Monday, March 9, 2015
Today’s Scripture: Matthew 19:16-26
“Again I tell you, 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.… But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’" (Matt. 19:24, 26)
“One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give, and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. Now, quite plainly natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. “Why drag God into it?” you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex or dipsomania or nervousness or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap, and between ourselves, you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing, and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognize their need for Christ at all until one day, the natural goodness lets them down, and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are rich in this sense to enter the kingdom.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
When we think about Jesus' teachings, parables, sermons and prayers, we hazily assume that Jesus spent most of his time talking about God, love and salvation. Two subjects dominated Jesus’ teachings most often; the kingdom of God and money.
In His preaching, Jesus regularly invited people to receive and enter the kingdom of God, he asked them to open their lives to the ruling and reign of God. It is important to notice whom He invited, Jesus invited everyone. He did not restrict the invitation to the respectable people, or the religious, or the wealthy or powerful. In Jesus’ day, as well as with many today, wealth and power were often thought to be signs of God’s blessing. Jesus invited everyone without distinction, but he also knew that many would allow other distractions, wealth, attachments, addictions, power, and etc. prevent them from accepting the invitation.
Jesus revealed to the rich young man the heart of his distractions. His "possessions" blocked his entry into the kingdom and blocked his way to genuine discipleship. After the rich young man left the scene, Jesus told his disciples, “that it is more difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” (Matt. 19:24). Jesus did not say it would be impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom, only that their attachment to their wealth would increase the difficulty. Instead of relying upon their own efforts and their stuff to make good things happen in their lives, they needed to trust in what God could do, “because nothing was impossible for God.” He said that the tax-collectors and prostitutes would go into the kingdom before the moral and religious people (Matt. 21:31). The reason was that the least in the world had less to give up and more to gain, by trusting in God’s invitation and they recognized how God’s grace would make what seemed impossible possible. In brief, God is very gracious and loving toward all people, and His kingdom is offered to everyone.
When I was in college in 1972, I had the opportunity to spend a week with Millard Fuller before he founded Habitat for Humanity. Fuller was a living example of the rich young man who responded positively to Jesus’ invitation. I heard him share this story personally, which was later written about in Christianity Today. Millard Fuller was a successful lawyer and businessman, but his life was falling apart and his wife had left him. Fuller followed his estranged wife Linda to New York to try to convince her to come back to him. She was not easily convinced that he could turn back from his headlong rush for material wealth.
Millard recalls: "We were in a taxi right after Linda and I had a very tearful session. We'd gone to Radio City Music Hall and they showed the movie “Never Too Late”. It was about a woman's getting pregnant after she thought it was too late. The message was that it's never too late to change anything. I had a sensation of light in that taxi. It was not anything spooky. All I can say is it just came into my head: Give your money away, make yourself poor again and throw yourself on God's mercy. I turned to Linda and said, 'I believe that God just gave me the idea to give all our money away; give everything away.' "She said, 'I agree. Let's do it.'"
Friends, family, even pastors tried to talk them out of it. "I told them no, if I think about it I won't do it, because it's not logical. But I believe that God is calling us to do this." For the rest of his life, Fuller only accepted a salary sufficient to meet his living expenses. - Michael G. Maudlin, "God's Contractor," Christianity Today, June 14, 1999, 46.
"How hard is it for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God?" Jesus is basically saying, only as hard as we want to make it, it is not possible simply based on our own efforts. You can’t buy your way into the Kingdom, you can’t enter on your own efforts. You may have to give up something you prize to enter the kingdom, to give up your wealth, addiction, greed, lust, or attachments. The man who discovered the pearl or the hidden treasure sold everything to claim the prize of the kingdom.
Having material possessions is not the source of damnation. The problem is not in the having; it's in the obsessing, coveting or hoarding that often accompanies the attainment of wealth. If we put our possessions and attachments at the forefront of our lives, then, indeed, we'll have a hard time entering the kingdom. We'll have little time for anything other than the vicious cycle of gaining and maintaining wealth and status. Our entry in the kingdom is based on what God has done for us, not on our own achievements in life. “When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:25-26)
Today’s Lectionary Readings
Morning: Psalms 119:73–80; 145
Evening: Psalms 121; 6
Jeremiah 7:1–15
Romans 4:1–12
John 7:14–36
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