesus really calling for all of us to live a radical life of simple, living, universal love, peace and justice; placing ourselves and the well-being of our family and nation below our allegiance to God's Kingdom? Yes.
How may do you know who actually live this radical life of faith? Very few, if any. We will come up with our reasons for why we cannot live this radical a life. It may be true that complex society will always require some measure of inequality to promote the ability of especially gifted people to be artisans, thinkers, creators, and governors of important business, medicine, law and government, but the inequality is almost always greater than what can be defended rationally in the eyes of God. And it may be partially true that invested money of the rich will trickle down to the working class, but this is only after it floods the individuals and families of the owning class. It is true that often honest, hard work pays off in success, but it is also true that many are honest and work hard yet struggle to put food on the table. Meanwhile many are dishonest and lazy or incompetent, and yet they live a life of luxury. It takes money to support a family, but there is more than one type of poor education, sickness and hunger. And it may be true that sometimes evil needs to be fought and brought to justice, but too often, it is our own violence and administrative power, which are unjust.
We are always tempted to think grace gives us freedom to stay the same and tolerate injustice. If we are saved by the perfect grace of God through Christ, then we are not as desperate to have our religion make us look good. We don't have to soften the radical words of Jesus. With God's grace, self-criticism doesn't mean poor self-esteem. Grace, working properly, will give us freedom to recognize the self-serving character in our ideals, values and faith, and the vision to see the validity of interests, which compete with our own. In other words, grace will help us look to "take the log out of our own eye before we take the speck out of our neighbor," and to "Love our neighbor as ourselves." Grace is the means and the end, the present and the future, in the Kingdom of God. Grace is here for you now in abundance, and still more perfectly in the age to come.