Money

Mark 12:41-42

      How would you like an outsider doing an audit of your finances to see how you are spending your money? How about if they did it without you knowing it and then making the results public? Some of us might be embarrassed to have others see exactly where our money was going. We might even be surprised ourselves.

      Financial management is an area that we guard very carefully. We have passwords and security questions. We have PINS and keys. But as we have learned, nothing is private. The security we were guaranteed is not secure. Almost every week we hear of another breach. And let’s not talk about Government information security, hard drive crashes, or website vulnerabilities.

      Ever notice how most people put money in the offering plate at church. We put it in an envelope. We fold the checks. We hide the cash in our hand before we drop it in the plate. We generally don’t want people to know how much or how little we are giving. We consider it a private matter, something for our eyes only. We get offended is someone is looking over our shoulder watching us, trying to see how much we are giving. We would call them rude, or intrusive.

      But this is exactly what Jesus does. He places Himself right by the offering plate and watches what people put into it. Back then, in the Temple in Jerusalem, there was a box with a slot in the top, a secure place to place your money. When it was full, it was the job of certain people to empty the box and account for what was given. Then the money was to be distributed for the care and maintenance of the Temple.

      So Jesus stands right by this box and watches people put in their money. It had to be cash. No paper money, only coins. No checks were allowed, no online giving, no credit cards accepted. You could see if someone was putting a lot in because coins make noise and take time to put through the slot.

      But some people wanted everyone to know that they were putting lots in, so they would figure out ways to emphasize how much they put through the slot. I could imagine someone standing next to the box and dropping one coin at a time, delaying the line. Or maybe they released them in a quick succession, dropping them from their hand, one after another, machine gun style.

      Some people would barely want to be noticed. They would sneak up, sheepishly putting their hand over the hole, dropping their money, and then quickly rushing away. They didn’t want to be noticed. Their giving was not about that.

      The same thing happens today. Wings on buildings. Streets and schools named. Money given with the press conference, cameras flashing, bands playing, just the right people framing the podium, a few smiles, a few hands shaken, and off they go. A pittance given for publicity. When was the last time someone gave it all and didn’t want any recognition? When was the last time someone gave it all away? Maybe the current Pope’s actions have something to say about wealth.

Turning the Tables

Mark 12:35-44

      Symbols of success abound. With the recent release of the new iPhone, people stood in line to be the first to have the newest. You can use this new phone to make phone calls, play games, watch videos, surf the net, take pics and videos, and a hundred other things. Oh, wait, so did the last iPhone. And the one before that. Often what we get when we get the newest is poorer sooner.

      What we call “The American Dream” is a set of symbols. The house in the suburbs, the two cars, the new this and that. What is funny is that the size of houses has grown over the last 50 years, but the size of the family has shrunk. We now demand a larger space for fewer people. And since we have this larger space, we must fill it with stuff, lots of stuff, storage spaces of stuff!

      We get degrees, careers, portfolios, and gated communities to establish who we are, or at least who we want people to think we are. We spend so much time painting the exterior of our lives we don’t have time or energy to maintain our relationships and spirit. We run ourselves ragged to obtain a line on our resume’ because someday, way out there in the future we might need a line.

      You can tell from out passage today that Jesus doesn’t worry about His status with the establishment of His day. If He did, He could have changed His tune and danced right along with them. He could have gotten into line with their hypocrisy and become one of them. He would have lived a long life, received worldly accolades, and been thought of as someone successful. He could have become what liberal theologians today think He was!

      But instead of conforming, Jesus continues to speak the truth to the powers that exist. He shot holes in their neatly formed theology, theology that ignored inconvenient passages, passages that contradicted their strongly held beliefs. He pointed out that even King David, one of their heroes, recognized the supremacy of the Messiah. No son could be Lord over a man like David.

      Then Jesus points out some of their symbols of success. They loved to be seen as people of importance. The wanted to sit at the head table. They wanted the boxed seat at the stadium. They wanted the plaque naming the building after them. They wanted to be able to buy their way into controlling the political direction of the country. They were into leveraging their positions for personal gain. Does this like some of the richest people of our day and age?

      A bit of meddling of my own now, right in line with Jesus’ meddling. I hate it when people with money, especially politicians and people who want to influence our culture, speak about helping the poor, but then don’t reflect that concern with their personal finances. They amass millions for some future generation, filling their Biblical barns, but only give a small percentage of their money to actually make a difference. Millionaires who only give thousands to actually help the poor. Despicable.

Left

Mark 10:28-31

      Have you ever noticed something called “selective deafness? It is most often found in teenagers and husbands. I hate writing this, since I was both a teenager and I am a husband! Let me describe the symptoms and see if you have it, or if you know someone who does.

      Selective deafness occurs when someone hears only part of what is said, either through a conscious choice or inattention. You can tell selective deafness is happening if they remember some part of the conversation, usually the parts that positively affect them, and not hear other parts of the same conversation, usually those parts that contain some obligatory action on their part. They hear only the positive items and leave out any negative demands.

      Peter seems to have suffered from selective deafness. He is present for the whole conversation with the rich man and his desire to be part of God’s Kingdom. He hears Jesus’ one stipulation given to this man, that he divest himself of all his money, and then come and follow. He hears about the impossibility of entrance to God’s Kingdom when wealth has your heart. And he hears about the impossible being made possible with God. And the one piece he latches onto is the request by Jesus to the rich man to leave all his wealth and follow.

      Peter thinks it is about leaving things, not about God’s provision. If not having things was key to entrance into God’s Kingdom, some countries, because of their rampant poverty, would have many Kingdom-bound people while others would have few. It isn’t about the things.

      Jesus’ answer shifts the conversation in His answer. He says that those who line up with Peter’s concern, those who have left everything, will receive abundance in this life. What a strange answer for Jesus to give. I thought wealth was the problem, and Jesus says those who leave all that stuff behind in pursuit of Him will get it all back. And not only that, they will get it back in an overflow measured in terms that the best investors on Wall Street would be impressed.

      But Jesus throws in a couple of uncomfortable, perhaps parts that would be left out if selective deafness were at work. And in modern Christianity, many people suffer from selective obedience and selective deafness. Jesus says that will the abundance that follows discipleship there will be persecutions. Notice that Jesus said persecutions not persecution, plural not singular.

      This portion of the text gets so often pushed aside by modern churchgoers here in the West. It is a regular part of the lives of millions of Jesus-followers around the world who daily face life and death situations based on their connection to Jesus. But here in the West, either our relationship with Jesus hasn’t been salty enough to bring out the poison of sin in our culture, or God has chosen to withhold persecution temporarily for the sake of His Kingdom. I fear we are not salty enough!

      What have you given up to follow Jesus? That seems to be on the mind of the disciples. They have heard about how impossible it is for anyone to get into heaven on their own merits. The rich have to be willing to give it all up to get in. Some give things up in hopes of getting it back in a newer more expensive version. Some think they must only be willing to give it up in order to fulfill what Jesus told this young man. Remember, He told this to a particular young man. He might tell you something even more radical.

Hard Getting In

Mark 10:23-25

      Life only seems to be getting harder. If you watch the news, and I would recommend against it, you notice that the world is a place of turmoil and heartache. Here in the United States, despite record numbers of people unable to work, the official unemployment rate slowly drops, defying simple logic. If so many people are out of work, have given up looking, why is this number touted as economic success? They are not fooling me!

      The wealthy get blamed for so much. It would be nice for a change if some of the rest of us took on some responsibility for the mess we are in. We have gotten ourselves over-extended, and under financed. We took on loans that we couldn’t afford. We made purchases that were luxuries and neglected the necessities, knowing that someone would be there to bail us out.

      Wealth can corrupt our minds. It deceives us into thinking it provides safety and security, when only the LORD can provide that. In Jesus ongoing discussion with His disciples, Jesus has loved a rich man to the point of telling him the truth: his wealth was getting in the way of his pursuit of God’s Kingdom. If he wanted the Kingdom, he would have to get rid of the wealth.

      And now Jesus turns his attentions to His disciples, wanting to drive home the lesson on wealth’s poison. He states simply that being wealthy and going to heaven is a difficult journey. It isn’t impossible, but very hard to accomplish. And when the disciples here this they stand amazed. Jesus is speaking in such straight forward and stark terms about wealth, that they don’t quite know what to make of it.

      And if Jesus had not intended to be so stark, He could have backed away from His statements, softening them. But instead He makes it even more pointed. Entry for anyone is difficult, not just the wealthy. The bar is very high when it comes to heaven. No one will scrape through, just barely making it. We are either in, or we are out. We either walk upright, or we have the proverbial gate slammed in our face. If we get there it is not because of something we have done or something we failed to do. It has nothing to do with ‘doing’.

      Jesus then gives a simple illustration that drives home the point. There are two primary ways of looking at this illustration, and both of them point to the same truth: getting to heaven is extremely difficult for anyone. The difference turns on the meaning of the phrase “camel through the eye of a needle” use here. The first meaning relies on a misspelled word, the word camel. It is only one letter different from the word rope. So if the first copy of the text had made this mistake, switching letters, then we get “rope through the eye of a needle” instead. And the illustration makes sense. It would be impossible to put a large ship’s rope through a home sewing needle. It would take a miracle!

      The second way to understand this phrase is to hear a reference to a small door in a city gate, barely large enough for a person to fit through. When the large city gates were closed at night for security purposes, there was a small door in the large door that would allow limited access into the city. This small opening would be easy to defend if the enemy broke through it. Only one person could get through at a time. You could possibly get a camel through it, if the camel were stripped of all its cargo, forced down on its belly and dragged and wedged through the door, quite a feat with stubborn camels!

      So the truth is clear either way you understand this phrase. Either it takes a miracle or we have to abandon everything in order to enter. In the context of the rich, if they hold onto their riches, they won’t make it. If we hold onto anything with more tenacity than we hold onto the LORD, we won’t get in.

      What are you carrying that won’t fit through the door?

Finger on the Pulse

Mark 10:20-22

      Some people have a way of knowing exactly where to touch to find out what is really happening in a situation. They are able to walk into a room, spend a few moments observing, and then engage in a way that brings the greatest change. Some of this power comes from their personality, since people often seem to look up to them. Some of it comes from their ability to size up people and situations.

      This is a skill that is very useful in life. If you are a negotiator, then being able to pick up on people’s agendas and motives is important. It is often the unspoken that carries the most weight. It can pay to be like Sherlock Holmes, seeing every detail and forming conclusions from the data in a moment.

      Jesus is engaging with a man who is tormented. He wants desperately to know if his life matters. He wants to know if he has been following the right path, doing the right things, behaving the right way. He wants to please God, but he isn’t sure he has done it. So he comes to Jesus with a question.

      He answers Jesus’ answer with a statement of completion. He in essence says, I’ve got all that covered. If that is all there is to it, then I have it made. And yet Jesus sees something more in him. Deep inside, this man knows he isn’t good enough. He knows he falls short. He can feel it. Otherwise, there would be no need to ask Jesus about the entrance criteria. He wants it, but he knows he hasn’t gotten it yet.

      At the root of Jesus’ answer is the truth that only God can provide the means to heaven. No matter how hard we try, no matter what we do, we will fall short of divine perfection. So Jesus zooms in on this man’s hesitancy. There is one area over which the LORD doesn’t have control in this man’s life. This man has not yielded his wealth.

      Notice that Jesus loves this man. He is not giving him a difficult task because He despises this man’s wealth. Wealth is not the issue. The issue is the place wealth occupies in this man’s life. It stands center stage. Jesus knows this and wants to help him. He loves him, after all. He is not trying to drive him away.

      This man could have responded by saying, “Yes, Lord! I will do it right away. Save me a spot on your team.” He could have taken Jesus’ advice and done the ‘do’ that he had asked for with his initial question. Remember, he asked, what must I do! Jesus has told him what he must do.

      Jesus tries to help this man by pointing out that wealth had him, rather than he having wealth. So many, even the poor, don’t have wealth. Wealth, or that lack of it, has them. Some ride the disability train, or the prejudice train, or the nobody’s helping me train until they have long run out of track. They spend money on SUV’s,  big screen TV’s, smartphones with data plans, addictions, and expensive shoes, but get food stamps because they don’t have money for food. I am afraid Jesus would call on these people to stop living off other people’s efforts.

      If we don’t work, we don’t eat.  I have found hunger to be a great motivation to do something. Handouts are a great motivation to do nothing. I want to encourage you to read the book by Robert Lupton, Toxic Charity, if you want a better way to help the poor.