Loading...Sermon October 11, 2015
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen, Newport, PA
Pentecost XX Proper 23, Track 2
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "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." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Mark 10:21-22
Please be seated.
I verge on being a hoarder. Or at least I used to be. I don’t mean to make light of hoarding; it is a serious and dangerous condition and one that needs to be addressed. Yet, I have had in the past a hard time with letting things -- possessions – go.
My grandmother was a hoarder. Her basement was filled with newspapers she was going to read and with Land O’Lakes butter boxes with recipes she was going to cut out. As an older woman, she loved buying cards. When she died, I took those cards, thinking I’d used them. Nearly ten years later, I found those cards stuffed in a desk drawer. I hadn’t even used them and had totally forgotten I had them.
Between 1994 and 1997, I moved three times. First I moved to Topeka Kansas, a move paid for by the company my then-husband worked for. Then in the summer of 1996, I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. I had to rent storage space for the overflow of my stuff that wouldn’t fit in my apartment. In 1997, I moved to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania to take a job. I lived in my parents’ basement for awhile until I could move my things from Charlotte. I tried to buy a house, but it fell through at the last minute, so I ended up putting everything in storage.
Eventually, I decided to go through everything in storage. I’d take just two hours and go to the storage place and go through what I could in that amount of time. It took awhile, but eventually I got through everything.
I discovered I’d kept every single Christmas card someone had sent me – over 20 years of cards! I looked through them and couldn’t even remember who many of the people were who’d sent me those cards. That really woke me up. I had paid to move so much of my stuff from Kansas to North Carolina to Pennsylvania. I’d paid storage fees to contain this stuff and yet I didn’t even remember who’d sent me those cards or who’d given me some of that stuff.
I finally started to get rid of stuff.
Nearly ten years later, I was still learning how to let go of some of my possessions. I could sense a change was coming. I was in the discernment process for ministry and while I had no idea whether I’d be going to seminary, I started to look at my possessions, discerning whether I still wanted to live with them. Did the kitchen table from my childhood still give me joy? Was I really able to use it?
I started putting things on Craig’s List. While the kitchen table was a little hard to part with, the young man who came to get it was so excited. He was a college student sharing an apartment with four friends. This table would allow all of them to share a meal together. I felt very happy about that.
Now I’ve moved into my own home, which is fraught with opportunities to keep stuff. I have a basement AND an attic! I’m reminded of George Carlin’s monologue on stuff.
Everybody’s gotta have a place for their stuff. That’s what life is all about, tryin’ to find a place for your stuff! That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time.
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus lovingly challenges the rich young man regarding his attachment to his possessions. The wealthy young man eagerly runs up to Jesus. The wealthy young man recognizes Jesus as a great and good teacher. The wealthy young man lacks something, though, and knows Jesus can help. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the young man asks. Jesus reminds this wealthy young man about all of the commandments. The young man states he has followed all of these.
Then Jesus looks right at this wealthy young man and the text says Jesus loved him. Jesus gave that rich young man a look of deep love. Jesus then goes on to tell the rich young man that his very possessions are keeping him from inheriting eternal life. Jesus says, “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.”
Needless to say, this passage has caused great consternation over the history of Christianity. Don’t we all tense up when we hear it? Sell EVERYTHING! Give the money to the poor! Oh, that certainly raises questions, doesn’t it?
I believe Jesus is saying to this rich young man, and consequently to each of us, “Look at your attachment to your possessions. Is your attachment to your possessions keeping you from following me?” Does our wealth and our attachment to our possessions mean we have no energy or time for what Jesus asks us to do?
And Jesus is not only asking this of each of us personally; he is also asking this of us as the community of The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen. For instance, most of you should have received your pledge packet this week. When looking at last year’s spending plan, you see we expend just over 25% of our budget on our property…on our gathering place. It amounts to over $70,000 each year. It’s close to the amount we ask you as the parish to contribute towards our spending plan.
Does our attachment to this possession of properties further God’s work? Does our attachment to this possession of properties contribute to and allow us to do the mission God has for us to do? Or is it a block to God’s mission that we are asked to carry out?
That’s what Jesus is asking us to think about and to look at today. It’s scary, isn’t it? But it’s fall cleaning time, so it’s a perfect time to examine our personal attachments to our stuff and our community attachments to our stuff.
One thing I’ve seen time and time again, is that when I’m able to get rid of some stuff, space is created and many times something new and exciting emerges. If we take a look at these properties of Nativity and St. Stephen and look at them in terms of what God would have us use them for, we may see things we could do that we haven’t ever considered before…things that God is guiding us to do in this place and at this time.
This is a hard passage for many of us to read. It’s not easy to change our attachments to our stuff. In our challenge to let go, we can remember that Jesus loves us deeply and out of that great love for us, entreats us to change our attachments to our possessions in order to Follow Him. Jesus does this, because He knows doing so will lead to abundant life and joy.
Amen
