SERMON FOR OCTOBER 10, 2021.          TEXT: MARK 10:17-31
     Two weeks ago we heard, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell . . . . And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.” Last week we heard Mark’s account of Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees about marriage and divorce. The story also appears in Matthew’s Gospel but with a memorable addition:  “His disciples said to him, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can’“(Matthew 19:10-12).Indeed, one of the great theologians and teachers of the early church, Origen of Alexandria, was rumored to have castrated himself so that he might offer catechetical instruction to women without causing offense. Today we hear the Lord’s charge to “go, sell all that you own, and give the money to the poor.” How literally are we to take what Jesus says?
     One of the most dramatic results of the Reformation was the abolition of monastic orders among Protestants. They have not been part of our religious tradition, and consequently it is very hard for us to appreciate the important role they played in the church for centuries. Men and women who lived under vows were seen as embodying the higher righteousness to which Jesus called his followers. They became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven by pledging themselves to lifelong celibacy. They answered Jesus’ call to rid themselves of their worldly goods by embracing Lady Poverty, to use St. Francis’ term. They made themselves poor in another way as well, divesting themselves of power and autonomy through a vow of absolute obedience to the abbot of the monastery. The rich young man in today’s Gospel would have done much the same, had he heeded Jesus’ command. For material poverty would have brought with it the loss of social position and influence, dependent as these are on wealth. 
     The monasteries became beacons to the world around them, havens of safety and sanctity, where the monks divided their time between manual labor, communal worship and private study and prayer. Individual monks were poor, but their communities held property. Over time they were defeated by their own success — they received extensive gifts from the nobility, who sought the monks’ prayers on behalf of their families, in particular their dead. Rulers entrusted them with the oversight of vast territory, since a monastic community could produce no legitimate heirs who might claim the land for themselves. Time and again reform movements would try to recover the austerity originally envisioned for their order. Regarding their dilemma, one historian remarked, “It is easy to become poor by accident but not by design.” 
     The economic situation changed drastically when wealth became a matter of having money rather than holding land. The story of Francis of Assisi, who lived from 1181-1226, exemplifies this dramatic development. His father was a prosperous cloth merchant. His world was urban rather than agrarian. When he discovered that his son was diverting the profits from his sales to charitable purposes, he disowned him in the public square before the bishop. He was protecting the family business. Francis, for his part, gladly renounced everything he had, even the clothes on his back, which he stripped off right then and there. The order he founded required absolute poverty of its members, not just as individuals but as a community. They did not live cloistered in a monastery. They were itinerants with no place to lay their heads. They wandered through the cities as beggars, dependent on the alms donated by those who had not taken vows of poverty. In a society hungry for money but uncomfortable with its new wealth — after all, the Scriptures do denounce the love of money as a root of all kinds of evil (1  Timothy 6:10) — the Franciscan friars offered a kind of reassuring antidote. 
     Yet they too fell victim to their own success. Francis’ vision had great appeal. It is said that mothers locked up their sons and women their fiancés when he was around, so persuasive was his preaching. But towns could support only so many begging friars. After Francis’ death the church altered his original rule so that his little brothers had settled places to live. Within a generation they were more likely to be found studying and teaching in the great universities of medieval Europe than wandering the streets of its cities, ministering to the poor. 
     “Go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor.” It is worth noting that in the gospels the rich man is the only potential disciple of whom Jesus makes this demand. He calls all kinds of people to follow him and makes it clear that to do so is not easy. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” His call is to discipleship. An enduring question for the church has been how that relates to a call to poverty. It is a question with which every Christian must wrestle. The man in today’s story kneels before Jesus like others in the Gospels who seek healing from the Lord. He is righteous, a good Jew obedient to the law, yet he knows he is not whole. Why else would he come to Jesus and ask for guidance? Yet he is distressed by what he hears and realizes, to his great grief, that he cannot follow where Jesus is leading. The man is tripped up by his many possessions. In Jesus’ day wealth and the power and prestige it brought were considered great blessings, signs of God’s favor. The Son of Man who had nowhere to lay his head became the lord of a church that wielded immense political power and judged it only fitting that the body of the risen, victorious Christ in the world should be adorned with great wealth. Even today the gospel of prosperity has an appealing ring. So when Jesus speaks of wealth as an ungodly danger rather than a blessing, it is no surprise that his disciples across the centuries are perplexed by his words. 
     One day on the way to school I realized I had left the front door of our condo unlocked. When I fretted about it, Lucy just laughed. “Mom,” she said, “the most expensive thing we own is the Beagle, and nobody will take her once they see what she’s done to the carpet.” The danger for me over the years has been a sort of inversion of that troubling the man in today’s Gospel —not so much an attachment to wealth and abundant possessions but a bondage to financial anxiety, a terror of coming up short:  Would I earn enough to keep Lucy and me afloat in the oh-so-expensive Bay Area? Could I save enough to provide for my retirement, and given my family’s gene pool, it could well be a long one! And what about the unforeseen expenses? The significant deductible for the two of us on our health insurance; the accident that totaled our old car; the emergency vet bill on the aforementioned Beagle. This kind of worry makes it difficult to breathe the air of hope and generosity. When others depend on you to care for them, it is hard to imagine giving away all you own and subjecting them to the consequences. 
     In the story of the rich man we are told that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him . . . .” His departure does not change that. Jesus speaks no word of condemnation when the man finds himself unable to do as Jesus commands. He does not argue with Jesus or try to talk his way around what the Lord requires. He goes away grieving. He grieves at the thought of giving up so much. He also grieves his inability to bring himself to obey. Yet his encounter with Jesus does bear fruit: the rich man goes away a changed person, his eyes opened to the possibility of radical change and the freedom it brings, even as he confronts the truth about the one thing in which he is lacking. Surely God is at work in him. Mark never mentions the rich man again, but that does not mean that his story ends here. 
     Consider your relationship to the things you have and the things you do not, how they cause you to turn away when Jesus bids you, “Come, follow me” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Recognize the power of possessions, the hold they have over our lives that we cannot or will not break. That’s how change begins. Then we can claim for ourselves a new way forward in the midst of the tyranny of wealth. We can take what seem impossible steps in the culture and economy of our time, so very different from that of either Jesus’ or Mark’s audience.  Because in every generation for God all things are possible. Amen.