had come to Jesus asking how he may inherit eternal life. 'What must I do?' he

Transcription

1 Sermon Sunday 14th October, 2012 Lessons Job 23: 1-9, Hebrews 4: St Mark 10: Prayer of Illumination Let us pray. Open our hearts, O Lord, to Your Word. Let Your Spirit imprint and fasten Your lessons on our souls that we may walk ever more closely with You; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Jesus said, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven...it is easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. St Mark 10: 21, 25 Jesus said, 'Sell whatever you have and give to the poor.' The rich young man had come to Jesus asking how he may inherit eternal life. 'What must I do?' he asked the rabbi. Jesus said, 'You must sell whatever you have and give it to the poor.' It is a monumental demand. It is perhaps similar to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Again, Jesus is asked 'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?' In that case, a lawyer who had asked the question was told to have compassion on others, to provide for others in need - money, food and accommodation; in short, to follow the example of the Good Samaritan. The Gospel says that, with a heavy heart, the rich young man departs because he had great possessions. Jesus said, 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' The disciples know that this is a high bar to get over, a very high bar, so, saddened, they ask, 'Who can be saved?' 1

2 One year after the 9/11 attack on the United States, the financial journalist Antonia Swinson did Thought for the Day on Radio 4. Swinson took the passage of the rich young man telling her listeners that Jesus said it is very, very hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. She quoted some research from Warwick University which attemtped to put a price on happiness: a 1000 windfall would increase well-being and reduce stress and a happy marriage delivers a happiness equivalent of 70,000 per annum, while a divorce is calculated at a cost of 132,000 and prolonged ill-health costs 500,000. Controversially, Swinson went on to talk about 9/11. She said: This was the day the market economy finally showed the cracks in what it could deliver, and we rediscovered that money can't buy what is beyond price, and that what is priceless cannot be sold...all the financial muscle of those investment bankers who rushed down the stairs of the Twin Towers could not be traded for the public spirit of those poorly paid firefighters who were treading up...we have now all been given permission to reassess the other precious assets we may hold and enjoy: public service, community spirit, family, good health, friendship and faith. Even the rich cannot guarantee for themselves good health, fertility nor physical safety. We must realise that we are all more wealthy than we think. Swinson was sleighted in The Daily Telegraph the following day for her critique of market economics. In response, Swinson said that she was not criticising investment bankers but the limitations of the system, a system which crushes the human spirit. At the present time, we can see for ourselves the shortcomings of the market economy. Economists may say that the system is working: it is self-correcting. That answer may hold some sway in the lecture 2

3 room but not in the real world. In the real world, the many who have lost their jobs, the many who apply but cannot get a job and the many whose family life is falling apart because parents can no longer pay their mortgage have a quite different perspective on the self-correcting of the market economy. If people matter more than money, then the system is not all its cracked up to be. In his book Reason, Faith and Revolution, Terry Eagleton is critical of those he calls the 'avatars of liberal Enlightenment', namely Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Martin Amis, Salmon Rushdie and Ian McEwan. Eagleton argues that these writers have much to say about the evils of radical Islam and organised religion in general but are almost silent on the evils of global capitalism. Eagleton writes: One has not noticed all that many of them speaking out against, say, the appalling American-backed regimes in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. It is a familiar fact (though not, apparently, all that familiar to the US media) that, thirty years to the day before the attack on the Twin Towers, the United States government violently overthrew the democratically elected government of Chile, installing in its place an odious puppet autocrat who went on to massacre far more people than died in the World Trade Centre. The United States also supported for many years a regime in Indonesia that probably exterminated more people than Saddam Hussein did. Eagleton's point is that capitalism comes at a cost. If people matter more than money, then the system is not all its cracked up to be. Marxism was wrong because human salvation does not come through economics; not through the 3

4 Command Economy of a socialist state nor through the workings and selfcorrecting of capitalism. Jesus said, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.' Is the economic model proposed by Jesus any better? Does this teaching have universal merit? The short answer to these questions has to be 'No.' If this is an economic model, it is the economics of make-believe. No one in their right mind could ever give away all that they had in order to feed and clothe the poor. If you give away all you have, then you are poor. If you give away all you have, your life falls apart. Your family, your well-being and your health, fall apart. No one in their right mind could take Jesus at His word: His economic model lacks all credibility. But this passage is not about economics. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is not about economics. The entire story of the rich young man hinges on one verse, a verse which does not appear in the Good News Bible or, at least, not in its entirety. Different Bible translations draw from different manuscripts. Scholars interpret those manuscripts and, working within a particular theological framework, take decisions about which verses to include or exclude. On the whole, most verses appear in most translations but there are instances where Bibles say different things. In the Good News Bible, verse 24 reads, "Jesus 4

5 went on to say, 'My children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God.'" In the NKJV, verse 24 reads, "Jesus answered again and said to them, 'How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God.'" What a difference! Those who trust in riches, perhaps like the rich young man, are the focus of Jesus' words. Later, the disciples ask Jesus, 'Who then can be saved?' In reply, Jesus answers, 'It is impossible for humanity, but not for God; all things are possible for God.' In other words, our salvation, our health and spiritual well-being, come from God and God alone. We cannot attain our spiritual health and wellbeing through anyother means and certainly not through money and an economic system. God alone is our salvation. God is the proper locus of our trust. This past week, Rowan Williams became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to address the Roman Catholic Church's Synod of Catholic Bishops. In his address, Williams described the worlds of finance and advertising as 'unreal and insane' and that the only way to bring one's life into balance is through contemplation. Williams again spoke of his experience of witnessing children in school practising the Presence. He also said that in addition to the chaos of the financial world and the distortions in advertising, contemplation is the only 5

6 place to make sense of the unexamined and disturbing emotions which we inhabit. Williams said: He said: To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter. Contemplation is an intrinsic element in this transforming process. To learn to look to God without regard to my own instant satisfaction, to learn to scrutinise and to relativise the cravings and fantasies that arise in me this is to allow God to be God, and thus to allow the prayer of Christ, God s own relation to God, to come alive in me. Invoking the Holy Spirit is a matter of asking the third person of the Trinity to enter my spirit and bring the clarity I need to see where I am in slavery to cravings and fantasies and to give me patience and stillness as God s light and love penetrate my inner life. What beautiful words from one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time! It can be truly difficult to find time for contemplation, not least if you have small children at home. And practising the Presence also takes practice. But Jesus calls His disciples, rich and poor alike, to place their trust, their whole trust, in God; to place their lives into God's hands; to sit in peace in God's Presence. Some weeks ago, the philosopher John Haldane said that the present-day churches were using social justice, economic justice and social work as a displacement activity. While these things are important, they are not the substance of our faith. On the Church of Scotland website, there is much about 6

7 a conference on AIDS, social care in Scotland, property seized by the Romanian government, banking and same-sex marriage. There is lots about church law, church property, stewardship, finance and mission-shaped ministry but precious little about God, contemplation, silence and encountering the Holy. Even the Iona Community, once the centre of Celtic spirituality now promotes itself as 'an ecumenical community working for peace and social justice.' The Benedictine monk, David Foster, writes: Silence becomes...a way of praying, a way of letting God pray in us. For us it is also a creative thing because it reverences the space needed for God to change us, to perfect the image of Christ in us and pour out his Holy Spirit in our hearts. It is how we grow in his grace to the full stature of Christ and share more fully in the life of the Holy Spirit. Foster says, 'We need to let God in. We need to create a space within ourselves for God to change us, save us, make us whole and well.' Jesus said the only place to put your trust, your whole trust, is in God. Salvation comes through no other source. Amen. 7