“Being Christ in Our Community: It’s About Falling in Love”
Luke 18:18-27
In his book, “Don’t Waste Your Life,” John Piper writes:
“I will tell you what a tragedy is.
Consider a story from Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51.
Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.’
Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’”
Piper ends it with this: “People today are spending billions of dollars to embrace that tragic dream.
Over and against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.”
Our Gospel Lesson for this morning is a difficult one for most of us, I would imagine.
I know it is difficult for me.
One of the reasons is that although many of us might not consider ourselves rich, compared to 99 percent of history’s human population or even compared to the vast majority of folks in the world today—we are rich indeed.
And in any case, none of us have to be rich in order to covet or idolize money and possessions.
It’s our love for wealth, not the amount of wealth we actually have that starves our souls… and our culture encourages this kind of love for wealth.
Do you know that the root of the word “culture” is the Latin word “cultus”—which is a system of religious worship?
So, the culture we live in worships wealth and the pursuit of it.
That’s not the whole story, to be sure, but it is a large part of it.
So, what are we to do with such a radical message like the one we are faced with this morning?
We can become very sad and walk away, because we are people of great wealth or at least people who desire great wealth.
Or we can seek to “Follow Jesus”…believing that “What is impossible for people is possible with God.”
In his book, “Streams of Living Water,” Richard Foster writes: “The Christian life comes not by gritting our teeth but by falling in love.”
Remember that last week we talked about Jesus’ Mission Statement as it is found in Luke Chapter 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
So, we have this Rich Young Ruler who comes running up to Jesus.
He asks Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus answers: “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
All three synoptic Gospels record this event: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In Mark’s Gospel it says that Jesus “looked at the man and loved him.”
In other words, what Jesus calls the man to do is not some punishment.
It’s not a judgment.
It is a message of love.
Jesus is inviting the man, out of love, to unload his burden, to give away his wealth, to free himself from that which binds him, imprisons him and keeps him from what his heart truly desires—a living and loving relationship with God and people.
It is the greatest challenge this man has ever faced; it is the hard truth that his money is in the way of that which he seeks.
His possessions are obstacles to eternal life.
His wealth is in the way of him falling, head over heals, in love with the One Who loves him.
Can you relate?
I can.
But when we let loose our grip on materialism and allow ourselves to, instead, fall in love with God and our neighbors—we come to life.
We enter the Kingdom.
And, once we do, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
In his book “How Much is Enough?,” Arthur Simon founder of the Christian Movement—Bread for the World writes about his own struggles to follow Jesus.
As a young Lutheran minister advocating for justice on behalf of hungry people he says that the poverty he has seen over many years has caused him great anguish.
He also writes that he has sensed “a connection between empty stomachs on one side of a city and empty lives on the other side.”
He also struggled with his own commitments and spending habits, and he writes: “I continue to struggle, learning as I go.
And each follower of Jesus faces this challenge.
To serve money is to turn away from God.
To serve God is to reject the accumulation of wealth and become recipients of a totally unmerited love, a love that enables us to let go of anything which we are captive to and follow Christ.”
Yes.
Love is the key—the love of God taking ahold of us in such a way that to spend ridiculous sums of money on ourselves while others are starving in the streets turns our stomachs and breaks our hearts.
I was once riding through a crazy-rich neighborhood with a colleague, mentor and friend.
I pointed to one mansion, “Isn’t that beautiful?” I asked—expecting an “Ooh and an Ahhh” from him.
Instead, I was surprised to hear him say, “No. I think it is the saddest thing I have ever seen.
It drips of greed and selfishness.
It’s disgusting.”
In our affluent “culture” or “cult” it is easy to forget what Christianity is really about.
The early Christians knew who they were.
They stood out among the other people for proclaiming that a young Jewish Rabbi Who had been executed in Jerusalem was the Son of God.
They believed that through faith and baptism they had already died to sin with Christ and had risen with Him to a new and eternal life.
Jesus was now their life.
And to live was to live for the glory of God—not themselves.
To live for self was to put self at the center of things, where God alone belongs.
The early Christians, who are now in heaven cheering us on, remind us about who we are.
And being reminded of who we are causes us to remember Whose we are, and in remembering Whose we are we are empowered to follow Christ.
What does that mean for you and for me—to live for the Son of God Who loves us and gave Himself for us?
How should you—how should I take up the cross and follow Jesus?
And what is standing in the way—that I must get rid of--in order to truly follow Him?
Rob Marsh is a highly decorated Army Physician.
Instead of accepting a high paying job at a medical practice, he and his wife moved with their children to an area of rural Virginia that had no doctor.
“He goes where the need is greatest,” says a colleague.
As an elder in his Presbyterian Church, he travels over gravel roads in a pickup truck to make house calls and refuses to send his patients bills.
But they aren’t just patients to Marsh.
He considers them friends, so he gets involved in all aspects of their lives.
“I feel like that’s why I was saved, to come back here and do this,” says Marsh.
“This is my calling.”
What a calling.
What a witness.
What a way to live one’s life, rather than waste it.
Our focus here at Red Bank United Methodist Church is “Being Christ to our Community.”
As I mentioned last week, I am preaching a series of sermons about this subject this month—as our stewardship series.
As most of you are aware, we are privileged to have (from what I have witnessed) the most impressive after-school program of all the churches in this area.
Each weekday, middle school kids from our community are bused over or walk to this church in order to be taken care of, loved by and mentored by YOU!!!
At least fifteen or twenty children from Safe House stay for the Wednesday night dinners.
And beginning this Wednesday night, they will be coming to The Fountain Healing Service every week at 6:30 p.m.
For many of them, this is the first time they have experienced a worship service.
They responded to it so well a few weeks ago that we decided to make it a regular thing for them.
I encourage you, as fellow Christ followers, to come to the Wednesday night dinners and worship service—if nothing else—as a way to be in solidarity with these young people from our community whom God has so graciously entrusted to our care, to mentor them, to be their elders—their mothers and fathers—so to speak in Christ.
It really is THE LEAST we can do.
It’s also one of the most important things we can do.
This church will not exist in ten years if we are not willing to step out of our personal comfort zones—if we are not Christ to this Community which God has given to our care.
It’s sort of like the parable of the talents, when you think about it—let’s not be the servant who buried them.
What a horrible shame that would be.
Jordan Bailey, our new Director of Music and Worship Arts, has been working hard with the kids at Safe House.
And Jordan is offering free music lessons to the kids who come to our after-school program.
That’s an amazing opportunity for these kids who might not otherwise ever have the chance to take private lessons.
It is an experience they will never forget and it could change the course of their lives.
In any event, in order to do this, we need guitars and key boards and other instruments.
Recently, my daughter Mary Ellen decided that she wanted to take guitar lessons.
Do you know Clair and I have 3 guitars sitting in our house that we haven’t used in over ten years?
They are just collecting dust.
Mary Ellen had her pick.
I’d imagine many of you are in the same situation.
Do you have instruments in your attics, garages, closets that are just collecting dust?
If so, please speak to Jordan after today’s worship service.
They can be used mightily to help the next generation experience the joy of being able to play a musical instrument.
Life in the Kingdom of God is about transformation and character change.
It’s radical.
It requires not just an hour of our week—it requires our all.
We must fall in love with Jesus in such a way that we are not willing that anything—not even great wealth—will get in our way of living in His Kingdom.
And if it is getting in the way—we must give it all away!!!
The Gospel is that radical and following Christ is that counter-cultural.
It’s easy to forget in our materialistic cult…ure.
Remember, the rich young ruler went away very sad because he was a man of great wealth.
Watching him go, Jesus said: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Although, some medieval interpreters taught—and some folks still do—that a constricted gate into Jerusalem was called the ‘eye of the needle’ this has no basis in fact.
Jesus was talking about a real camel—hump and all—going through the eye of a real needle.
In other words—it is impossible.
And so, we might want to cry out with the disciples in our Gospel Lesson for this morning: “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus’ answer?
“What is impossible for people is possible with God.”
And here lies our hope.
It’s possible with God.
It’s possible with God.
Do you believe this?
In not, ask Him for this faith.
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
It is possible, with God.
Praise God.
Amen.
