October 10, 2021

Proper 23

The Rev. Clint Brown

Assist us, O Christ, to know you; and in knowing you to love you; and in loving you to grow increasingly into your likeness. Amen.

Theme: “Take all that you have and be poor.”[1]

There is a Jewish folk tale about a rabbi who thought to test the honesty of his disciples, so one day he called them together and posed the question: “What would you do if you were walking along and found a bag of money lying in the road?” The first disciple answered, “I’d return it to its owner,” to which the rabbi thought, “This one answers too quickly; I must wonder if he really means it.” The second disciple said, “I’d keep the money if nobody saw me find it.” And the rabbi thought, “This one has a frank tongue, but a wicked heart.” Finally, the third disciple said, “To be honest, I believe I’d be tempted to keep it. So I would pray to God to help me resist the temptation and do the right thing.” “Aha!” thought the rabbi. “Here is the man I would trust.”

Like this story, there is a distinct note of truth-telling in our readings today. Job, the Psalm, are hardly giving us a view of things through rose-colored glasses. We are confronted with the many-sidedness of life, especially its unpleasant, more bitter aspects. To live bravely, we need this, to do the work of getting square about the way things really are. So it is that we hear Job acknowledging just how fraught and inexplicable we often find life to be, how we would plead our cause to God if only God would show up to the inquest. Psalm 22, quoted by Christ Himself on the cross, captures, in a way to which we can all relate, the despair and downright confusion that pervades our experience of life and its undeserved trouble. With its contrasting hues of light and dark, alternating between hope and hopelessness, it paints, in an unvarnished way, how the life of faith is an unsettling and far from straightforward affair.

Because faith is challenging and problematic in a precarious and hostile world, most of us have found a shortcut. We have found a way to carefully define, circumscribe, compartmentalize our religion. We know that we are better off for having it, but it doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table, does it? When it comes to who to trust with my life, my ultimate trust for my security and my protection lies with me, and, in that respect, I am just like the rich young ruler. I am basically a good person. I keep the commandments. I treat others decently. I do the best I can with what I’m given. When I come to Jesus, I feel pretty sure that the good rabbi will give me an A+ for my efforts. After all, look at how shiny and well put together I look. But Jesus, looking at me, loves me and sees right through me, and says, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor…” (Mark 10:21). Jesus confronts me with the devastating truth of why am I even coming to him if I don’t actually believe I have need of him?

One of the cardinal truths of the spiritual life is that the more we tighten our grip on whatever guarantees security in this world, the more of real value slips away. No wonder, then, that Christ cautions us about the danger wealth poses to our spiritual health. The law of love, by contrast, says that the more we give away ourselves and our things, the more and better we thrive. Another story illustrates the point. The story is told that the great Phillips Brooks once visited a church that had burned, leaving the congregation feeling hopeless and demoralized. When asked what he would do in these circumstances, the great Bishop replied—“The first thing I would do would be to take up an offering for foreign missions.” That is not what I expected, and yet there is something very right, isn’t there, about this? The obvious concern was not the most important concern. And so it is for us. I – you – we – each of us are our most obvious first concern, and yet Christ would have us call that into question, our instinct for self-preservation, and deny ourselves, and see to the needs of others before our own.

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell all that you own and give the money to the poor.” But then he continues, “and you will have treasure in heaven…come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21). If we stopped at the first part, we would only know and feel miserable about what we are losing and miss the great gain. Christ’s challenge to us is a mercy, not meant to deprive us but to enrich us. We are asked to confront the bankruptcy of our position, that the way we are living – armored up with stuff, living small and scared – is no way to live at all. The poet Wendell Berry has written, “Take all that you have and be poor.” If you were to ask me, What is the best way to relate to all the many privileges I have? then I would sum it up in the words, “Take all that you have and be poor.”    

[1] Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” from The Country of Marriage (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2013), 14.