Little did I know when I planned this sermon, that we would have a live camel at VBS this year. At any rate, I want to tell you a story. It is the story of the ill-fated Franklin expedition to the Arctic in 1845. That odyssey was a turning point in Arctic exploration because of its well-publicized failure.
The preparations were made. The preparations were more suitable for the Royal Navy Officers Club in England than for the frigid Arctic. The explorers made room on their ships for a large library, a hand organ, china place settings, cut glass wine goblets, and sterling silver flatware instead of additional coal for their steam engines. The ornate silver flatware was engraved with the individual officer’s initials and family crest.
Search parties found clumps of bodies of men who had set off for help when their supplies ran out. One skeleton wore his fine blue cloth uniform, edged with silk braid.
Hardly a match for the bitter Arctic cold. Another apparently chose to carry with him
the place setting of sterling flatware.
(Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, New York: Harper and Row, 1982, p. 24-26. Cited in David Garland, NIV Application Commentary on Mark, p. 408,)
What must he have been thinking to take sterling silver tableware in search of help and food? It’s hard to imagine that any of these adventurers would have said, as they neared death on the frozen landscape, “I wish I had brought more silver place settings.”
Our hanging on to things that are ultimately useless will look no less foolish. We cannot envision life without the things we cherish. But in doing so, we’re in danger of losing the only life that counts.
It’s one of the most disturbing stories in all of the New Testament. If any of us could pick a story to leave out, this would probably be the one. It’s one of those stories that each one of us is absolutely certain doesn’t apply to us, wasn’t written for us, doesn’t have any bearing on who we are or what we do or how we live our lives. We must resist the temptation today to hear this story for someone else. We need to hear the story – each one of us – for ourselves.
The man runs up to Jesus, calls Jesus “good,” and Jesus replies in a way that lets us know that no one can find goodness in human resources and accomplishments. The man thinks he’s good, too. He seems to be saying, “Let me ask you a question from one good man to another.” Jesus reminds him there is no one good, except for God alone. The man wants to ensure that he will have a place at the Messianic table, a place in the Kingdom of God, a place in heaven.
Jesus asked him, “Don’t you know the commandments? Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother.”
“I know that. I’ve kept all the commandments since I was a lad.” He realized that keeping the commandments was not enough. Mark has a wonderful eye for detail, and he lets us know that Jesus had compassion.
Look at it – verse 21 READ.
Jesus loved him.
Jesus believed the man had been obedient, but because He loves him, Jesus challenges him. He doesn’t spare his feelings, but He candidly speaks the truth. The man regards himself as respectably “good.” He’d been throwing that term around from the initial encounter. But respectably “good” is not good enough.
• He lacks something.
• He lacks one thing.
The man or woman who is wrapped up in their material possessions is commanded
to go, to sell, to give, and to follow.
Go. Sell. Give. Follow. These commands together stress that if anyone wants eternal life, then everything depends on our response to Jesus.
Wow! The man had a lot of money.
Look at v. 22. READ.
He walks away sad. He’s looking for a second, more accommodating opinion. But Jesus, when He calls us to follow Him, will not renegotiate the terms.
There the disciples sit. See them now, they are dumbfounded as they observe the exchange. How could Jesus let a man like this slip away? One whose deep pockets could have helped the Kingdom cause, could have helped their ministry, could have quadrupled their meager treasury. And if that wasn’t enough, Jesus says the rich are going to have a hard time making it into the Kingdom of God.
In large part, Jesus has a negative attitude toward wealth. Doesn’t have much of anything good to say about money (Mark 4:19; Matthew 6:19; Luke 12:13; 16:1; 19:1).
Jim Bakker, of PTL fame, once the health and wealth and prosperity gospel preacher, said he was convinced by God in a dream, and he began to read and write down every word as recorded in the gospels. He says that he wept that he could have been absolutely wrong preaching another gospel, preaching another Jesus. “‘Jesus called riches - deceitfulness of riches.’ He even said, ‘Woe unto the rich!’ He was saying things like, ‘You can’t serve God and money.’ He never cast wealth and riches into a good light. How could I have spent so much time emphasizing financial blessing!” The article is entitled “The Reeducation of Jim Bakker in Christianity Today” (Christianity Today, December 7, 1998, p. 62).
In fact, he sees possessions as an almost insurmountable obstacle that prevents us from giving ourselves completely to God like children. Jesus says, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The needle is the smallest thing imaginable, and the camel is the largest animal of Palestine. Reflecting on these passages, C. S. Lewis captures Jesus’ extreme demand in a statement.
All things (for example a camel’s journey through
a needle’s eye) are possible, it’s true;
But picture how the camel feels, squeezed out
In one long bloody thread from tail to snout.
To tell the truth, I feel like Mark Twain. “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.” In some way or another, we think this passage applies to those who have just a little bit more money than we do.
Somehow, no matter how much more money we earn, we seem to always fall just below the imaginary “riches danger line.” So we can comfort ourselves, knowing that Jesus intended this lesson for someone else who has more than we do.
Well, I’ve got news for us all. There are not many who have more than we have. And we’re getting more all the time. The median size of a house built in the U.S. in 1949 was 1,100 square feet. In 1970 it was 1,385 square feet. In 1993 it was 2,060 square feet.
Our house has about 1,800 square feet and we feel like we could use 300 more. Of course, the oddity is that those with 3,500 square feet also think that they could use just about 300 more.
If you don’t think we live in the land of plenty, you need to know that in 1987 we actually had the occasion on which the number of shopping centers in the U.S. – 32,563 at that point – surpassed the number of high schools.
If you don’t think we’re in the land of the rich, you need to know that the waste generated in the U.S. in just one year would fill a convoy of 10-ton garbage trucks 145,000 miles long – that is over halfway to the moon – in one year. That’s how much garbage we produce.
Let’s face it, you are, I am, we all are the rich young ruler in Jesus’ story.
Pastor Mark Buchanan speaks of going to Uganda, Africa. He went to a little township called Wairacka. On Sunday evening, about 100 Christians from neighboring areas would gather to worship. They met under a tin roof lean-to that was set at the edge of a corn-field. They sat (when they did sit) on rough wood benches. The floor was dirt.
The instruments were old. Some of the guitars didn’t have all the strings. But my, they could worship. They made hell run for cover when they got loose. There was one guy with the missionary group – a real stiff-backed, buttoned-down white-collar boy, who liked his worship staid and orderly and brief. And even he couldn’t stand still. He was jumping, clapping, yelling out his hallelujahs.
One Sunday evening, the pastor asked if anyone had anything to share. A tall, willowy woman came to the front. She was plain featured, but she was beautiful. She started, “Oh, brothers and sisters. I love Jesus so much.” The worshipers shouted back, “Tell us sister, tell us.” “Oh, I love Him so much. I don’t know where to begin to tell you how God He is.” “Begin there sister. Begin right there!” She said, “Oh, He’s so good to me.
I praise Him all the time for how good He is to me. For three months I prayed to the Lord for shoes. And look.”
At that, the woman cocked her leg so that everyone could see one foot. One very ordinary shoe covered it. “He gave me shoes. Hallelujah. He’s so good.” And the Ugandans clapped and yelled and shouted back, “Hallelujah!” The pastor said,
“I didn’t shout. I didn’t utter a sound. I was devastated. I sat there hollowed out, hammered down. In all my life, I had not once prayed for shoes. In all my life, I had not once thanked God for the many, many shoes I have.”
Let’s unpack the words of Jesus. Let’s unpack the encounter with the rich young ruler. Let’s unpack what it means for a camel to be squeezed out from tail to snout. After we’ve already learned that we are rich people, we need to learn that we, too, like the rich young ruler, have a difficult time giving up possessions. In fact, more and more, life doesn’t get more simple but it only gets more complex.
There is an Indian parable that demonstrates our propensity to need and want more.
The guru had a disciple, and he was so pleased with the man’s spiritual progress that he left him on his own. The man lived in a little mud hut. He lived simply – studying, contemplating, and begging for his food. Each morning after his devotions, the disciple washed his loin cloth and hung it out to dry. One day, he came back to discover the loin cloth torn and eaten by rats. He begged the villagers for another simple piece of clothing, and they gave it to him. But the rats ate that one, too. So he got himself a cat.
That took care of the rats, but now when he begged for his food, he had to beg for milk for his cat as well. He thought, “That won’t do. I’ll get a cow.” So he got a cow and now he had to beg for fodder. So he decided to till and plant the ground around his hut. Soon he found no time to study his scriptures, to contemplate. So he hired servants to tend his farm. But overseeing the laborers became a chore, so he married to have a wife to help him. After a time, the disciple became the wealthiest man in the village. The guru was traveling by there and stopped in. He was shocked to see that where once stood a simple mud hut for his disciple, now there loomed a palace surrounded by a vast estate, worked by many servants. He asked his disciple, “What is the meaning of this?” The man replied, “You won’t believe this, sir, but there was no other way I could keep my loin cloth.” (Christianity Today, Sept. 6, 1999, p. 66)
We live in such a consumerist culture. We’re taught by ads – we’re taught every day never to be satisfied, at least, not for long. We’re taught to think about our felt needs,
rather than the virtue of sacrifice through serving others. We’re trained to pursue freedom for ourselves, which our culture defines as a vast array of consumer choices in all of life. In fact, there is coming up another International No-Shopping Day or Buy Nothing Day – a day in which we’re asked to buy absolutely nothing.
A few weeks ago, I went to one of my homes away from home, “K-Mart.” I was able to scan my purchases and pay my money without the aid of anyone until I did something the computer didn’t like. I haven’t yet made into the home-shopping network, but something tells me, I am heading down that pathway, too. More and more we are drawn into the consumerism culture when we value ourselves by placing our self-worth based upon our net-worth. We think the more stuff we have the happier we will be.
Jesus makes a radical demand. Jesus doesn’t offer a Plan B. He asks this rich man to sell all that he has and give to the poor. This man doesn’t really trust God. He wants to trust his pocketbook.
Peter reminds Jesus that, unlike this rich, grieving ruler, “Behold, we have left everything and followed you” (10:28).
READ 10:29-31.
To surrender your family because of your faith is to become part of a greater family, not based on biological kinship. The story is a story that calls us to generosity. It calls us not to use our wealth to serve ourselves. In reality, we are owners of nothing. We are stewards of God’s world.
You give that we, too, might give out food and clothing to the distribution centers around town to those who are in need. You give that we, too, might be able to give so we can send over 5,000 missionaries around the world to tell others about Jesus. You give that we, too, might give to the Crisis Pregnancy Center to help a bewildered pregnant teen who is tottering on the fence between abortion and adoption. You give that we, too, might give to have hospitals for those who are sick and in need of healing. You give that we, too, can support orphanages, support children’s homes such as Buckners.
When you tithe to our church, the list of ministries is almost endless – supporting everything from sending seminary students around the country to share Christ with those churches who can’t afford an evangelist to providing money for new church starts
in other languages right here in our county.
When you read the radical demand of Jesus to the rich young ruler, and when you think about so many Americans who are so caught up in consumerism, trying to compete and have what others have, when you realize that instead of tithing 10 percent to their church, the average Christian only gives about 2 percent, you realize that while some of you are radically generous to your church, there are many others who are radically stingy and self-centered. Sacrifice in tithes is not even in our vocabulary. We’ll let others pay for the ministries while we buy things for ourselves.
Chuck Swindoll tells about an unusual occurrence that happened to one of his close friends. His colleague had traveled across the country for a series of meetings, but his luggage did not arrive in the same place. Knowing that he needed some suits quickly and economically, he went to the local thrift shop. He was pleased to find exactly what he wanted, a couple of dark suits. The salesman informed him that these particular suits had been cleaned and pressed, but some people didn’t want them because they came form the funeral home. It wasn’t a problem for this minister, so he bought a couple of suits for just $25. What a bargain. When he returned to his hotel room, he started dressing for the meeting, and he discovered there were no pockets in these suits. It then dawned on him that dead men don’t need any pockets, because they can’t carry a single thing with them. (Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, 1987, p. 158)
In like fashion, Jesus causes us to see life from not a temporal, but rather an eternal perspective. We too, must answer the radical call to discipleship.
