Good Morning.
First let me thank everyone for the response to the news about Karen’s brother Steve. Keep him and his family in your prayers. The doctors say that he is not in life-threatening danger, but he is very badly broken and will have a long road to restoration ahead of him. He has several broken ribs, a broken right shoulder (probably with multiple breaks) a punctured lung and a great deal of facial cuts and abrasions. He is still intubated. Almost every one of his injuries is a source of great pain, and they are keeping him sedated for now.
Thank you. Karen has been overwhelmed by the grace and kindness of your responses.
In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus utters one of his most controversial statements: “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 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.”
Let’s understand two things. Jesus never condemns rich people. Jesus never condemns wealth. He is talking about idolatry: whom do you worship? People who have above average wealth have a grave temptation constantly surrounding them. For some, wealth becomes an end in itself, and they hoard their money. For some, wealth becomes a source of hubris: I’ve got mine and I can do with it whatever I please.
You don’t have to look very far to see the destructive force that wealth can be within a family both in life and in death. As the old saying goes, “Where there’s a will, there’s a relative!”
The question that we all have to decide is whom shall we worship. Wealth complicates things by making some people forget our shared dependence on God. It can make you think: “I did it myself.” And yet in this little community I have seen wealthy people with enormous hearts for helping other people through both the church and the community. These are people who have never forgotten that the Lord is the sole source of the wealth they have been given, and that they have been given a responsibility to use that wealth to further God’s kingdom by sharing with others.
And it’s not just people who fall prey to the temptations of wealth. Congregations with significant endowment funds can also get carried away with hoarding their wealth instead of using it to spread God’s kingdom. The two most frequent excuses that are heard are “We need to keep it for a rainy day!” or “We have to be very careful what we do with it!” It’s a shame how readily congregations will spend their wealth in building upkeep and not support the opportunities they have at home and around the world to spread the mission of Jesus Christ.
The question we all have to face – both individually and together as congregations – is simply “Whom shall I worship.” Jesus’ answer, and the answer of the Hebrew scriptures for thousands of years has been most simply summarized at Luke 10:27: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Rich or poor, wise or foolish, weak or powerful the question always remains the same: whom shall you serve?
Prayer: Lord God, source of all that we have, keep our eyes and our hearts turned to You so that we gratefully and constantly acknowledge our un-payable debt and pledge all that we have to the service of Your kingdom and the glory of our God. Amen.
Today’s readings are Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30; Psalm 97, 99, 100 , 94 & 95.
Blessings.
Pastor Jim
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