INSTANT REPLAY – The Practice of Posting Last Week’s Sermon Manuscript

“HARDER” – July 26, 2015 – Shawnee Church of the Nazarene

Author: Jason T. Rowinski

Calendar: Ordinary Time

Sermon Series: “The HARD SAYINGS of JESUS” 

Sermon Text: Matthew 19.23-30

Homiletical Method: Paul Scott Wilson’s “4 Pages of a Sermon”

Note: (1) The small variances between manuscript & live sermon is because I preach from a one page outline. Consequently, I don’t say everything exactly the same. For my personality, it’s just as important to be physically engaged and relational in my preaching disposition.  (2) The images you see here are the visual media I use with the text on screen as I preach, similar to a Ted Talk. 

Matthew 19.23-30 (16-22)

²³ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

²⁷ Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. ³⁰ But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

INTRODUCTION – “HARDER”

It’s HARDER to talk about money than anything else. We may not want to talk about it, but we do think about it – a lot.  Money’s influence is everywhere and in everything. We can’t help but be interested in it. As the great 20th century philosopher-poet Snoop Dogg said got my money on my mind my mind on my money.

As the great 20th century philosopher-poet Snoop Dogg said,    “I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.”

In one sense, we’re really fascinated with money. Turn on the television and there’s a game show or infomercial where the promise is a lot of money. When I was young, I desperately wanted to find a way to get on one of those game shows where they had those money machines the phone booth size box that blew money into the air and gave you a minute to grab as much money as possible. Despite the fact that most people left the money machine with less than $50, I was sure that they were just doing it wrong and that I would make thousands. I had a plan to wear a really baggy shirt and just untuck it and let all the money blowup into the shirt. Genius. I could’ve been rich!

In another other sense, money is still a taboo subject. When we’re young our parents teach us to not ask how much something costs. If you want things to get really uncomfortable really fast, turn to your neighbor right now and ask: “How much money do you make?” In a society saturated with consumerism it’s not hard to discern how money influences everything, including our personal relationships in one survey polling 2000 men and women, money – more than sex ,children, or any loss – was the most common conflict for American couples. This is just one example of the power of money in relationships.

How much did you JESUS talk about money? The short answer as you can see from this graph is – A LOT!  If Jesus talked a lot about it, Shouldn’t we? 

Today we’re going to look at one of Jesus’ hardest sayings about money. To hear what Jesus has to say, Church, we must overcome a lot of our preconceived ideas and pre-planned defenses. For example, I know many of you are already worried that this sermon is going to ask you to tithe. Don’t worry about the end (I’m not going to ask you to give more – today).  Let’s focus on the words of Jesus. It won’t be easy. Thanks be to God as the text tells us today: “With God all things are possible.” 

CONFLICT & TROUBLE IN THE TEXT

According to Jesus, it’s HARDER for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  In all three gospels, this saying follows the story of “The Rich Young Ruler.”  Matthew calls him young. Luke calls him a ruler. Mark just calls him “man.”   In other words, let’s say that this “man” stands there before Jesus representing all of us or someone we want to be. Picture him as a combination of Bill Gates and Billy Graham. The Jews of Jesus day, like us, believed a man like this was righteous & blessed.

Yet, something was missing. He was not at peace. He was at “dis-ease.” The story is about someone like us or someone we’d like to be who is met by Jesus and asked to follow, but who decides that it is not a way he wants to go.  He walks away.  This, as far as I know, is the only call story in all the gospels in which someone refuses to follow Jesus. The man rejects the call of Jesus because of money.  Jesus makes that point crystal clear.

We try to deal with the severity of this saying by minimizing it. Instead of taking it as Jesus intended it we try to minimize it, soften it. Some of suggested that the eye of the needle is a particular smaller gate in Jerusalem and that the only way to get through this gate would be to get off one’s camel, take off all that was carrying and go through slowly and deliberately.  Others point out there is a word for rope which is very close to the word for camel, as if Jesus was saying that it was hard to fit a rope through eye of a large seamstress’ needle. These are late-inventions and both of these missed the point.

Jesus was speaking in hyperbole, exaggerating for the sake of affect. This is something I am very familiar with coming from my Italian family – where everything is amazing OR all of life is terrible! This is not the first time Jesus has exaggerated to make point. Elsewhere he says things like stopping out the speck in someone’s eye when you have a giant logging yours or if your eye causes you to sin then you should gouge it out! Jesus isn’t saying try really hard and you might actually be able to fit a HumVee into a compact car parking space. Jesus is saying, you cannot fit a HumVee into your wallet. Jesus means to say that it is this hard for a rich person to enter heaven. Jesus says, it is humanly impossible.

CONFLICT & TROUBLE IN OUR WORLD

This saying of Jesus maybe harder for our Western minds than any other.  We have a kind of a love hate relationship with money.  We love it when we have it and hate it when we don’t! We sure don’t want the government getting any of it.  We have the same problems with money we see in this scripture: (1) We associate money with blessing. (2) We try to minimize Jesus teaching when it hits close to home. Take a look at this cartoon. This is how we are in our society:

We associate money with blessing. How often do hear someone who goes away on a mission trip comes back and says “the things that I realized the most how blessed we are to live in this country.” This most often means we’re glad have money and the comfort and things that come from it. At same time, these people are in such awe of the vibrant faith of these people don’t have material blessings. Our own Dr. David Wesley’s missions research tells us that people experience transformation on a mission trip, resolving to change their lives when they get home. When he asks if they practice the kind of service to others, intimate fellowship, or finding joy in simplicity – the answer is no – these changes don’t often occur in peoples lives or in the life of the churches they attend.  We do have the t-shirt to show that we went on the trip. We represent. Money makes things easy. And we like easy, don’t we?

We comfort ourselves by thinking –  “I’m not rich”! My bank-account is vastly inferior to LeBron James’ bank account. My house is not going to appear on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”  Rich is a relative term. If I only compare myself with people who have more than me, then I can absolve myself of responsibility. Fact: If your family income is $10,000 a year, you are wealthier than 84 percent of the world. If it’s $50,000 or more a year, you make more than 99 percent of the world. John Wesley said, “Whoever has the necessities and conveniences of life for themselves and their families, with a little to spare for those that don’t, is properly rich.”  Even you, seminary student eating ramen noodles 5 days a week – are rich!

GRACE & GOOD NEWS IN THE TEXT

You get the sense from Jesus that we make things HARDER than they should be.  Does Jesus hate rich people? NO! This is not a text that fits neatly into our modern ideas about power and class warfare. Jesus has compassion on this rich young ruler.  Scholar & author Frederick Buechner says, “There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up…Maybe the reason is not that the rich are so wicked they’re kept out of the place but that they’re so out of touch with reality they can’t see it’s a place worth getting into.”  As long as we believe what our culture says is the “good life” we’ll cling to our little corner of its kingdom, even if its an outhouse.  

Maybe the reason is not that the rich are so wicked they’re kept out of the place but that they’re so out of touch with reality they can’t see it’s a place worth getting into.” Frederick Buechner

Money is hard to talk about and the reason why money makes it harder to enter the kingdom of heaven is because we believe we owe the entirety of our existence to money.  We say: “money makes the world go around.”  Money is a powerful symbol which represents different things to different people. Success. Comfort. Power. Control. Security. Blessing. These are deeply personal – rooted in our identity. If it feels like talking about money challenges our core assumptions, that’s because IT DOES!  If it feels like a threat to our way of life, that’s because IT IS. The rich young ruler understood this. He went away sad because money was more important to him than life eternal.

The disciples ask the question on everyone’s mind, including ours: Who can be saved?  With God all things are possible! The moment all human calculations possibilities stop is the moment all of God’s possibilities start. When we realize that we’re lost and walking in the wrong direction, the best thing we can do is stop and turn around!

Then Peter (speaking for the disciples) reminds Jesus they heard the call. They left everything to follow. He asks, What will we get out of this? (A bit of irony here – as this is a basic economic question of exchange). Is it WORTH it?  A most human question – one that we all ask in a variety of ways and settings. We want to know there’s a payoff somehow.

Jesus answer is yes! Eternal life, the kingdom of God is worth EVERYTHING. Jesus has already said: What good is it to you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?  Jesus invites his disciples into an upside down kingdom where the first will be last and the last will be first – where no-name, no-bank-account, nobodies can participate in the renewal of all things; A kingdom reign where broken relationships can be reconciled; A kingdom where people divided by ethnicity can become brothers and sisters; a kingdom where the least are cared physically and spiritually; a kingdom of radical hospitality where everyone has a seat at the table. In this life and the life to come, we receive far more in return than we surrender.  The way of the kingdom of heaven is most definitely worth it!

GRACE & GOOD NEWS FOR OUR WORLD

Sometimes what is HARDER in the moment is the only way to health, happiness, & life in the Kingdom of heaven.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but easier isn’t always better. In that fictional battle between good & evil that is Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore says: We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.  Jesus said, small is the road and narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life. The only way is with him and through him.  The way of the cross is not easy.   It costs everything.

In their book “Where Resident Aliens Live” – Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon recount a story told that Clarence Jordan, that great Southern, social prophet, visited an integrated church in the Deep South.  Jordan was surprised to find a relatively large church so thoroughly integrated, not only black and white but also rich and poor; and this was in the early sixties, too.  Jordan asked the old country preacher, “How did you get the church this way?”

“What way?” the preacher asked.  Jordan went on to explain his surprise at finding a church so integrated, and in the South, too.  The preacher said, “Well, when our preacher left our small church, I went to the deacons and said, ‘I’ll be the preacher.’  The first Sunday as preacher, I opened the book and read, ‘As many of you as has been baptized into Jesus has put on Jesus and there is no longer any Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, males or females, because you all is one in Jesus.’

Then I closed the book and I said, ‘If you are one with Jesus, you are one with all kind of folks.  And if you ain’t, well, you ain’t.'” Jordan asked what happened after that. “Well,” the preacher said, “the deacons took me into the back room and they told me they didn’t want to hear that kind of preaching no more.”  Jordan asked what he did then. “I fired them deacons,” the preacher roared. “Then what happened?” asked Jordan.

“Well,” said the old hillbilly preacher, “I preached that church down to four.  Not long after that, it started growing.  And it grew.  And I found out that revival sometimes don’t mean bringin’ people in but gettin’ people out that don’t dare to love Jesus.”  

It may get HARDER church. If we follow where Jesus goes it gets messy, uncomfortable, frustrating – following Jesus comes with CROSS. In the kingdom, RESURRECTION reigns.  The way of the cross isn’t easy, it cost God everything and it costs us everything – but the resurrection and renewal of all things is worth it.

CONCLUSION (Invite Band Up as We Move to Prayers of the People then Communion)

It’s HARDER to talk about money than anything else.  Money touches us at our deepest levels and provides a strong challenge to our faith in God’s care and provision. We know deep down that what Jesus says is true: It’s harder for a rich person to get to heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. No worries. With God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!

It’s hard to admit that money may stand in the way of our salvation. Our world tells us that money is the source of blessing; Money is the source of the good life; Money will save us.  Even after we come to faith, it’s harder to fully surrender our lives, our families, our church, and our dreams to Christ. We still want control and money promises we can have that.

Humanly, overcoming the power of money is impossible. With God, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!

It may be harder, but it’s WORTH IT.