The Maturity of a Disciple: Stewardship Luke 18:18-30 Baseball great Yogi Berra celebrated his 90 th birthday this week. Besides baseball, Berra is

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1 The Maturity of a Disciple: Stewardship Luke 18:18-30 Baseball great Yogi Berra celebrated his 90 th birthday this week. Besides baseball, Berra is also well known for his malapropisms. I shared one of his gems with anyone reading our front lawn sign this week: You can observe a lot by watching. My all-time favorite pearl of wisdom from Yogi is this one: If you don t know where you re going you might end up someplace else. When his son, Dale Berra, was traded to the Yankees from the Pirates in 1984 he sounded a lot like a chip off the old block when he said: You can t compare me to my father. Our similarities are different. My first year of seminary was different very different than any previous year of my life. I had to decide where I was going for the next year s internship, which could also mean where and how I would spend the rest of my life. What should I do? I asked myself that over and over one day as I walked out of chapel one day. What should I do? I asked myself and I asked God, What should I do? And into my mind popped the answer, Do your homework. Not the answer I expected. But I was so shocked that I dashed to the library to try to complete every outstanding assignment. When I look at the man who comes to Jesus, running up all full of enthusiasm, kneeling in sincerity, I see a little of myself. I also see a lot of friends and acquaintances who rush to Jesus or to worship him when they come to a crossroads in their lives. The man who came to Jesus that day wasn t in dire straits. He was well-off, and probably enjoyed good health, prestige, and power. When Jesus asks him about keeping the commandments, he says that everything is okay in that department. But he came to Jesus, dashing to him lest he miss Jesus before moving on to the next town. He blurts out his question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? It s a burning question because something is wrong. Not an outward wrong. The man has his place in the community. He s stable, established, and secure. About the same as my wife and I were in seminary with one and an eighth jobs between us. We owned a newer car. We were meeting our bills for rent, meals, and tuition. Compared to some of the student body we were practically affluent. Yet trying to decide what to do with one s life causes some of the deepest 1

2 struggles, maybe not lying awake every night, but a wondering about what is waiting for us around the next corner, as though life itself is questioning us. What are you going to do? This man faces both a problem and an opportunity. The folks around him think he looks fine. Everyone assumes, as does most of the Old Testament, that the richer you are the more God has blessed you, and God has blessed you because you re a good person. Inside himself, though his religion says he s doing well, he knows that he isn t. All his family and villagers know that eternal life is earned by obeying the law. This man had done exactly that. Yet something is wrong. He might not have articulated exactly why he s disturbed enough to be jogging after a penniless Galilean teacher, but something is eating at him, even grieving him. Maybe he s heard Jesus preach and laid awake a few nights, totally befuddled with Jesus message about God s kingdom. Jesus says to him, You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not give false testimony; honor your father and mother. Jesus speaks to him about the law. The man responds, All these I have kept since I was a boy. So why is he here? What s drawn him to Jesus, falling on his knees before Jesus? After all, he s an aristocrat! Something is out of whack. He has a lot but he wants more, something that can t be possessed by not breaking one of the commandments. There must be something more than the culture s definition of success, more than being admired, more than not breaking the rules. Something stirs within him, summoning him, and it has to do with Jesus. And Jesus, this Jesus he seeks, what does he do? Jesus looks at him and sees what is missing. Mark s version of this story inserts a sentence that is missing in Luke. He notes that Jesus looked at him and loved him (Mark 10:21). When this great love of Jesus surrounds us, sometimes we want to say, Jesus, don t do that. Yell at me. Threaten me. Punish me. Give me rules to obey, but don t love me so much. I can t take that! Jesus love makes us think that things we hold most important are not that important at all. Pure love makes us see how impure our love is. It can be painful, yet we re drawn to Jesus kind of love. Doggone that Jesus. He loved the man. He comes so dangerously close. He doesn t come throwing punches. He comes as John s gospel explains as a helper, a counselor, an advocate. He puts his arm around us and asks us to respond to 2

3 him, to trust him as though he were the attorney who d defend us against any charge even murder. The most loving thing that Jesus can do for the man is to challenge him: You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. The Christian faith is following the person of Jesus, not following a list of rules or even having ecstatic spiritual experiences. It s trusting in Jesus to take us to God. Jesus doesn t guarantee he ll lead us away from all our troubles. But he ll be right beside us whenever our paths lead us into many troubles. Jesus didn t escape the agony of Gethsemane or the suffering of the cross. Yet this Jesus who endured the cross is with us now in every trouble we might face. Of the man in Luke 18 we read, When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. We can hope that later on he realized what he had passed up. We can hope that after the message of Jesus resurrection from the dead spread like a California canyon fire through the country, the man thought again, changed his mind, and turned back to Jesus to lead him to God. Like the rich man, we may not have obeyed what Jesus has said to us, no matter how close we have come to committing ourselves to him. The gospels give us a composite picture of this certain ruler. Mark says he is rich, Matthew says he is young, and Luke says he is a ruler. He greeted Jesus by saying Good Teacher. Nobody used that adjective in addressing a rabbi. Good was reserved for God. So Jesus probes for his motive. Is this flattery, or does he really believe that Jesus is God? Jesus tells the young man to seek first the Kingdom of God above all else. The young man declares he has kept all the rules and Jesus brings up his wealth. Can he give it away to the poor? He could not, and went away sorrowful. Jesus is not saying here that you cannot have money and be a disciple. Rather, he indicates that if your wealth is more important than the kingdom, you can t enter it. If you really want the kingdom, not secondarily or in addition to, but first and only, then you can have it. Jesus goes on to say that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. For the Jew, money was a sign of 3

4 blessing. The disciples are puzzled and ask who, then, can be saved? Peter wants to know, What about us? It s a valid question. By way of response, Jesus makes this truly astounding offer. He says, Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life (vv. 29, 30). Now there s the eternal life the rich young man was looking for. I think we have too often spiritualized this story from Luke 18. I have read many commentaries that indicate that Jesus, of course, does not mean material blessings, but spiritual blessings. I happen to believe he means what he says. He is talking about the things of this world and the material blessings to come. Sometimes it s hard to prosper and remain faithful. The Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness with only a bit of manna and water. They were lean and hard and conquered the land. They were God s people. Once God gave them the land, they became lazy and indulgent. God wants to bless us, but when we are blessed with things, there s only one way to keep our blessings from sinking us by giving them away. The more we give, the more we get. We don t know what the rich-young-certain-ruler did in the end, but here are some things we can do. They are ancient ways of following Jesus. 1. Worship. Worship him regularly. This is where Jesus is especially present and he commands us to gather with one another. Come here not just for your own sake but in order to strengthen others within this fellowship. 2. Follow. Follow Jesus by sharing the Lord s Supper and renewing your faith when children and adults are baptized, such as this morning. 3. Pray. Jesus is a living person and you must speak to him, just as you speak with any another friend. If you don t learn to pray often and comfortably, when a crisis befalls you you ll be unfamiliar with praying. In prayer we receive the strength, peace, joy, and hope that God offers. 4. Study. Study with a group of Christians. Look for Jesus in the scriptures. Read and discuss books that discuss the Christian life. 4

5 5. Obey. When God says something to you, do it, even if it means doing your homework. Take it from me: You can learn a lot by obeying. 6. Give. Give regularly, proportionately and generously. Remember in last week s story Zacchaeus gave half of his wealth to the poor and promised to pay back four times the amount he had cheated anyone? Give. We expect there to be a miraculous change in the rich young ruler s life too. But real change usually comes through training, not trying. I can try very hard to bench-press three hundred pounds, but that isn t what will enable me to do it. I will only be able to bench-press three hundred pounds by training to benchpress three hundred pounds. Likewise, merely trying to give as mature followers of Jesus will never bring about real change. We must train ourselves in the discipline of giving if we are to become the generous and faithful givers God made us to be. Mature disciples that practice Christian stewardship give to God only what God has first given to us. And only mature disciples acknowledge that all we have is a gift from God. If you ever have any doubts about that statement answer this simple question: One hundred years from now, who will own anything that you possess today? Here s a hint. It won t be you. Psalm 24 says: The earth is the LORD s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Amen. 5