Texts: Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31

This past week I had a peculiar dream. I was living in a huge, luxurious apartment. Apparently I was independently wealthy, because in my dream it was a weekday and instead of hurrying off to work (as I do in real life), I was wandering down to the back porch to pick up the morning paper, to read over a leisurely breakfast. As I was stooping to pick up the paper, I caught sight of Anita Hill, the director of Wingspan Ministry.

The last few days I've wondered why I dreamed about Anita Hill. Anita is the Director of Wingspan Ministry, a ministry of St. Paul Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul that works on behalf of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people, and is working to bring about reconciliation within the church and the larger society. Anita has been in a singular struggle for many years now to be ordained as an open lesbian Lutheran minister. She is on the verge of being ordained, though it is still uncertain what the outcome of her ordination will be: whether it will result in St. Paul Ref being ousted from a denomination that bans such ordinations; or whether it will help bring about a shift in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I view Anita as a person of extraordinary courage, someone who has put her life on the line to make change happen. So perhaps in my dream, Anita represented that part of me that is willing to make sacrifices to bring about lasting social change.

At any rate, in my dream, Anita did not seem overjoyed to see me. She said something to me about how long it had been since I had called her. I asked her if she was angry at me, and she admitted she was. "We used to walk in the same circles, you and I," she said, "But it is a long time since I have seen you in any circle." I felt terribly ashamed. Have you ever had those dreams, when you wake up and breathe a sigh of relief that it was only a dream, but the uneasiness lingers?

It's not the first time I've had this kind of dream, and not the first time I've felt this uneasiness. What is that about?

Then the gospel text for today put me in touch with it:

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him: ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not give false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.' And the man said to him, ‘Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, ‘You need to do one more thing. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!'

The most significant change in my life in recent months has been a change in my work. This has resulted in a significant improvement in my family's standard of living. Among other things, this has allowed us to go from having $3,500 of debt to being almost debt free. For the first time in years, we have a small savings account that is steadily growing, and will grow faster once the last of our long-standing bills have been paid off. And I have a comprehensive benefit package that includes dental and health coverage for my partner.

It did not take long to realize what a difference financial stability could make to my mental health. It was as if a cloud lifted. I gained major insight into one of the reasons why I have struggled with depression for the last few years. After I had started working at the new firm, close friends noticed a change in me. "You look good," Jim Smith told me, "you look relaxed." I feel relaxed. I feel very lucky.

And yet, as crazy as it may seem, I have also struggled with guilt. I used to ride on the bus, and see the "down-and-out" people, the people who struggle day to day, not just pay-check to pay-check. And then I came to work at the church and I saw the single moms dropping their kids off at the day care, and the valiant day care staff trying to nurture their troop of children in a church building kind of falling apart at the seams; and the homeless people, and the people who have no where else to go coming to us for help, because we're a church; and I saw us, on a day to day basis trying to minister to each other through illnesses and deaths and the personal crises that are the natural course of being human. And I could think, if I feel like I'm living on the edge of crisis and poverty, if I feel like I can barely account for today much less tomorrow, much less 5 years from now, much less when I'm sixty-four . . . Welcome to the human race. Welcome to the way of life of 95% of the planet.

And now I walk down the sparkling halls of the downtown skyway, watching the rhythm of life in the fast lane, rush hour traffic, pressure deadlines, big clients, and the dance of big money. And I feel completely alien. Perhaps I am just going through culture shock, but perhaps there is more to it.

The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts more incisively than any two-edged sword: it can seek out the place where soul is divided from spirit, or joints from marrow; it can pass judgment on secret emotions and thoughts. No created thing is hidden from God; everything is uncovered and stretched fully open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give account of ourselves.

That text from Hebrews is the one I wanted to preach about. I thought I would use it to preaching about the lay-preaching ministry. I gave myself a number of good reasons not to preach the sermon I am preaching today. Too self-indulgent. Too depressing. Too unproductive. Besides, I had promised Don and the lay-preaching committee to preach about lay preaching. What could I hope to accomplish by preaching this sermon?

But when I set about preparing a lay-preaching sermon on the Hebrews text "the word of God is alive and active: it cuts more incisively than any two-edged sword," I found that it did cut. And "the place where soul [was] divided from spirit" was in those simple words of Jesus that we have heard and reheard, "Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" and "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!"

So what does that text mean to me today? Why can't I read these words of Jesus and not be a fundamentalist? Why can't I somehow make myself happy with a nice, liberal interpretation that says Jesus was just being figurative when he said it's hard for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God?! (That's a nice liberal interpretation that most fundamentalists are satisfied with too!) Why can't I be happy with some nice easy middle class way to slide past his command to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven," and think, Oh, Jesus just wants us all to be nice people?!

When the young man came to Jesus and said "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus gave him an easy answer and then a hard answer. The easy answer was basically, "You know what the commandments are. What do you think?" I wonder if the young man himself didn't know in his heart that there must be something more. He said to Jesus, "Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days." "Master, these commandments are easy; I already fulfill them all. Isn't there more?" And I like to think that Jesus then gave him the hard answer, because he sensed that the young man might be ready to receive it. The text says, "Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him." And then the zinger: "Sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." The text says, "His face fell at these words and he went away sad." If we count ourselves rich as to the things of this world, how can we expect to encounter this word of Christ and not do the same?

And isn't the reaction of Jesus' disciples the same reaction we all have, when Jesus says, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" The text says "the disciples were astounded by these words." But Jesus insisted, continuing that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God." The text says "they were more astonished than ever" and they said, "In that case who can be saved?"

They were not astounded because Jesus revealed to them some nice, liberal, figurative truth about how everybody should just be nice and follow the commandments. They were astounded because they lived, like we live, in a world that turns around money, and all that implies.

How we interpret the next verse is most revealing of all, because this is where I think the standard exegesis lets us all off the hook. Jesus says: "By human resources it is impossible, but not for God, because for God everything is possible."

We say something to the effect that Jesus doesn't really expect that we give up our wealth. He is just trying to make a point about how we should have humility. That's usually the part where we then pat each other on the back and say, "See, rich people can get into Heaven. It's hard for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Hard. But not impossible. See, with God all things are possible, so even I can be saved with all my riches."

But maybe what Jesus meant is, "It might seem impossible for you to give up all you own and give it all to the poor. But with God's help, you can do it. With God's help, we all can do it."

Now I'm not saying an attitude adjustment isn't necessary. Those of us who are poor often despair of salvation because the only salvation we see in this world is the salvation of wealth; and so no matter how rich or poor we are, we want more wealth. Because wealth equals security. And those of us who are rich are often lost, because we rely on our wealth for security and in the process, we cut ourselves off from the poor. So we need to transform our attitudes. Change our heart. But I do not believe Jesus was only asking the rich young man — and by extension, us — for a change of attitude. I believe he asks us to give up our wealth. And I have to confess that I am not ready yet to take that step. I don't believe I have transformed my attitude that much.

Unless we commit ourselves to change our priorities and change our economics, I do not believe there is comfort to be salvaged from this disastrous word of Christ — disastrous for the way of life that rules supreme in America. I do not believe we can do other than what the young, rich man did in the story: go away sad. If there is comfort in this word, I think it is that Jesus was hinting at a vision of life in which there is no such thing as wealth to be sold, and no poor to give one's wealth to. Jesus says, "Sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." But Jesus also said, "The kingdom of heaven is in your midst." Jesus always envisioned a kingdom of heaven in which righteousness and justice prevail here and now. And he believed we are capable of it. "For God, everything is possible." Jesus said, "By human resources it is impossible" but it is all about how we use "human resources," to whom we ultimately see human resources belonging.

May we live with these words of Christ, and find ways to be instruments of God's possible/impossible salvation.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.