Proper 23
by Lyn Reith


Mark 10:17-31



About a month ago, Time magazine ran a front-page spread called “Does God 
Want You to Be Rich?”  It was an expose, of sorts, of the trend in some 
evangelical mega-churches to preach what has been called “Prosperity Gospel 
Lite.”  It’s been given other names as well, like ‘Health and Wealth’ or 
‘Name It and Claim It’ Christianity where God's call to abundance weighs in 
heavily over God's call to sacrifice.  “I’m dreaming big,” says George 
Adams, a 49-year-old salesman who had hit bottom.  After joining a Name It 
and Claim It congregation, Adams is now a top salesman in his field.  “It’s 
a new day God has given me!  I’m on my way to a six-figure income! … Why 
would an awesome and mighty God want anything less for his children?”



There is an appealing quality to this question.  After all, from the time of 
Abraham, God has blessed his people and has promised them health, wealth, 
and abundant living.  Each of us hopes for a good life for ourselves and our 
children, and often we pray for God's guidance, for God's intervention, for 
God's blessings. In God's good creation, the possibilities for ‘the cup 
running over’ are endless. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I have come 
that you have may have life, and have it more abundantly.”



But in today’s gospel story, Jesus gives a different message.  A man has 
accumulated a lot of wealth; he has many material possessions.  He is a man 
of means.  I’ve never been a rich woman but I have fantasies of what that 
might be like – having the world at your fingertips, knowing that nothing is 
out of your reach.  This man must have felt something like that when he asks 
Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Here is a concept, a vision, 
a possibility that this man does not have – living forever, life beyond 
death, immortality.  And being a wealthy man who is used to getting what he 
wants, he goes after it.



To be fair, he is also a man of integrity.  He tries hard to do the right 
thing and since he was very young he never lied, stole, defrauded other 
people, messed around, or went around murdering people.  He keeps the Ten 
Commandments.  He is a good man.  Maybe, like George Adams, he believes he 
can “gain the whole world, plus (his) soul.”



But Jesus disappoints him, to say the least, by telling him that he must 
sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and follow him.  Later, Jesus 
tells his disciples, “How hard it will be 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 someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”



For the rich man and for George Adams and for us and for all who appreciate 
a good life (however we may define it), this is a sobering thought.  It is a 
conundrum – I love this word, I learned it at Princeton Seminary last week, 
it means ‘an intricate and difficult problem’ – it is a conundrum that God 
blesses us with material wealth and then tells us we must give it away if we 
wish to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Like babies being teased, we are given 
the candy, then made to give it back lest we overeat or get cavities in our 
teeth.



This is good scripture for our Stewardship Campaign because this is the 
point where I tell you that you should give, reach deep within your pockets, 
and give to church so the church can do the work of God.  Each of us is 
wealthy – by the world’s standards – and God calls us to give our wealth 
away if we wish to be given the key to the gates of heaven.   The ministries 
of St. Luke’s are God's fingers working in and through the lives of the 
people, nurturing faith, reaching out into the community, making a 
difference here and far away.  I have the faith, hope, and trust, that each 
of you will look prayerfully at your commitment to give and pledge a healthy 
portion of your wealth to the work of the church.



But if you are like me, you may still be wrestling with the desire to enjoy 
God's blessings and God’s call to give it away – and you may be trying to 
figure out why God would set it up like that.  I doubt any of us here this 
morning are filthy rich, and lots of us have probably struggled a bit to 
make ends meet.  It doesn’t seem fair that as soon as we gain some financial 
ground we should be asked to give it away again!



Maybe some of you have some stories about working your way up and out of 
financial distress.  I remember when I was hired to teach first grade by the 
Bethlehem Area School District – I was all excited to begin my new job, to 
start over again – so my youngest son and I packed up and moved ourselves to 
the city.  Well, we weren’t there for more than a week when the teachers 
went on strike – a strike that lasted more than a month – and Brian and I 
were left to live our new life without a paycheck. In the whole scheme of 
things, I guess our poverty was pretty minimal compared to the world’s 
standards, but it was scary for us.   So it was with relief and gratitude 
that we discovered some of God's angels in this community who reached out 
and wrapped their arms around this penniless little family and helped us 
through a pretty difficult time.



Camels don’t fit very well through the eye of a needle, but every now and 
then God shrinks the camel and it slips easily through.  These friends in 
Bethlehem had experienced some shrinkage that Fall and from my point of 
view, at least, they slipped through that eye like greased monkeys.



Giving from the heart (no pun intended – that happens to be the name of our 
stewardship campaign this year) is a little like heart surgery.  It changes 
the way we are configured inside.  It makes our physical and our spiritual 
bodies healthier.  When heart surgery is successful, it makes all of our 
internal organs work better because after the surgery the heart can now 
share all that good blood with other parts of the body that need it.  The 
heart gives away its blood, and the other organs pick it up, use it, and get 
the whole body in better shape.  It’s the same way with our spiritual body.  
When we give to do God's work, it pumps spiritual blood into every pore of 
our being and into the cosmic air of all creation.  It’s infectious and 
others receive what we have given and then give it away again.  Contrary to 
popular opinion, giving is a blessing.



Three thousand years ago, God blessed Abraham and Sarah – he gave them a 
son, many animals, much land, and lots of descendents – the kinds of things 
that were important to people back then.  But God didn’t bless them so that 
they could just sit back and enjoy their wealth; God said he would bless 
them so they would be a blessing.  “In you,” said God, “all the families of 
the earth shall be blessed.”



Here is the point that I think the Prosperity Gospel people forget, that 
God's riches and blessings are given to us, not so we can hoard them and use 
them to construct a citadel of pleasure around us, but so we can use them 
for God's good glory.  When God blesses us with good things, God then wants 
us to bless others, to share our wealth, to reach out and give back what has 
been given to us.  When we find ourselves so fortunate that we live in a 
free and prosperous country, that we hold a good job, that we are surrounded 
by loving and caring family and friends, it is not because we are 
particularly righteous, or smart, or deserving of such blessings.  It is 
because God has blessed us so we can bless someone else.



Humbling as it may be, we can’t take credit for much of anything we do, 
because all our power, all our knowledge, all our wealth, all that we have 
comes from God and what we give is but a portion in return.  God is doing 
open-heart surgery on you and me, so our blood, our wealth, our gifts will 
make the rest of the world healthy.



I don’t think eternal life is a treasure that we earn and put in the bank; 
for the rich man, it’s not just another possession he can inherit by doing 
the right thing.  It’s more like a path that begins right here, and winds 
through both the scarcity and abundance that we encounter in this life and 
leads into the joyful feast of holy rest in the next.  It is the 
self-emptying of our material needs that allows us to give joyfully to 
others.  It is the path that leads to the heart of the eternal God who draws 
us unto himself.  The gift of eternal life begins now, before our death, 
when we place God's kingdom above ourselves.



Our very small part of this kingdom is …

why God brought you into this world, …

why God watches over you night and day, …

why God breathes spirit into your very soul, …

why God puts love, fellowship, and success right across your path, …

why God picks you up when you fall, …

why God is your rock when there is storm at sea, …

why God is your peace when you are afraid, …

why God blesses you and gives you life...

why God has prepared a place for you in your death.



It is God's world, a world of possibilities, a world of blessing, of world 
of giving.



Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit!  Amen.