Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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He blew it. What can we say? He blew the chance of a lifetime (indeed, of a hundred lifetimes!) to be a disciple of Jesus Christ -- to be venerated by millions, to have his face up in frescos, or mosaics, or stained glass in a thousand cathedrals, to have his name recited by children, to be painted by the great masters. He missed it by a hair's breadth.

He is a good and sincere man. He comes to Jesus and says the magic word: "How do I inherit eternal life?" He's in the right place, standing in the right line. Jesus is, after all, the author of everlasting life. And he hears the Master say, "It's no secret. Keep the Commandments Moses gave you. You know them. Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't defraud. Honor your mom and dad.

"I've done them all," says the man. (And, apparently, he had. For Jesus who reads so well the hearts of men, accepts his assertion, looks at him, and -- we are told -- loves him.) "I want you to be a follower of mine. Go wrap up the details. Sell your stuff and give away the money. (You won't need it. With me, you'll have treasures untold.) And meet me back here. But now this good man balks. No one had told him that poverty was a job requirement. Fact is, Mark says, he had a lot of stuff. And he walks away, grieving.

Jesus turns to his friends and says, "It really is hard for a rich person to get into heaven. Like trying to squeeze a camel through a needle's eye." And they are dumbstruck, for they had always been taught that wealth was a sign of God's favor. "Well, if that's the case," they ask, "who can get in?" We, who are still dumbstruck by Jesus' words about the camel and the needle's eye, who live in the wealthiest nation on earth, where even the poor are rich, also ask, "Who can get in? Can we?

Tevia, in Fiddler on the Roof, reasoning aloud with God about his wretched life, as he often does, concludes in his famous monologue, "It's no disgrace to be poor. Of course, it's not exactly an honor, either." Our class-conscious world, dwells too much on rich verses poor, "haves" verses "have-nots". Sometimes we even put Jesus in the middle of the argument: making him out to be some kind of proletarian revolutionary, which he was not. Jesus understood Tevya's truth: that poverty and wealth, in and of themselves, are neither disgraceful nor honorable. But, I think he would add, both (poverty and wealth) can have terrible consequences for the health of one's soul. It is far too simple to say Jesus loved the poor and hated the rich. His ministry and his healings were directed to rich and poor alike, and most of his disciples (as far as we can tell) were middle class. (Speaking from personal experience, I have know some wonderful, faithful people who were poor and some who were quite wealthy, too. And I've known some lousy people in both groups.) The bottom line for Jesus is not what's in a man's pocket but what's in his heart. O.K. But hold on. There were some practical concerns regarding wealth, and Jesus worried about them and warned us about them.

First, it is all too easy, he said, for people (rich or poor) to put too much trust, too much hope, in riches. In the Parable of the Rich Fool, Jesus tells about a man who squirrels away tons of things in numerous storehouses, and that makes him feel secure. But then he dies what the life insurance salesman calls "an untimely death". "Thou fool," God says. "Tonight thy life is required of Thee." And how can his riches help him now? We say, "You can't take it with you." The Scandinavians say it better: "There are no pockets in shrouds."

This danger, this spiritual snare, that one might put ultimate trust in worldly possessions (instead of in God, you understand), bedevils the poor as well as the rich. It is easy for a poor man to believe that, if only he had a new car or a thousand dollars in the bank, his problems would be over. Wealthy people, at least, know better than that. The so-called self-made-man often ends up a tragic figure because of this. We know the classic story. Raised in poverty, he goes to school, studies hard, works day and night, accumulates a lot of money (which, as a boy, he thought would solve his problems), only to discover in the end that his life is empty, only to learn that there are many kinds of poverty and many kinds of wealth. The money genie, when finally coaxed out of the bottle, did not grant his wishes. "What does it profit a man," Jesus asked, "if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" So, the first concern Jesus had about money was than we would expect of it what it cannot deliver -- happiness and eternal life.

The second practical consideration about money (which Jesus mentions, in one form or another, many times), is the one which, I suspect, is being addressed here, in this story, about the almost-disciple. Wealth and worldly success (while not evil in themselves) can be a fatal a distraction. The obligations and entanglements of wealth -- caring for one's money and one's property, overseeing the farm, so to speak -- can very easily occupy our entire lives, consuming every waking moment, and preventing us from considering the call of Jesus. We haven't time for him. When he calls, we put him on hold. An astute psychologist might suggest that we use busyness to avoid facing what is painful. ("When my wife died," the man said, "I just lost myself in my work." We often advise someone who is distraught, "Keep busy." It helps to keep our minds off negative things.) But strategies like this, which are good for getting us over humps, are not necessarily good strategies for all of life. If our money, or our possessions (or our striving after these things) make us too busy to seek God, then we must give them up.

I'd rather have Jesus than silver and gold,

I'd rather have Jesus than riches untold.

And that leads to one more teaching on money. Jesus seems less interested in what we have or don't have than in what we are willing to give up. There is a huge difference between being poor and having no choice, and choosing to be poor, which is what distinguishes the followers of Jesus. St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day was celebrated this week, even as they were repairing his basilica, after the earthquake) -- St. . Francis was born into a wealthy family. His father was a textile merchant. So the first thing he did, when he came to himself in faith, was to take off the expensive, fancy clothes his family had always enjoyed, and go about half naked (scandalizing his mother and father). He did that not as a symbol against wealth itself, but as a symbol that such vain things were utterly unnecessary for a Christian, and are a distraction to one who wants to live as Christ. (You know. All those trips to the dry cleaners.) Francis found a little chapel in the countryside, abandoned and broken down with age, and began to repair it, one stone at a time. (He whose family had worshipped in the finest cathedrals.) He did it, again, not as a symbol against wealth but as a symbol that even the church could be distracted by riches -- as, indeed, it was in his day. His friends and neighbors mocked him, but gradually (one by one) other men heard what he was doing and joined him. Out of his single-mindedness grew the Franciscan order, probably the most effective reform movement in the history of the church.

It's not that you can't be rich and still be a disciple of Christ. It's just that it doesn't usually work out. Either we put too much faith in wealth (like the Rich Fool), or we become preoccupied by it -- caring for all that stuff. Either way, we lose.

Mark tells us that the man went away grieving. Not angry, that Jesus should make such an unreasonable demand, but spiritually crushed because he hadn't the courage to take the plunge. He had failed the test. And so have we.

We have been lured by television, by Hollywood, by the materialistic philosophies of our time, by our own greedy hearts, into believing that wealth will save us and make us happy. It is a moral trap. Wealth is powerless against our twin enemies (the only two things that can hurt us): sin and death. And seeking wealth with passion, or clinging to it with tenacity, can keep us from finding Him who makes us victors over both sin and death.