Sunday, October 22, 2006
I preached on giving this morning, which is generally a foolproof way to make sure our church's contribution is significantly lower than normal. I don't know the tally from today, and to tell you the truth, I'd rather not!
Even though my text today was from Matthew 6, I brought up the story of the Rich Young Ruler from Matthew 19 as a case study in answering the question, "How do rich Christians learn mercy?" In Jesus' little one-on-one class with the impressive young man, he seemed to have given him a three-step project:
#1: Free up your money (sell your possessions)
#2: Transfer the money to someone who needs it (give to the poor)
#3: Then become a student of Jesus (come follow me)
The man, of course, chose to be known as a "rich man" instead of exchanging his identity for that of being "a follower of Jesus." This didn't please him (i.e. he went away sad), but money had too great a hold on his heart. He remained a "rich man," and Jesus went on to say it was hard for a "rich man" to become a citizen of God's Empire.
That story has always haunted me, and it doesn't seem to be going away.
It haunted me as a teenager because quite honestly I had a rather simplistic, naive approach to Scripture. It wasn't because my family was rich (compared to our environment); instead, I came from a group of people who said things like, "The Bible says it - let's do it!" and I could not for the life of me understand why Jesus' instruction to the rich young man did not apply to us. I mean, people tried to explain it to me, plus I was positive the religious world didn't believe in doing what Jesus told the man (a simple look around made that obvious), but it still didn't make sense to me. Here's a man wanting to be complete (i.e. perfect), and Jesus told him how to pull it off. Why would this not apply to us? In fact, it applied perfectly to Jesus himself and his followers, but I was supposed to believe that it somehow didn't apply to us? I thought we were interested in taking Jesus seriously!?!
It still bothers me, but for different reasons.
First of all, I don't see the Bible in such terms anymore. That collection of writings is WAY more complicated than I ever imagined it to be. Simply saying "The Bible says it - let's do it!" - though admirable on many fronts - sounds good, but is just too simplistic. It isn't that easy.
But second, though I no longer believe that the Bible is simply a black/white list of do's & don'ts (and examples) for us today, the more I read this particular story the more I'm convinced that it has a hard message for our religious world.
And that message is this: If our stuff matters more to us than hurting people, we can't be considered on the same side of God, no matter how much we seem to have it all together.
I find that more haunting than any Halloween movie.
Even though my text today was from Matthew 6, I brought up the story of the Rich Young Ruler from Matthew 19 as a case study in answering the question, "How do rich Christians learn mercy?" In Jesus' little one-on-one class with the impressive young man, he seemed to have given him a three-step project:
#1: Free up your money (sell your possessions)
#2: Transfer the money to someone who needs it (give to the poor)
#3: Then become a student of Jesus (come follow me)
The man, of course, chose to be known as a "rich man" instead of exchanging his identity for that of being "a follower of Jesus." This didn't please him (i.e. he went away sad), but money had too great a hold on his heart. He remained a "rich man," and Jesus went on to say it was hard for a "rich man" to become a citizen of God's Empire.
That story has always haunted me, and it doesn't seem to be going away.
It haunted me as a teenager because quite honestly I had a rather simplistic, naive approach to Scripture. It wasn't because my family was rich (compared to our environment); instead, I came from a group of people who said things like, "The Bible says it - let's do it!" and I could not for the life of me understand why Jesus' instruction to the rich young man did not apply to us. I mean, people tried to explain it to me, plus I was positive the religious world didn't believe in doing what Jesus told the man (a simple look around made that obvious), but it still didn't make sense to me. Here's a man wanting to be complete (i.e. perfect), and Jesus told him how to pull it off. Why would this not apply to us? In fact, it applied perfectly to Jesus himself and his followers, but I was supposed to believe that it somehow didn't apply to us? I thought we were interested in taking Jesus seriously!?!
It still bothers me, but for different reasons.
First of all, I don't see the Bible in such terms anymore. That collection of writings is WAY more complicated than I ever imagined it to be. Simply saying "The Bible says it - let's do it!" - though admirable on many fronts - sounds good, but is just too simplistic. It isn't that easy.
But second, though I no longer believe that the Bible is simply a black/white list of do's & don'ts (and examples) for us today, the more I read this particular story the more I'm convinced that it has a hard message for our religious world.
And that message is this: If our stuff matters more to us than hurting people, we can't be considered on the same side of God, no matter how much we seem to have it all together.
I find that more haunting than any Halloween movie.
