You Can’t Take It with You
Mark 10:17-31
Oct 11, 2009 Ordinary 28B
- Intro
“We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle. My sisters and I were all counting on having one birthday apiece during our twelve month mission. ‘And heaven knows’ our mother predicted, ‘they won’t have Betty Crocker in the Congo.’”
This is an early introduction to a family of missionaries in a novel called “The Poisonwood Bible.” The father, Reverend Nathan Pierce, has signed his wife and four daughters to move to the jungles of Congo, and the ways they get ready are kinda funny.
They try packing everything they might need: dozens of cans of deviled ham, an ivory plastic hand mirror, a stainless steel thimble, a dozen number-2 pencils, bandaids, anacin, Absorbine, and a thermometer, a cast iron skillet, bakers yeast, pinking shears, and all sorts of other things.
As they get to the airport, they realize they’ve brought too much-- and frantically try to pare things down. Then they remember they can have 46 pounds per person--not including the actual person. In effort to keep more of what they’ve packed, they rush into the restroom and layer their clothes, so that they finally end up wearing “six pairs of underdrawers, two half-slips and camisoles; several dresses one on top of the other with pedal pushers underneath; and outside of everything an all weather coat.”
Having lived in Africa for three months, I find this terribly funny. Funny, I guess, because I tried to do something very similar--and I wasn’t to be gone anywhere near a year. I bought the jumbo bottles of shampoo, and more socks than any one person should own, much less pack. I packed snack crackers and chocolate and toilet paper and stationary-- all the things that, looking back, seem utterly ridiculous. But who could blame me, or these missionaries? After all-- how could you head off to a world about which you know nothing-- without even the barest of creature comforts?
After all, in some small way, these things protect you. At the very least, they set you apart, so that you are reminded that you’re not really one of “them”-- you’re just a visitor. And you just don’t know that you’ll be able to find these things there--things which represent a style of living as much as they meet your needs.
So what do you take with you?
- Priorities
I’ve always thought that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they pack for a trip. (Which is one of the reasons I’m deeply grateful that we have a garage in which we can pack the car-- you might draw all sorts of unfortunate conclusions about us if you saw us!)
One of the things you’d see are several pillows-- two for Donovan and one for me. Not that the place we’re staying won’t have pillows, but they won’t have our pillows. You’d also see a camera bag, a knitting bag, a range bag, a cosmetic bag, a book bag, a hanging bag, a snack bag, and not one but two computer bags. And that doesn’t even include our suitcases--mine, of course, is always bigger because I can never make up my mind as to what I might want to wear.
Clearly, these are the things that matter to us.
But the classic question that gets to the heart of one’s priorities bugs me: if you were going to be stranded on a desert island, and could only pack three things-- what would you take? (And you can’t take a person)
Or with a slightly different spin: If your house were burning down, what would you rush back in to save?
I know I’d pack my dog Bella, and the classic cheesy preacher answer-- a Bible. But out of everything else, I couldn’t pick just one more thing.
If I had to rush back in my burning house, I think I’d grab my wedding pictures, and my grandmother’s kitchenaid mixer. But who could choose what else?
[Transition:
Those decisions about priorities are really tough.
But what if you had the chance at a brand new life that was everything you’d never dared to dream of? Great. But what if the condition on which you might have that life came at the cost of having to leave everything you love and hold dear behind. What then? Where then would those priorities be? ]
- Toe Stepping on Jesus
And that’s where Toe-Stepping-On Jesus walks into the picture. The rich man has been everything and done everything-- he’s at the top of his social ladder. And he’s still not content. He knows there must be something more.
Maybe that something more comes in the form of eternal life? “Sure,” Jesus says. “But it doesn’t come cheaply. How badly do you want it?”
“Well, gosh-- it has to be so much more amazing than my life now. Besides, if I were at the top eternally, then I’d really be something. Why, I’d do anything!”
“Anything?” Jesus must’ve said.
“Sure. Anything. I’d pray more. I’d love more. Gosh, I’d even donate my time folding bulletins in the temple.”
“Ok-- how bout this? Go and sell everything you own, and give the money to the poor.”
The man turns and leaves in silence, because he knows that Jesus has bested him. That’s the one thing he could not do. Not only would it be impossible to sell all those things which he worked so hard for, but he’d be selling his soul-- because those are the things that represented his success. And not only that, but to give the money to the poor would mean elevating people that didn’t deserve it to the place where he was. And for a triple whammie, he’d be completely broke-- just your regular old person on the street, which was not what he’d had in mind when he was so busy climbing to the top.
- The Rich Young Man
This is such a peculiar story to me. First of all, what a passage to preach in tough economic times! This would be a lot easier if we were all on top of our games. But nobody that we know is really rolling in it. Even this church, though filled with strong tithers, still worries about money. Most of us just don’t have piles of money laying around collecting dust. We need what we have.
But what catches me off guard every time is that Jesus doesn’t criticize or condemn the man for having money. Maybe this surprises me because in Christian-eese we render the “the love of money is the root of all evil” as a much more demanding “money is the root of all evil”. There is a difference between those two things-- and in our pious moments, we think all Christians ought to have taken vows of poverty.
Yet, this is not Jesus’ attitude, at least in this particular story-- though on the surface, it seems like Jesus might feel this way, as we think of the demands Jesus makes on the well-intentioned man.
Jesus doesn’t seem to demand this of everyone he meets. This particular condition seems to be for this particular man. I’ve been pondering this, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that Jesus asks the one thing of the man that is holding the man back.
The text says, “The man had many possessions” but I wonder if Jesus really meant “The man was possessed by many things.”
I don’t know for sure, having never been rich, but I’d imagine that money could create a certain kind of slavery. You get used to having things a certain way, or to people treating you a certain way, and then you’re not really free to leave that way of life. Everything you do, every decision you make comes back to how it will affect you and your carefully guarded nest egg.
Like I said, I’ve never been rich. But I know what it is to have things grab ahold of me and never let go.
But then again, I’d guess we all have that experience with one thing or another.
Jesus says to the man, “Go, sell all your possessions”, but I think he means something much more broad than that. I think he means, “Go sell the things that possess you. Get rid of the things which hold you back from serving me with your whole being.” I think, for some of us, the things that hold us back might be money and “stuff” related. But for others, the things that hold us back are things like “history” (a yearning for the good ol days-- even for the golden era days of things like church.) Maybe something that holds us back is a desire to maintain a certain reputation. Maybe it’s a need to be recognized. Or maybe it’s all these things and more.
But what strikes me as I think about Jesus and the demands he makes of the rich man is that Jesus might also be asking the man to give up the things of his former life, and hold on to the things that are of God.
[Transition: Down here in the south, we get concerned about what people do with their money. And if they aren’t doing the things we think they ought to, we’ll either say to their face or behind their back some version of “You can’t take it with you”. Usually, what we mean is that even if you had bricks of gold buried with you, it’s not going wherever you go. It’s just going to sit there in the ground and not do you much good.]
- You can’t take it with you
But maybe that’s what Jesus says to the rich young man and to us. And maybe it means something slightly different.
Maybe it means “You can’t take it with you on the journey with me.”
As I was thinking about this passage this week, I happened to hear an interview with Mitch Albom, who wrote “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” He has a new book out, “Have a Little Faith” and it is the true story of two very different types of ministers.
One of the stories Albom tells about getting to know the 82 year old priest that asked Albom to do his eulogy is that they were sitting in a hospital and heard a baby cry. The priest said, “That reminds me of something. Babies come into the world with their fists clenched. Why? Because they think they can grab ahold of everything. I’m getting ready to die, and I’m going to die with open hands. Why? Because you can’t take it with you”
I’ve been thinking about that this week, about how we try and try to hold on to everything that we believe makes us happy and secure. But, I wonder, at what cost?
This is a literal thought on a metaphorical idea I’m trying to get across, but I hope you’ll indulge me. As the weather gets cooler, I start thinking about hiking-- which I used to do fairly often, before life got in the way. During all my hiking trips, I never went with my hands full. Instead, anything I needed for the trip went in some sort of backpack. After all, how cumbersome would it be to climb a strenuous hill with your hands overloaded? With your hands free, the trip is much more enjoyable. You’re free to swing your arms if it helps you. You’re free to pick up rocks and pretty leaves. You’re free to touch the moss that grows in that beautiful way. And, even though we’re told not to do this, it’s such a natural instinct that that’s a moot point-- if you fall, you have something with which to catch yourself-- or to grab on to your partners hand for much needed support.
Maybe the same idea applies to journeying with Jesus. How much would having full “hands” or full pockets or full egos hinder your journey? How much less free would you be to fully do the things that Christ asks of us? How much less free would you be to reach out and help someone else if you’re too worried about dropping the load of sticky possessions that you’ve been holding onto? How much less free to receive the blessings that come with allowing God’s grace to wash over you if your heart is full of illwill or mistrust?
And besides, as one of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor, says, "You cannot accept God’s gift if you have no spare hands to take it with. You cannot make room for it if your rooms are already full. You cannot follow if you are not free to go."
Don’t misunderstand. I haven’t softened Jesus’ harsh words any. What Christ asks is that we quit holding on to the things that hold onto us. That we quit grabbing onto safety and security, so that we may be open to receiving the blessings that we are offered. Christ asks that we let go of the things of our “former” lives, and become the new beings we were created to be.
Jesus says, “No. You can’t take it with you. But trust me, the blessings you’ll find along the way will more than fill the emptiness left behind by letting go. You can’t take it with you-- do you still want to come?”
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