Why Jesus Doesn’t Serve on the Stewardship Council

Not for the first time, Jesus has gone and messed up a perfectly good sermon. Next Sunday is Commitment Sunday, you see – the day we receive financial pledges to support the church budget. So, before reading today’s Gospel lesson, I had already composed a stewardship sermon worthy of the occasion.

Oh, it was a beauty. It began with a funny story, had three points, and ended with a poem. It had enough Bible quotations in it to make it sound theological and just the right amount of guilt – enough to motivate without demoralizing. I had even arranged for a couple of people in the congregation to rush forward waving their pumpkin-colored pledge cards and shouting, "I’ll raise my pledge. I’ll double it, in fact! After hearing that sermon, how can I do otherwise?"

I know the Stewardship Council would have loved it.

All I really needed from Jesus this morning was a word or two about the importance of tithing and of keeping up one’s pledge through the summer months, when backsliders are known to fall behind. That’s all I needed. That’s all most preachers need from Jesus – just a little boost, a word of endorsement, a thumbs up or a high five.

So what do I get? Today’s Gospel reading. The so-called "rich young ruler." All I wanted from Jesus was a cup of water. What do I get? A tsunami.

Most of you know the story. A man (not young or a ruler, but certainly rich) comes up to Jesus and falls on his knees before him. "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Rejecting the honorific "Good Teacher," Jesus suggests he start with the commandments: Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t bear false witness, and all the rest.

"Oh those," the man replies. "I’m covered commandment-wise. I’ve kept all those since kindergarten."

Clearly, this guy’s problem is not a lack of self-esteem. Jesus looks at the man for a long time. Given his well-known attitude toward hypocrites, I expect Jesus to pin this guy’s ears back. But that’s not how the story goes. "Jesus, looking at him, loved him," says Mark. Jesus loved him. Loved him for his earnestness, perhaps. Loved him for his naiveté. Or maybe just loved him because, no less than the paupers in the streets, this man needs to be set free.

"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."

The man is speechless. He expected a challenge, but not this. He gets off his knees, dusts off his Books Brothers suit, and goes away grieving because, the text says, "he had many possessions."

Do you see what I mean? Jesus has ruined my stewardship sermon. If only he had said, "You lack one thing. Go, double your pledge, and your church will have treasure at Capital City Bank; then come, follow me." -- I’d have been home free.

Or if he’d said, "Go, arrange for a charitable annuity trust so that when you die, your estate will go on giving; then come, follow me." -- that would have worked, too.

If, at the very minimum, Jesus had said, "Go, pray about this matter of your many possessions, discuss it with your wife, and come back next week with a reasonable proposal for me to look over, and come, follow me," -- even that would have preached.

But that’s not what Jesus says. There’s nothing reasonable or systematic, or, for that matter, decent or orderly about what he tells this man. "Give it all away," he says. "Let go of everything. Turn it all loose and follow me."

This man’s problem isn’t stewardship. He’s a tither, for goodness sake. His problem is enslavement. He’s shackled to his possessions, and they own him, lock, stock and barrel. As much as Jesus loves him, this man can’t follow Jesus. His own first love is holding him back.

Even the disciples, who left their fishing nets, their families, their tax-collecting tables – even they are perplexed by the hard line Jesus takes with this rich man. I suspect that, like many people of their day, they see wealth as a sign of God’s approval. Surely this man would not have so many possessions if God didn’t think he deserved them. (The "prosperity gospel" didn’t originate with Joel Osteen.)

"How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God," Jesus tells us. And I do mean "us." Most of us are wealthy beyond the imaginings of the majority of the world’s population. Of the world’s 6 billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day. There’s no doubt about it, Jesus is talking to us. "How hard it will be for you who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God."

In order to get us through the gate, God will have to thread us through the eye of a needle. Since it’s God who is doing the threading, it can be done, but the process is likely to be extremely uncomfortable for us threadees.

Granted, this man might be an extraordinary case. I’m not suggesting, and neither is Jesus, that that voluntary poverty is the prerequisite for every disciple. The Bible has plenty of examples of rich people who followed Jesus, among them Joseph of Arimathea, Lydia, the seller of purple goods, and folks in the Book of Acts who hosted meetings in their ample homes. We’re kidding ourselves, however, if we think that wealth doesn’t get in the way of Christian discipleship.

The problem, as I see it, is that wealth tends to make people relatively stingy. You’d think it would be poverty that would do that, but it doesn’t – not for most people. By and large, people with higher incomes give away less as a percentage of income, than people with more modest incomes. Basically, the richer we get, the stingier we get.

According to IRS statistics, Americans who make $25,000 - $50,000 a year in adjusted gross income give 1.6 percent of their incomes to charity. Americans who make $5 million to $10 million give away .6 of their annual income. The most generous state in the nation in terms of giving relative to income is the modest State of Mississippi. Tennessee is the fourth most generous state, and it ranks 35^th in per capita income.

Amongst Christians, the most generous givers are members of denominations in the lower tax brackets. Members of the Assemblies of God and the Seventh-day Adventists give more than 5 percent of their income to their church. We Presbyterians give about 1.5 percent of our incomes to our church, but, in terms of per capita income, we are the richest Christians in America. (We passed the Episcopalians several years ago.)

So, back to the text: It isn’t out of envy or spite or dislike for rich people that Jesus tells this man to sell all that he has. It’s out of love. "Tough love," I suppose you could call it. It takes tough love to break the death grip his own possessions have on this man’s soul.

The wisdom book of Ecclesiastes puts it well: Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless … (Ecclesiastes 5:10).

It’s a shame, really, that Jesus ruined my stewardship sermon. I was planning to go a lot easier on everybody than this text does. All I wanted to do was to raise next year’s budget. Jesus doesn’t seem interested in that. He’s on his way to Jerusalem, you see. He’s going there to set people free – everybody -- even rich people, even this man in the story, even you and me. He will do that by following his own advice – by giving away everything he has – not only to the poor, but also to the rich.

But, according to this story, even Jesus can’t set you free if you don’t want to be set free. This man goes away grieving, and leaves us with a choice to make: we can follow him, or we can follow Jesus.

We preachers like to make things complicated, but when it comes right down to it, stewardship is not rocket science. It’s just another aspect of discipleship.

Whom shall we serve? To whom do we belong? Who is the one who sets us free?