A very wealthy man came to his vicar and said, “Father, I’m having a problem with this tithing thing. You see I made £500,000 dollars last year. If I gave 10% then I’d have to give….”
No - before I finish that anecdote - lets do a poll- would you rather be very rich or very poor
- hands up for very rich ?
-hands up for very poor?
[now take some answers from people about why they chose the option they chose. If no one chose very poor, take some answers about why…]
Now let me tell you the story about Frenchie (that’s not normally how we translate his name, but I think its a better translation). Frenchie’s real name was Giovanni -but back in the day, a long time ago he lived in Italy. His dad was in the import export business bringing luxury goods in from France, so he gave his son the nickname Frenchie to celebrate how selling these French goods had made their family so comfortable - well maybe “comfortable” is an understatement. Frenchie and his dad were VERY well off- just what you guys who put up your hands for “very rich” wanted to be.
Now like many trust fund kids, Frenchie was a bit of a party animal. But every now and again Frenchie would go to church. And one day he hears them reading the Gospel we just read today.
(Mark 10:17-23) As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ 20He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’
When Frenchie heard this, it hit him in here [pointing to chest]. He knew there were lots of folks in the town who were not as well off as he was. In fact there were a fair number of homeless and unemployed folks in the town who were really struggling- so Frenchie began giving them - clothes from his dad’s wardrobe (well who needs that many clothes?); food; “well these jewels lying around no one ever wears them, perhaps I could sell them and give that money away”.
Frenchie’s dad kept telling him to stop. But Frenchie kept giving more away. The more his dad told him to stop, the more he gave away.
Eventually Frenchie’s dad thinks “Enough is enough”. He hauls Frenchie out in front on the local priest in the town square and says to him: “How dare you treat me like this! The bible says “honour your father and mother”. I have fed you. I clothed you. I paid for those very clothes on your back. If you don’t stop throwing these things away - I am going to disinherit you! Cut you off!”
To which Frenchie replies: “Yes Father, the bible does say “Honour your father and mother”. But it also says “One thing you lack. Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ Yes Father - you paid for those clothes on my back…”
…and there and then, Frenchie {miming it} pulls his fancy gear off and throws them at his father’s feet - until he standing there in the town square, everyone looking, butt naked. Luckily the priest, ever prepared, has an old garment made of the cheapest sackcloth {miming it} that he covers Frenchie with.
And that was how Frenchie - or in Italian Francisco - or as we would usually say - St Francis of Assisi gave away every thing he had to embrace a life of Gospel poverty and come follow Jesus.
Now - how would you feel if you were St Francis’s dad?
“Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘One thing you lack…’” - Is that really what Jesus meant? Is that really what Jesus wants us to do?
A very wealthy man came to his vicar and said, “Father, I’m having a problem with this tithing thing. You see I made £500,000 dollars last year. If I gave 10% then I’d have to give…. £50,000! I can’t do that!”
Perhaps you are feeling a bit… discombobulated? A bit “surely Jesus can’t really meant that”. The disciples certainly felt like that -
(Mark10:23-27)
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It 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.’ 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
I mean take this example -
In the 18th century a vicar would earn about £30 a year. That was what John Wesley earnt at the start of his ministry. Not rich, not poor. You know John Wesley? The great preacher who saw how cut off working class people were from Church, so he went to the factory gates preaching God’s love. He’d get up early, go to one factory and preach as the people went into work. Then he would ride on to the next factory, and preach as they came how to lunch, then he would ride on to the third place, and preach as they finished at the end of the day. And thousands heard his message. Well he would publish those sermons - and people paid to buy them. By the end of his life he was a very rich man. By the end of his life he was earning not £30 but £1,400. The equivalent of over a million pounds a year. Just from his sermons going viral. Surely that is a sign of God’s blessing?
That’s the attitude that the disciples had when they heard Jesus - if people are rich, surely it is a sign of God’s blessing.
Any one every been to a certain type of Pentecostal Church (or watched on You Tube) where they preach “Health and Wealth” - Where they tell you that God wants to bless you - and that if you have enough faith you too will be a millionaire?
Well that was roughly the attitude the disciples had. if people are rich, surely it is a sign of God’s blessing. If even the people who have been blessed so much by God are going to struggle to get into the kingdom of heaven, - if its harder for them than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, then who can be saved?
Well I guess it’s probably all right it you don’t think you are rich…
Who here thinks they are rich?
The average salary in the UK is £29,669.
So maybe you are thinking “I’m not that rich”
My church has a link with a church in Mozambique - St Andrew’s Chigoma. I have had the privilege of going out to visit them a couple of times.
The average salary in Mozambique is not £29,000. Its not even £1,000.
The average salary in Mozambique (and don’t forget there are people who earn less than average) is £367 a year.
Now is there anyone here who dares say they are not rich?
"‘Children, how hard it is 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.’"
How are you feeling now?
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Lets give the second of four possible takes on this. That of St Dominic, who lived at roughly the same time as Francis of Assisi. But him and Frenchie had subtly different attitudes.
Dominic was a French high flying monk who was sent by his bishop on a diplomatic mission to Scandinavia. On the way home he was travelling through Provence in southern France. He stops one night in a tavern, and as he is having his beer he gets chatting to the Inn Keeper - and discovers that him and most of his village are not Christians. They follow a blend of Eastern religion, paganism and Christianity called Catharism. Well Dominic, naturally, spends all night drinking beer and telling this man about Jesus’s love.
Dominic begins to realise that in the whole of this area most people are not Christians, they are Cathars. And Dominic feels a call to preach the Gospel there.
The Church has pretty much given up on the area. Oh the bishops had sent “papal legates” - important priests who travel around carried in litters clothed in fine robes. And they would stop and take services - and wonder why no one attended.
Now personally I think being in a bumpy litter [mime it] would be incredibly uncomfortable. But at the time it was the height of luxury. This in an area where people were dirt poor. So the people related more to the Cathar preachers who lived simple lives.
Dominic reflected on Philipians 2:5-8
5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
He realised that if he was to preach the Good News to the Cathars, he needed like Jesus to empty himself of power, privilege and wealth and live a simple life.
Dominic was NOT naively like Francis suggesting that being poor was a good thing. Being poor sucked. Our Old Testament reading today from Amos criticises the rich “because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain,” (Amos 5:10). Well that only makes sense if being poor is a bad thing - if being poor was wonderful, great, lets be nice to people by making them poorer. But no obviously not - Amos and all the Old Testament are quite clearer that making the poor poorer is a terrible thing. Our Lady in her song the Magnificat (luke 1:46-55) speaks of how God will “fill the hungry with good things”.
So St Dominic doesn’t idolise poverty - but he does recognise that if he is called to live amongst the poorest of the poor then he needs to identify with them by living like them.
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What of a third take - other than St Francis or St Dominic.
28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ 29Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’ (Mark 10:28-31)
How could it be that Peter and the other disciples could leave everything and yet end up with more? What is the meaning of this paradox?
I’m about to move house - so this week I took three bags of clothes, books etc to the charity shop. Yet as I looked around the house from which I took those bags - well the kitchen table and the sofas in my study were given to me by a Christian friend when I moved into my first house twenty one years ago. In my new house I have a leather sofa and three very nice bookshelves given to me by people on the Freecycle website. Now yes I do have other furniture items that I have bought or which were given to me by my mum - but at times of my life that I really couldn’t afford stuff - people shared with me. And as I move out of my house too, the bits of furniture I no longer need I shall be sharing with other people. (In fact if you know of anyone who is in need for various pieces of furniture - please do put them in touch with me).
I talked of the privilege of visiting the Church in Mozambique (as well as in Kwa Zulu Natal, Zanzibar, and Sierra Leone). In each of these places I learnt the importance of bringing gifts to thank people for the immense hospitality that they would show me. We in Britain are not as good at showing hospitality as our Christian sisters and brothers in the two thirds world are. We are put to shame.
Yet read the book of Acts and that was the experience of Peter and Paul. They would travel around preaching the Gospel - and people would put them up. ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children,” - If Peter and Paul had to pay to rent a house everywhere they stayed on their travels the Gospel would never have spread.
I remember a preacher saying that sometimes churches complain that they don’t have much money - but the problem is that they do have money but it is stuck in their members wallets. Well there is too much of an uncomfortable truth in that for me not to feel challenged by that.
Yet I also see huge signs of encouragement. Your church and mine have something in common - in that we both host branches of the Ealing Food Bank. You are on Wednesday 12 til 2, we are on Tuesday. People in this country can be struggling - but they are not starving - because of the generosity of people like you. The food bank shares food - given by lots of people but particularly by people in churches. It goes to a central depot in a church in Hanwell. Then each day of the week food is taken out to a different church in a different part of the borough so people can access the food. The churches are of all different denominations - Anglicans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics. Each branch is run by volunteers (I think there is one paid person in all the food banks across Ealing) - not all those volunteers are Christians but a disproportionate number are. The people coming however are not - they come from every possible background - atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, nothings - any in need: we feed.
I remember having an argument with someone about books. Their view was if they had read it they didn’t want to lend it out because what if the person never returned it and they wanted to read it again and it was not there. My view was - well I have read the book. The reason I am not throwing it away is because someone else might enjoy it - so I will lend it to them. And if they don’t return it and I want to read it again - well I can always buy another copy!
A U.S. Congressman named Bob McCune, told the story of the time when he took his kids out to eat at a local fast-food restaurant. As he they sat down to eat, Bob smelled the fries in front of one of his sons - and reached over to get one.
To his surprise, the young boy grabbed his dad’s hand, pushed it back, and exclaimed, "Dad, Dad, don’t take my fries!" McCune was stunned. He sat in front of his son in silence and wondered, "What happened?"
Then the meaning of this "teachable moment" hit him. He thought, "My son doesn’t know where those fries came from. He doesn’t realize that about five minutes ago I went to the counter, put my hand in my pocket, pulled out the money and bought those fries for him. I am the source of those fries.
My son doesn’t understand that, if I wanted to, I could take those fries away from him.
He doesn’t know that I don’t even need his fries; if I wanted to, I could go over to the counter and buy my own.
He doesn’t realize that, if I wanted to, I could go over to the counter and buy a dozen orders and cover him with fries.
What I really wanted from my son was his willingness to share w/ me what I’d already given him” (1)
As King David prays in 1 Chronicles 29:14 “For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.”
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And a fourth take on wealth:
I mentioned how John Wesley, the great evangelist towards the end of his life earnt £1,400 a year - the equivalent of over a million pounds a year.
Wesley’s first rule about money was Gain all you can. Despite its potential for misuse, money in itself is something good. There is no end to the good it can do: “In the hands of [God’s] children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked. it gives to the traveler and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain. It may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame: yea, a lifter up from the gates of death!”
Now that sounds a justification for extreme wealth.
But it wasn’t just “gain as much as you can” - his full teaching was “gain as much as you can, save as much as you can, give as much as you can”
How much money do you think John Wesley gave away? [take answers]
In 1731 Wesley began to limit his expenses so that he would have more money to give away. That year he earnt £30, lived on £28 and gave away £2.The next year his income doubled, but he still managed to live on 28 pounds, so he had 32 pounds to give to the poor. In the third year, his income jumped to 90 pounds. Instead of letting his expenses rise with his income, he kept them to 28 pounds and gave away 62 pounds. Eventually his income was a little over 1400 pounds. He allowed himself a little luxury - or maybe inflation - he lived on a whole 30 pounds… and gave away nearly 1400 pounds!
In the first year - he didn’t even tithe - just £2 out of £30. But by the last year he was giving away an astronomical figure. (2)
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Those four takes -
- Frenchie - Francis of Assisi - chucking his clothes at his dads feet and embracing “go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’
- St Dominic mimicking Philipians 2 and Jesus’s emptying of himself of his heavenly riches in order to identify with the people he was preaching to.
- The call to share radically - that like the promise to Peter all may “receive a hundredfold now in this age”
- Or John Wesley- Gain as much as you can, save as much as you can and give as much as you can.
Which of those four takes makes you the most uncomfortable? Which challenges you the most? What is God saying to you today [long pause to let them hear God]
I cited before the preacher saying that sometimes churches complain that they don’t have much money - but the problem is that they do have money but it is stuck in their members wallets. Its hard for vicar’s to talk about money - after all effectively your are paying them- but I’m not a vicar - I am a guest preacher!
A very wealthy man came to his vicar and said, “Father, I’m having a problem with this tithing thing. You see I made £500,000 dollars last year. If I gave 10% then I’d have to give £50,000. I can’t do that.” And the vicar took him aside and said, “would you pray with me, “Dear Lord please reduce this man’s income so that he can afford to give.”” Amen [3]
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(1)Illustration taken from another sermon on this site - source mislaid
(2) https://www.eaforchristians.org/blog/john-wesley-the-use-of-money-12#:~:text=He%20lived%20on%2030%20pounds,given%20them%20money%20to%20aid
(3) from a sermon on this site by Ken Kersten
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