“For Richer Or Poorer”

“For Richer Or Poorer”

Text: Mark 10:17-31

Theme: Our giving is a sign of our willingness to follow Jesus.

Preached on October 15, 2006 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have a question I need to ask you: Are you rich? Before you answer that, consider this fact: there are more than two billion people in the world today who eke out an existence on the equivalent of $2 a day or less. If you had those two billion people looking you in the eye right now, how would you answer that question: Are you rich?

The truth is, no matter how much money we have, almost none of us consider ourselves to be rich. For instance, a few years ago they took a survey, and in that survey they found people who have between $1 million and $4 million, and they asked those people, “Are you rich?” It turned out that over 90% of those people said, “No, I’m not rich. Sure, I have between $1 million and $4 million, but I’m not rich.” And so they asked those people how much money it would take for them to consider themselves to be rich. And on average they said it would take at least $5 million for them to think of themselves as being rich.

So those researchers then went out and found people who have at least $5 million and they asked them, “Are you rich?” Well, guess what? Most of those people said, “No, I’m not rich.” They said it would take at least $10 million before they’d think of themselves as being rich. And right on down the line they found the same thing. People who had $10 million said they weren’t rich – that you had to have at least $25 million before you were rich.[1] But what about you: Are you rich?

I think it’s safe to say that for many of us, this story that we just heard in the Gospel of Mark is not one of our most favorite. And I think it’s safe to say that for many of us, we go out of our way to convince ourselves that this story doesn’t really apply to us. No, we tell ourselves, this story only applies to people who are rich – after all, the man in the story who ran up to Jesus and who Jesus spoke to was a rich man – and we aren’t rich. Therefore, we tell ourselves, this story doesn’t apply to us. But I believe that if we listen to this story and take an honest look at ourselves, we come to see that no matter if we’re richer or poorer, Jesus is saying something that we have no choice but to pay attention to.

This story in Mark begins by saying that Jesus was setting out on a journey. Jesus was headed somewhere, intending to go out and accomplish something in the world. But all of a sudden this young man runs up to Jesus and kneels down right there in front of him, blocking his way. And notice that this young man wasn’t so much interested in what Jesus was doing – where he was going or what he was wanting to do. No, this young man was primarily focused on himself. And so he asked, “Jesus, I really like this eternal life that I’ve heard about. So what do I need to do to make sure that I can get into heaven and live forever with God?”

Jesus said to him, “Well, you know what the Bible says – don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, treat other people fairly.” And the young man said, “Jesus, I’ve lived my life that way ever since I was born.” But as Jesus looked at that young man, kneeling there before him on the road, blocking his path, Jesus said to him, “There’s one more thing. You need to go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me.”

But when the young man heard that, a sad, sorrowful look came over his face and he slowly walked away from Jesus, never to return again. Why? Why did he do that? Because he was willing to do anything Jesus wanted him to do – anything, that is, as long as it didn’t involve his money.

Whether we’re richer or poorer, that’s what this story forces us to consider. Sure, we’re willing to do lots of things that Jesus wants us to do. Like that young man, for the most part we’re willing to obey what the Bible says about not killing, not stealing, not lying. We’re willing to pray, we’re willing to go to worship, and we’re even willing to sit there and listen to some minister babble on week after week. But then Jesus looks at us, just like he looked at that young man, and he says, “There’s one more thing. What about your money? Are you willing to take your money and use it not just for things that you want, but are you willing to take it and use for the things that God wants?”

Back in the 1800s an explorer made his way through a region of Africa that is now known as Tanzania. And one day that explorer came across a tribal king who was rich, but he showed off his wealth in a most unusual kind of way. In that day and in that part of the world, food was generally scarce and many people went hungry. And so to show off the fact that he was so rich that he had more food than he needed, that king had his wives force-fed with tons of food so that they became so incredibly fat and bloated that they could barely even move. In other words, the king used his great wealth not to go out and help other people. Rather he used it simply for himself – he used his wealth simply to make himself the envy of all the people around him.[2]

And the reality is that we often do that very same kind of thing today. No, we don’t necessarily have some family member sitting at home that were stuffing with food. But like that African king, instead of going out and using our money to help other people, in our own ways we use that money to do what we can to make ourselves the envy of the people around us.

Of course, we don’t necessarily admit that we do that. But if we look around at the things that we buy with our money, how many of those things aren’t things that we actually need, but are things that we think will help us look better in the eyes of those around us – things like designer clothes, bigger and bigger TV sets, or larger and more luxurious cars and trucks? For the record, officially, we tell people that all those things are things that we need. But is that really the truth?

If you read through the New Testament, one of the things you discover is that Jesus spent more time talking about money and possessions than he spent talking about virtually any other subject. Jesus even spent more time talking about money and possessions than he spent talking about prayer. And the reason for that, I believe, is that Jesus understood that it’s one thing to say with your words what it is that you believe, it’s one thing to say with your words that you want to follow Jesus, but the real test of how genuine those words are is to be found in whether you’re willing to back up those words with your money.

Some might be thinking, “Well, I’d really like to give but I don’t have any money to spare. It’s hard to make a buck these days!” Well, consider this. On the outskirts of Kampala, the capital city of the African country of Uganda, there is a slum. And that slum is made up primarily of impoverished men and women who are Christians. And for them to survive, virtually all of them work in a stone quarry where the men work all day out in the blazing sun mining boulders and rocks and where the women spend the entire day using hand-held hammers to break those rocks into gravel. And even though that work is exhausting and back-breaking, each of those men and women earn a grand total of $1.20 a day, about 10 cents an hour.

But last year when the Christians in that slum learned about how Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, they took up a collection to send there. And the amount they collected from among themselves was over $900. Do you appreciate how incredibly generous of gift that was? With those men and women earning 10 cents an hour, they donated the equivalent of 9,000 hours of wages. That would be like us taking up a collection of over $90,000 to send to New Orleans. Would we even consider doing something like that? And what’s even more, those Christians there in that African slum sent another sizeable donation the year before to help the victims of the tsunami.[3]

If anyone would be justified in keeping their money for themselves, it would seem to be those people in Uganda – with the way that they have to eke out an existence on the brink of poverty and starvation, with the way that they have to slave away each day for incredibly little money. But those Christians understand that when it comes to money, money isn’t supposed to be mainly about what it can do for us, but how we can use our money to do what Jesus wants us to do – and that is to help other people.

Now in the case of that rich young man who ran up and kneeled in front of Jesus, apparently that young man’s attachment to his money was so severe that Jesus asked him to give it all away. Does that mean that Jesus wants us to do the same? Right here and now, are we supposed to give away every last dollar we have? I don’t believe so. But even though I don’t believe Jesus expects us to give away all our money, I believe he does expect us to take a really good, hard, serious look at what we do give, and to ask ourselves, “What does my giving say about my commitment to Jesus?” Does our giving show that we’re truly serious about being Jesus’ disciples, or does our giving indicate that we’re just going through the motions and pretending to be Jesus’ followers?

From the Bible’s point of view, the tithe is generally considered to be a good guideline to use. A tithe is 1/10, or 10%, of one’s income. Therefore, to tithe means to give 1/10, or 10%, of one’s income to the work of God. Are you someone who tithes? What percentage of your income do you give to the work of God? If it’s less than a tithe, then give some prayerful, thoughtful consideration to moving in that direction.

Chances are, though, that if you’re not a tither, you’re thinking to yourself, “10%! That’s impossible! There’s no way I could give that much!” Well, just like I’ve done for the last four years or so, I’ll make the same offer yet again. I’ll offer you a money-back guarantee: Tithe, and if at any point during the year you find that God is not providing for all your needs – now, I’m not saying that God is going to give you everything you might want – but if at any point during the year you find that God is not providing all that you need, then the church will give you your tithe back. You have my guarantee on that. And so that means that if you don’t tithe, it’s not because you can’t – it’s simply because you choose not to tithe.

There in that story in the Gospel of Mark, we are told that Jesus was setting out on a journey – Jesus was headed somewhere, intending to go out and accomplish something in the world. But as Jesus was doing that, that young man ran up to him and knelt down in front of him and blocked his way. And from the conversation that Jesus had with that young man, we can tell that Jesus wanted that young man to go with him, to take part with him in the good things that he was wanting to do in the world. But what held that young man back was his unwillingness to give, his unwillingness to use his money not for himself but for others.

In our midst, right here in our church, I believe that Jesus is headed places. In our midst, right here in our church, I believe that Jesus is wanting to accomplish some pretty amazing things. In the Gospels we read about how Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,” and we see how Jesus welcomed the children and laid his hands on them and blessed them. Do you see how Jesus is trying to do that very sort of thing through our church? Every week we have about 50 kids from the community come here for Youth Club. And as I tell them a Bible story each week, from the looks on their faces I can tell that most of them have never heard those stories before, and they’re excited and amazed to learn about how great and wonderful God is. Or the fact that we have about 150 kids show up for our dances, which means that over 60% of the kids in grades 4, 5, and 6 at Crafton Elementary School are here in our church on those Friday nights – do you appreciate how incredible that is?

But Jesus isn’t done. There are so many children and families that we’ve come into contact with over the years, but many of them aren’t here on Sunday morning – they aren’t in any church on Sunday morning. How can those children and families be brought into a closer and deeper relationship with God? That’s something that Jesus is wanting us to journey with him in the years ahead to accomplish.

Or for years and years we’ve had a food pantry here in our church. In recent times, the number of families that we serve has grown, so that now we provide food each month to over 50 families in Crafton and Ingram. But something we’ve been exploring through our Acts Initiative group is: What would it mean for us to provide people who come to the food pantry not just with physical food, but also with spiritual food?

For instance, just this past week Tricia Sanders, our Outreach Coordinator, was talking with a woman who came for food and the woman mentioned that she would be having surgery later this month. And so Tricia asked the woman if it would be OK if we prayed for her and kept in touch with her. And the woman’s face lit up and said, “You mean you would do something like that?!” Or just this past week I was talking with another person who came for food, and they said, “If there’s ever any way I can help the church, please let me know.” Praying for hurting people, and helping people to discover ways that they can put their talents and abilities to work for God – those are some of the things that Jesus is wanting us to journey with him in the years ahead to accomplish.

Or in countless other ways our church is seeking to show love to other people by meeting real needs that people have – from our quilting group that makes quilts and lap robes for people facing illnesses and other problems, to the Girl Scouts that meet here, to the Al Anon group that gathers here to offer support to people dealing with family members with various addictions, to the annual blood drive that we sponsor, to the flu shot clinic that we have for the community, and in so many other ways we’re trying to reach out not just to one another, but to the people around us and to show them something of the love that Jesus has for them. And who knows what else Jesus has in mind for us? Are we willing to journey with Jesus and discover what else he’s wanting to accomplish in the years ahead?

But journeying with Jesus involves not just our prayers, it involves not just our good wishes – no, journeying with Jesus and taking part with him in what he wants to accomplish in the world also needs to involve our money. This year we’re trying something different for our stewardship campaign. And quite honestly I hope that what we are doing will cause many of you to be deeply offended.

I say that because this coming week we will be mailing a letter to every member in the church. And in that letter we are going to name a specific dollar amount that we are going to ask you to consider giving in the coming year. If you get solicitations from your local fire department or from the American Cancer Society or from virtually any other charity, that’s what they do – they name an amount they ask you to consider giving. And the reason I hope that will offend a lot of people is because I hope when a lot of people open their letters and see what they are being asked to give, they’ll say, “I’m shocked! I shocked and offended that you’re asking so little of me! I’m shocked and offended that this is all that you think my commitment to Jesus Christ means to me!” Well, the good news is that if you are shocked and offended, you can have permission to give more than what the letter asks for.

And just so you know that I’m not asking you to do something that I’m not willing to do, for the coming year I’m planning to pledge $250 a week, which amounts to $13,000 for the year. As I look at my life, that’s the minimum amount I feel that I need to be giving to show Jesus that I’m serious about helping our church go on the journey that Jesus wants us to be on.

What about you? How much do you need to be giving to show Jesus that you’re serious about being his disciple? How much do you need to be giving to show Jesus that you’re serious about helping our church move forward in the ways that Jesus wants it to move? Whether you’re richer or poorer, give what you can. Whether you’re richer or poorer, show Jesus where he stands in your life.