By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Mark 10:17-31
So how
many of us were here two weeks ago for the best Power Point presentation ever
on the Madison Square Church finances? It was amazing, wasn’t it? Good news
after good news followed up by even more good news! In fact, there was so much
good financial news for Madison Square in that Power Point presentation that
our fabulous church Treasurer actually apologized
to us for not having any bad news to
send us reaching into our pockets to fend off a pending financial crisis.
He left
the bearing of the bad news to me . . .
So here
it is. Brace yourselves.
Because
of the generous inheritance we have received from our predecessors in these
pews, Madison Square can rely on a $1.8 million endowment to keep the church
afloat during good times and bad and to support missions and programs and staff
and building maintenance we could never afford on our own. And because of the
generous inheritance we have received from our predecessors in these pews we
get to worship in this gorgeous historic sanctuary that just feels like “home”
the moment you walk through the door. And we have a three story multi-purpose
educational building next door housing a Child Development Center that offers a
high quality downtown education to kids who couldn’t get it anywhere else. And
both of these buildings are completely paid off. And because of the generous
inheritance we have received from our predecessors in these pews, we receive a
substantial perk to our annual budget from oil and mineral rights. And when we
combine this generous inheritance with the deep-pocketed and heartfelt
generosity of every one of us worshiping today
with this fabulous community here at Madison Square, we become an
incredibly wealthy church.
By any
reasonable global economic standard we as members of the community of Christ
here at Madison Square are flat out rich!
So
here’s the bad news of Christ, Gospel
of Mark version:
Anyone
want to try to fit a camel through this thing? [my mother’s sewing needle]
“How
hard it will be,” Jesus says, “for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom
of God. [Because in the kingdom of God] many who are first will be last, and
the last will be first.” Including, I am afraid, Presbyterian churches.
Now
before I go any further let me just say that I am well aware we are an
economically diverse congregation here at Madison Square. In fact I think that
is one of this community’s greatest strengths. We welcome the full spectrum of
economic diversity within these walls. And, I might add, this is somewhat
unique in the mostly middle to upper middle class professional Presbyterian
world.
Yes our
church finances at Madison Square may
be off-the-chart stellar, but I am just going to hazard a guess that our personal finances are all over the
place. Some of us are struggling to face unemployment or underemployment with
the firm conviction that God will provide
some way, some how, even if we can’t see it yet. And yet some others of us are blessed
with a steady stream of income that offers a comfortable cushion to thrive. But
we hold on to an equally firm conviction that these gifts from God cannot be
hoarded for our own gain but must be shared wisely to care for those who just
plain didn’t get so lucky. And with most of us we are somewhere in-between
these two extremes. We may have enough to get by for the moment, but we always
seem to worry about what’s next. Trying to figure out how in the world our
expenditures always seem to rise to meet our income. Swimming (or drowning) in
debt. Fearing we might not ever truly have “enough.”
When it
comes to our own personal financial
position we might not place ourselves in the rich man’s perspective in the
biblical text for today. But as the Body of Christ we are more than mere
individuals in these pews. We are a community.
And as a community we really are rich. So what can we learn together from this
man in Mark, and Jesus, and a camel and a needle that can help Madison Square
inherit eternal life? Which means, in Mark’s Gospel, to inherit “the kingdom of
God.”
God
alone is good, Jesus might tell us, as he told the rich man. Regardless of the
“good news” of your church budget. You know what to do, he might say to us.
Follow the commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. Yes, of course, we
might say in response. We’re already doing that, aren’t we? But instead of the
rave reviews we expect it may very well be that Jesus, loving us as deeply as he
loved that rich man, could tell us that we still lack one thing. And that we
should sell what we own and give the proceeds to the poor: the $1.8 million
endowment. The building and the property. The mineral rights and the dividends
from oil. And then keep following Jesus on the “good news” journey down the
river of our baptism that flows from the throne of God.
And we
might gasp in horror.
Think
about it. What if Jesus really did ask us to give up the “good news” of our
financial position at Madison Square for the sake of the good news of the kingdom of God? Would we go away grieving all that
we would lose? The things that make Madison Square the church home we love? Or
would we relish the chance to let go of what we think is good in order to build up treasure in heaven?
The
thing is it can be easy to get complacent when we live off an inheritance. On
the one hand, we can expect that things “will always get taken care of” so
there’s not much we have to do for ourselves. Or we can get so carefree with
our spending in thinking the river will never run dry that we ruin the water
table for every generation to follow. Or we can become so captive to our wealth
we are complicit with the power that creates wealth unjustly and the law of
accumulation that requires others to live with less. Or we can come to place
our faith and trust in those things that stoke our wealth—and grant us false
security—instead of in the God of all creation who gave us this generous
inheritance called life in the first
place. In abundance. Meant to be shared. As a gift of grace and not something
we earn on our own. Which is what I think Jesus was getting at with the rich
man and the camel and the eye of the needle.
What
would we do, who would we be, here at Madison Square, if we had none of that? If we decided to thread
our needle through the wisdom of the kingdom of God that says the only way to
overcome the crucible of wealth is to give it away?
Would
we fall apart without our organ? I LOVE our organ! But is it possible we might find
a greater trust in the God we’ve been worshiping all along through the accompaniment of our organ? Would we
pull back on our mission giving in order to pay the bills? [Which is what a
whole lot of churches are doing these days.] Or would we find a greater
solidarity with those who have never had a hope for the kind of inheritance we
take for granted and give away even more? Would we moan and groan about “what
isn’t getting done” in comparison with the past? Or would we share even more of
our own time and talent and treasure in order to fill the gap?
Here’s
the really good news for Madison Square:
we already know the answer. We’ve already lived
the answer. In the past year every one of us has offered time and talent
and treasure we might not even have known that we had in order to build up the
kingdom of God through this community. Elders and Deacons have spent hours upon
hours focusing this ship forward, visiting the sick and injured, getting our
financial house in order, filling staff vacancies, supporting the Madison
Square Child Development Center, bringing food to support Christian Assistance
Ministries, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and creating a worship
experience that fosters hope and facilitates mission.
Every
single person who has been asked to lead worship as a liturgist has said yes. We
haven’t had a repeat yet! Everyone who volunteers as an usher “welcomes home”
the people of God in a spirit of generous hospitality. Everyone who volunteers
with our children and youth carries the inheritance forward for the generation
yet to come. Everyone who gives just a little bit more time and talent and
treasure than they think they can afford receives back a hundredfold in
blessings in this life and the next. Just ask yourselves if this is true. It is!
The really good news for Madison Square is
that we don’t actually need that inheritance at all in order to follow Jesus
down the river of grace that is the abundant life of the kingdom of God. We
would do it anyway. We are doing it
anyway. And we will keep on doing it because that is just what we are going to
do. It’s the only thing that ever had any hope of saving us, in the end.
Because
the best news of all for every one of us is that the good grace of God is just
like that inheritance we have received from our predecessors in these pews. A
pure gift. A complete and utter gift. Through nothing we have earned on
our own. And nothing we can do or not do in return. But simply shout alleluia.
And say thank you. And then pay it forward to those who need it even more than
we do.
And
that is what the good news of the kingdom of God is really all about. It may feel impossible for we who are mere
mortals. But not for God. For God all things are possible. Including a very
rich camel threading the eye of this needle so that all may be one in the
household of God.
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