Trying To Thread The Eye Of A Needle

Whenever this text comes up I always feel that it is the preacher’s job to thread the eye of needle.

On the one hand, we have to encourage people to give.

And at the same time not offend anyone, or make anyone feel guilty.

Perhaps Jesus should have said, “It easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle then to preach a good sermon about money.”

But here we are again.

And I feel compelled to talk about money.

You may not know this but money is something Jesus talks about more than any other subject, except the kingdom of God.

More than sex, politics, love, marriage, prayer, faith, heaven, hell, or anything else.

It would be impossible for me to avoid it.

So this morning we are going to talk about money again.

Let us hope I can thread the eye of a needle.

When we hear this story what do we hear?

Often we hear judgment and condemnation.

What we hear is I haven’t done enough, I have not done what Jesus asked.

Certainly I have not done what Jesus asks in this passage which is to sell everything and give it to the poor.

Like last week text about divorce we hear Jesus telling us that we better give all our money away or else.

But a careful reading of the text I think gives a different impression.

It starts with a young man who wants to know, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Think about that question for a second.

You cannot earn something that is inherited.

An inheritance by definition is something someone else earned and gave to you.

The young man’s premise is all off.

Eternal life is a gift only God can give.

Jesus knows this and that is why he tells his disciples.

“For mortals it is impossible, but not for God.”

If you want to work at getting eternal life the demands will be too much.

None of us in this room is going to sell everything they have and give it to the poor.

Yet, we all know through faith that God loves us enough to give us eternal life.

We cannot work to get eternal life.

We simply inherit it, and it is a gift really earned by someone else.

But I think there is something even more profound about this discussion that Jesus has with this young man.

We are told that Jesus “loved him”.

It is out of love that Jesus tells him to sell everything that he has and give it to the poor.

It is not because Jesus is trying to be spiteful or trying to make the young man feel bad.

Jesus loves this young man so much that he wants to help him.

Jesus wants him to have the full life that he is seeking.

And that full life is not about just half of who we are; it is about everything that we are.

And God cares about our entire being.

God cares about our material being as well as our spiritual.

In fact, the two in Jesus mind are connected.

We try very hard to put our life into categories.

I am at work now.

I am at home now.

I am on vacation now.

Now I am doing a religious thing.

And so we compartmentalize things.

But our life is really about wholeness.

And so our faith life cannot be divorced from our regular life.

That is part of what Jesus is trying to convey to the young man.

But remember it is not out of spite but love that Jesus says this.

You see we hear the text all the wrong ways.

We hear judgment and demand, and what Jesus meant was invitation.

What we hear is, “You should be giving more to the church.”

But what Jesus is saying is, “Follow me and give up your life.”

And those words are spoken in love.

The reason Jesus talks so much about money is because it is often the stumbling block to a full life and a full relationship with God.

Money becomes the reason to or not do something.

I see this many times.

Well, we could do that but we don’t have the money.

I am not talking about buying things but doing things that can really impact on people’s lives.

I would love to help other people but I just don’t have the money is not a good enough reason.

My friend’s dad told me that he had a pastor who would say to his congregation.

On such and such a day I am going to give my money sermon so feel free not to come on that Sunday.

He suggested that this was a great way to handle the money sermon.

I think if I did that I would be doing you all a great disservice spiritually.

I would be robbing you of the invitation that Jesus makes to us all to give our money out of our own need to give.

I would be robbing you of the wholeness that we truly seek.

There was a humorous cartoon once in which a preacher was about to baptize a man.

In the first frame the preacher said,  

“Remember, Bob, everything that goes under this water belongs to God.”

In the next frame as  Bob is being baptized he’s holding up his clenched fist with his wallet.

This is sometimes how we compartmentalize things.
God you can everything except my wallet.

I think people don’t like sermons about money because they have come across as the Church saying I only want your wallet.

The truth is we give because we want to, we need to.

Jesus loves this young man and wants to help him understand that God desires all of us.

But even when we give all we have that does not earn us favor.

The favor is already given.

God loves you if you give nothing.

Our giving is our response to what God gave us.

It is the response to the gift.

There are some theologies out there that tell people that what God wants is for you to be rich and successful.

Here is quote from the television preacher Joel Olsteen, “It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty.” 

That might sound great.

But it is not what Jesus is offering this morning.

Jesus is offering us full life where God is the center of our lives not our ability to earn money.

Jesus is offering us a life free from the demands of the have to haves.

I have to have this or that.

Instead, we are offered a freed life filled with I get to.

I get to give to others.

I get to give my money away, because I don’t have to anything.

I don’t have to keep up with joneses.

I get to live, isn’t that much more freeing.

I believe that the church has done a real disservice to people.

We have on the one hand made people feel guilty about what they give or don’t give.

And we have done nothing to help people live a life of abundance and thankfulness.

So this is not a stewardship sermon about giving more money to the Church.

This is a stewardship sermon about living the life we all want to live.

About being free to see our abundance and give out of it.

It is about living in the joy of knowing our blessings.

About not being judged for who we are, because others will judge you.

They will not like the way you dress, or what you buy.

But God loves the whole you the way you are.

Jesus loved the young man for his sincere desire to have a full relationship with God.

I know that all of you desire that same relationship.

And my message is simple, you don’t have to do anything God loves you now for who you are, and because of that you get to give in joy.

I hope this morning I have threaded the eye of the needle.

So that you all feel free and not judged to live in God’s love and give freely.

Amen

The Gift of Family!

Often times I feel that the Holy Spirit is really just leading me to preach on certain things.

Today is a perfect example.

Our text for this morning is about marriage and children.

This weekend I spent most of my time on these two subjects.

I had the pleasure of presiding at the wedding of Elizabeth and Travis White.

And this morning we all have the honor and joy at being at the baptism of Taylor and Lesley White.

This morning our worship is about celebrating the gift of family.

The gift of two people who find each other, fall in love, and make vows before God and their loved ones to spend the rest of their lives together.

We celebrate as a community the joy we feel when one of God’s little ones, when one of his precious ones comes to the font to receive the gifts of mercy and love.

I have a theory that no one can be unhappy at worship on the day there is a baptism.

The moment is just too precious and wonderful.

In the marriage ceremony in our hymnal we say these words, “Because of sin, our age old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast, and the gift of family can become a burden.”

This is true.

The joy that we experience on our wedding day, the wonder and amazement that we celebrate today tends to fade.

We lose the blessing of things as life and its demands creep in.

We forget to tell our partners that they look nice and beautiful.

We forget to hold hands.

We forget that our children were given to us by God.

I know that on many occasions when my kids are not behaving properly I think about giving them back or away.

I am sure that my wife often thinks the same thing about me.

What are we to do?

How can we keep up our joy in knowing each other?

How do we continue to see the gift and blessing of our relationships?

I always aware when this text about marriage comes up for preaching of the wide variety of experiences people have had with marriage.

I am aware that there are people in our congregation that are divorced, that have never been married, that want to be married but are not, that have lost someone they love, that have been married for eighty years.

I think it is important to name all those things.

And it is important to say that not one of us is in a position to judge.

All of us fall short of the ideal.

All of us at some time or another have overlooked the gifts that God has given us.

I am married and plan to be married until I die, but that does not mean that I am always thrilled about it.

I do forget to see the gift and blessing.

So this morning there is no judgment from me.

I am in no position to judge someone else.

But I hope we all can search our own hearts, and that together we are able to offer words of repentance for the times when we are not our best in our marriages.

And not just in marriage but in all your close intimate relationships.

Judgment is often what we hear when we read these words of Jesus.

And this text is often used by some Christians to condemn others for not living up to an ideal.

But perhaps this morning we can see the more positive side of what Jesus is trying to say.

The argument Jesus is having with the religious leaders is about the intention of marriage.

What was it that God intended for us in our marriages.

If we go back to Genesis, to creation, what we see is that Adam was alone.

God realized that humans are not meant to be alone.

We are meant to live in community.

We are meant to be with other people.

God gave us each other for our joy and pleasure.

Again this is not so much about the institution of marriage, which was what the religious people were arguing about, as it is about God’s intention for us.

Out of love, as a gift, God gave us each other.

So every day we should be thankful that we have each other.

We should be thankful for the blessing of having someone in the world that cares about us.

That is what weddings are about.

Perhaps it is why people cry at weddings.

We are just overcome with emotion that two people have found love, commitment, and joy.

The same is true of Baptism.

It is not that baptism is just about the ritual.

It is what the ritual represents for us.

It is about God’s intention in the ritual.

It points to God’s love and care for us.

It says that in this crazy world, within the vastness of the universe, there is a God that cares deeply about our lives and who we are.

Jesus reminds us this morning of the wonder and amazement that can come when we can see this truth when we take in faith with the wonder and amazement of a little child.

Children see the world through different lenses than we do.

When Phoebe was little she used to ask me a million questions in a row.

It would go something like this.

“Daddy why is the sky blue.”

“Well, the sun interacts with the earth’s atmosphere to make the sky blue.”

“Why”

“Well, we need the sun to live.”

“Why?”

“Well, if we didn’t have the sun there would be no plants there would be no oxygen or nothing to eat.”

“Why?”

This would go on for awhile.

Eventually I would say, “Because God made it that way.”

“Oh..Thanks Daddy.”

What I loved abut it was that she was curious and that everything seemed to be a marvel.

That everything was a miracle.

That everyday presented itself as an open ended discovery of new and exciting things.

We lose that sometimes.

Instead of discovering new things about ourselves, our world, our partners, our kids we become set in our ways.

We formulate opinions that leave no room for discussion and change.

We become hardened to others.

Perhaps that is why Jesus commends the faith of a child, because it is not yet set in stone.

It is still open to the possibilities and miracles of life.

That is why we love a Baptism because we see in the little ones who come to the font as still discovering the mercy and love of God.

Today when Taylor and Lesly come to be washed in the waters of God’s love we will remember what it is like to be a child with the limitless possibilities of life stretched before us.

We will discover anew that faith that touches the deepest parts of our souls.

Jesus is always sending us back to the source.

The religious folks want to argue about obscure parts of the law.

“Is it lawful…”

Jesus on the other hand wants to remind us of what God has done for us.

God out of love gave us marriage and human community.

God out of love gave us children.

God out of love makes the sky blue. (I know there is science involved)

God out of love made this day for you.

Embrace it with all your heart.

Remember that today is a gift.

The people in your life are a gift.

Remember that God today has restored your joy and blessed you.

Amen.

Feels Like Hell!

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off;

It is better to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.”

I believe that hell does exist.

I can say this because I have seen it.

And at times in my life I have experienced it.

The word that Jesus uses for hell in this passage is the word that was used for the town dump just outside of the city gates.

In the minds of Jesus’ audience it was the worst place in the world that one could imagine.

No one wanted to go to the dump.

So Jesus uses this word to describe what happened to people when they would fall away from God.

It was like being dumped in the outer limits of the city.

It was smelly, scary, lonely, deserted place.

Was it not better not to go there at all?

Our Gospel this morning is really about the disciples.

Like the disciples we too put stumbling blocks in front of others and ourselves, stumbling blocks that lead us into dark, scary, lonely places.

It is about stumbling blocks that lead us to trash our lives and others.

I would like to talk about both those stumbling blocks this morning.

First let us talk about ourselves.

All the time we put stumbling blocks in front of ourselves.

We do things that hurt ourselves or others and well…they lead to hell.

Not the hell with the devil dressed in red with the pitch fork, but the hell that is lonely, scary, and hurtful.

I have sat with lots of people in this place.

Families that are going through divorces are in hell.

People in throws of addiction are in this place.

A woman who is being battered by her husband lives in this dump.

Hell is real…I have seen it.

And Jesus is right it is better for us to lose a body part than to experience this hell.

I have sat with people who have used those words to describe their lives.

“I feel like I am in hell.”

Perhaps we could do well to take Jesus advice.

Not literally, of course, but to think about the things in our lives that are stumbling blocks.

What are the things that keep us from having faith, from following Jesus?

What are those things in our life that need to be cut off and thrown away?

Recently I was in the supermarket.

I saw one of our neighbors who lives down the street.

She asked me how I was and I told her that I was fantastic.

The woman standing next to me in the soup aisle said, “I wish I could say that.”

We started talking and she shared with me her life of hell.

How her son was in prison and she was looking after her grand kids.

How it seemed that every moment her son made one bad choice after another.

I could see how her mother heart was broken in two.

Perhaps instead of robbing that store it would have been better for her son to cut off his hands?

You see the more we think about it the more Jesus is on to something this morning.

Hell is no place to go.

It is better to merely be maimed in life.

Because when we go to hell we just don’t bring ourselves we also bring those that love us most.

This is not about judgment from me or you.

This is about reality of the situation we sometimes face.

I still believe that God loves those who make bad decisions, who make wrong choices in life, but that does not mean they can escape the consequences of their actions.

It does not mean that they won’t go to hell.

(Again, not the devil with a pitch fork place. But the place that is outside of the walls, the place that really stinks, and ruins lives.)

We must then spend some time on the other part of this text.

We must spend some time thinking about how our actions or behavior can become a stumbling block for someone else.

Recently they asked people to think of the first word that came to their head when they thought of Christians.

You know what 91% of people said?

“Judgmental”

Not loving, or forgiving, or compassionate.

Sometimes we are stumbling block to others.

We can stop them from having faith because when they look at us they see hypocrites, or us judging others.

The best thing we can do as Christians is get out of the way.

Get out of what we think is right, and allow the grace of God to be present in our lives.

This is the problem that the disciples are having.

They are judging another group for doing what they think only they should be able to do.

They have become territorial, and closed off to others.

Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them to look inside to see the ways that they are stumbling blocks to others.

In this time of religious diversity where can we find common ground with those that do the work of Christ around us?

Luckily in Concord it is everywhere.

Once again this year I was the Co-chair of the CROP walk.

The other person who chaired it with me was a Buddhist.

We held the walk at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It included people from 17 different faith communities in the Greater Concord area.

People of faith can come together to act for good, and care for those experiencing poverty around the world and here in Concord.

Perhaps there is something to simply being in the same room.

There is something in the exchange that happens when we stand with others who are different than ourselves.

There is something that happens when we are able to let go of what who we think should be doing what and get out of our own way.

Let God be the judge and us simply be the people that care and love others.

I see this all the time.

I see it at the New Hampshire council of churches when we are able to put aside arguing over baptism and communion, instead work on issues that promote life and health in New Hampshire.

I see it when we work with different Christians at Rise Again to help those who need more clothing, blankets, diapers, laundry detergent.

I see when we are able to simply be Christ instead of trying to make everyone like us.

Jesus this morning seems to telling us to let others do the good that they do instead of trying to determine who is capable of doing it.

It is in the judging that we set the stumbling block before others, which leads us back to the stumbling blocks that we put in front of ourselves.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

If we can simply learn this truth: There is a God in the universe and we are not it.

Then we have come close to getting out of our own way to let God work in and through us.

We have come close to cutting off those things in our lives that are stumbling block and leads us to that lonely, ugly place on the outskirts of the city.

We come closer to not be judgmental about others because we leave that up to God.

Instead we focus on the work of spreading grace, mercy, and love.

We focus on showing the world this God who is the ruler of the universe, but also the humble servant of all.

Let us cut off those things that stop of us from recognizing God, those things that are a stumbling block and leads us to hell.

Let us work with others to create the just world that is envisioned by our savior by working with others.

Amen