Can't Buy Me Love

Hebrews 4:12-16

Mark 10:17-31



Your soul -- not to mention your personal budget -- is in mortal danger as you approach the grocery store checkout lane. 

You say, "How?"

You've carefully filled your cart with the needed items outlined on your list. You patiently wait in line, always seeming to pick the one that's the slowest. Yet somehow, by the time the cashier begins scanning the items in your cart, it has suddenly filled up with a pack of gum, a box of Tic-Tacs, a tin of Altoids, a four-pack of AA batteries, three Snickers bars, two Chap Sticks and a magazine for enquiring minds. 

I have discovered over the last year or so that if your 3-year-old and 2-year-old are along for the ride, you may also have accumulated a new Pez dispenser, a mylar balloon with Elmo on it and a miniature die cast metal and plastic monster truck. Stores purposefully pack this kind of junky, funky, consumer gunk into the narrow gauntlet we must run through to get to the checkout counter. Things we would never intentionally have gone in search of now languish under our fingertips -- inviting, no insisting, that we grab them.

Although impulsively buying a pack of gum or a candy bar hardly seems earth-shattering or soul-threatening, the truth is that the increasingly voracious appetites of this consumer culture are being methodically nurtured and stimulated by a crass and crushing consumerism.

For an increasing number of people, self-identity and life-purpose are summed up by the mantra "I shop, therefore I am." Raging consumerism has left Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" far behind. Consumer culture has never even heard of, much less considered, God's revelation to Moses, "I am who I am; therefore, you are."

Like the rich young man in today's gospel text, we know ourselves, we identify ourselves, we define ourselves, by our possessions, our things, our "stuff." Possessions can’t possibly provide you with happiness or anything else of true value in life. Here’s this rich man who comes to Jesus who has almost everything. I think the rich young man recognized this; the unfulfilling practice of acquiring more and more stuff for himself. He was so possessed by his "stuff" that he could not “unstuff” himself neither for the sake of the poor, nor for his own sake and his quest for eternal life. Faced with the choice between his old secure, in-control, in-charge self and the unknown possibilities of life as a disciple of Jesus, the rich man clung to his human illusions of power and control.

But I appreciate the question he raised, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It was a question on the minds of a lot of people back then as it is today.

Theologian Karl Barth poses this question in a different way, “People come to church on the Sabbath with only one question in their minds: Is it true? The providence of God, the saving power of Jesus Christ, the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection from the dead, the forgiveness of sin: Is it true?”[1] Is what Jesus is saying about eternal life really true?

From the young man’s affirmative answer to Jesus’ question about God’s commandments, it appears that this man had met all his religious obligations. He confessed he kept all the parts of the law since he was a young boy. And then Jesus drops a bomb in his lap: “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.” It was not the answer he had hoped for.

Some of us may think smugly: “He was possessed by his possessions”. But who among us is not? We live in a world dominated by investments, mortgages, car payments, school bills, compensation packages, pensions and insurance. We are all frauds if we think our possessions do not possess us. After all, we have to put food on the table for our families to eat.

Jesus takes full advantage of this teaching moment. He reminds us to remember that God is the sole owner of everything. He talks about wealth and camels passing through the eye of the needle. But this leaves the disciples worried and anxious, so they ask, “Then who can be saved?” The rich young man is upset by what he hears and walks away grieving over the news. The disciples remain although still troubled by the news. When we ask the question about “eternal life” or “who can be saved” or “is it true”, it looms over our heads like a steel anvil tied to an old, fraying rope.

There is an answer to these questions; a way out of this dilemma. Jesus’s answer is “for God all things are possible.” The problem with the rich young man was not the question itself, but the limited scope of his question. He spoke in the first person, “I”: “What can I do…” For the rich man it’s all about him. He’s only worried about himself and his own needs. The man’s question is answered by Jesus indirectly. Jesus says that all of life and the world are absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt completely dependent on God. Jesus offers us here an authentic and faithful theological understanding of stewardship: God is the owner of all and we borrow for a time the gifts God gives.
As God’s stewards, as disciples of Christ, we know in our hearts with great confidence that whatever gifts we bring to God, great or small, God multiplies our offering as Jesus multiplied the five loaves of bread and the two fish.

So whatever we offer, God increases. When God provides, even by use of our hands, then there will always be enough. The economic law of diminishing returns does not apply here. There is no decrease in the numerous variety of inputs and outputs in God’s economy. Eternal life with God is God’s gift to us. Our sole task is to receive God’s bounty and pass along the gift, so others may be blessed by the grace and love of God in Christ Jesus.

God may bless you with more than you need to get by in today’s world, and if he does, you can be very grateful. But never mistake possessions for the abundant life that Jesus offers (John 10:10). It could put your soul in mortal danger. Amen.






[1] Joanna Adams, “The Only Question,” in Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga Jr., eds., A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today’s Preacher (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) p.268.