M & M

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is M & M. My focus is our Gospel (Mark 10:17-22). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

If you wondering if I am going to discuss candy or the famous Yankee home run hitters – Mantle and Maris – guess again. Today, my points are Man and Money, Messiah and Man, Mandates and the Man. First, Man and Money.

If you search for the phrase Man and Money, you will find books with that title. One is about a market economy where liberty and social justice can coexist, and another subtitled A Survey of Monetary Experience. Sadly, both are out of print. Happily, you can listen to The M in Man Is for Money: How to Get It, Use It, and Make It Work for You! There are also advice books on how women can attract men and money.

If you search for the news, you will find stories about a New Yorker laundering postal money orders and a Nigerian in Oklahoma defrauding people with romance scams. If you are looking for an entertaining movie, there’s Easy Money, The Money Pit and Moneyball.

I mention these to illustrate how society sees money as opposed to how the Bible sees it. There are over 400 verses in the Bible that mention money. In the historical books, we read that you could not charge interest when you loaned money to your brother;[1] and that money was paid to all those who repaired the House of the Lord.[2]

When we get to the Psalms and Proverbs, money is portrayed differently. What is more valuable than money is the Law of God, the Word of God. For example, those who trust in their wealth and boast of their riches should keep in mind that even when wise people die – like the foolish or stupid – they leave their wealth to others.[3] Proverbs teaches “Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense?”[4] “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.”[5] “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”[6]

This wisdom is influential in the latter part of Isaiah where we read this: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”[7]

When we get to the New Testament, we get a clear sense of how God sees money through the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. For example, after Jesus warned his disciples about scribes who devoured widows’ houses, he sat opposite the treasury and watched the people put money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums while a poor widow put in a penny. He said to his disciples, “This poor widow put in more than all those who contributed to the offering box.  For they contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Is this a comment on her generosity or on the burden placed on poor widows by the scribes?[8]

Before he dispatched the Twelve to proclaim the kingdom of God and gave them power and authority over demons and diseases, Jesus said, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.”[9] And clearly the Parable of the Talents is not about investing money, but being invested in the Kingdom of Heaven?[10]

As we move through the rest of the New Testament, we read about Simon the magician who saw the power of the Holy Spirit working through Philip, John and Peter. He begged them to give him the power so that anyone on whom he laid hands would receive the Holy Spirit. Peter replied, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!”[11]

Instructing his protégé, Timothy, Paul reminded him that we brought nothing into the world, and cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content. “Those who desire to be rich fall into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”[12]

In short, in comparison to the Good News of the free Gospel of Salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven, money ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And so, we move from Man and Money to Messiah and Man, my second point.

By Messiah and Man, I mean our passage. As Jesus journeys towards Jerusalem where he will face the sufferings of his mission, this man runs to him. The man’s zeal, sincerity and respect preface his question about eternal life. The concept of eternal life was a late development in the Old Testament,[13] and it would have been natural for the man to assume that observance of the law was the way to go because the dialogue that followed his original question suggests that since the age of twelve, he had been a faithful Jew. Yet, he must have been dissatisfied with this traditional answer, and sensed that there is more to it.

The key to the passage is verse 21, for it is the only time that Jesus is recorded to have looked at someone with love. This word is at the heart of the early Church’s message. We read in John, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”[14] Paul wrote, “Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.”[15]

This gaze of divine love would have captivated the man’s heart and moved him to surrender all his earthly attachments – if he saw it. But sadly, preoccupied with his own thoughts, he did not notice Jesus’ gaze. Jesus put his finger on the source of the man’s dissatisfaction, and despite his fidelity to the law, he lacked the one thing necessary.[16]

Did this man’s money make him independent or did it hinder him from grace freely given? Jesus’ command to sell all of his possessions was not an abstract or hypothetical one. In becoming one with the poor, Jesus asked him to make himself as dependent on God’s grace as the poor, as the children to whom the Kingdom belongs.[17] His follow-up command, “Follow me,” meant unconditionally giving his life to Jesus. It meant his love for God would be lived out when he accepted Jesus’ invitation.

It is only at this point in the passage that we discover the tragic truth. This man was rich but could not bring himself to pay the price for the eternal life that he so passionately desired. He was unwilling to deny himself earthly possessions in order to embrace the self-denial that leads to true wealth. For the Church, it was the first time that Jesus’ invitation to discipleship was directly refused.

As Church, we consider my third point, Mandates and the Man. The word mandate popped up in the news lately. As I pondered the words of a speech interpreted by some as a mandate, I reflected upon Jesus’ directive to the rich man as a requirement to seeking eternal life? Jesus did not ask all disciples to sell their possessions. Initially, Peter kept his house and boat.[18] Joseph of Arimathea, the women of Galilee and the Centurion had access to material possessions and military power.[19] Many of those he healed, Jesus sent them back to their families. Paul wrote that the rich are to be generous and ready to share, but he did not require Christians to forsake all.[20] So, why did Jesus not make the same demand on everyone else in every time, culture and society? What other mandates does God give? Before I explore those questions, a little research.

On its website Meriam-Webster asks the question: When should you use mandate? It offered this. A mandate from a leader is a command you can't refuse. But that kind of personal command is rarely the meaning of mandate today; much more common mandates are connected with institutions. The Clean Air Act was a mandate from Congress to clean up air pollution—and since mandate is also a verb, we could say instead that the Clean Air Act mandated new restrictions on air pollution. Elections are often interpreted as mandates from the public for certain kinds of action. But since a politician is not just a symbol of certain policies but also an individual who might happen to have an awfully nice smile, it can be risky to interpret most elections as mandating anything at all.

The word mandate is defined as a command or a judicial or legal order. It is directly from Latin mandatum meaning commission, command or order. Literally, it means to give into one's hand. Its root words are manus (hand) and dare (to give).

Sometimes, we phrase mandates as mission statements. Our synodical mission statement reads, “In grateful response to God’s grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacraments, the mission of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is vigorously to make known the love of Christ by word and deed within our churches, communities and the world.”[21] That mission statement rests upon our beliefs and teachings.[22]

Going away from our Gospel today, what mandates do we find in the Bible? The first is found in Genesis, and I think it is too late in life for some of us, including me, to obey because God commanded us to “be fruitful and multiply.”[23] There are, however, over 2,000 appearances of the word command throughout the Bible, and the commands of God are not burdensome, but good.[24] We read in Deuteronomy, “I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”[25]And in John, Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”[26]

As Christians, we are not to add to or subtract from God’s commandments. We read this in Deuteronomy, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” In Matthew, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”[27]

Scripture does not address everything in our lives. There is nothing about my choice of morning beverage or afternoon snack, the color of my tractor or the breed of my dogs. In short, Scripture is silent about many things in our daily lives.

Early Lutherans living amidst Catholics and Calvinists in the Holy Roman Empire of the 16^th century, cheerfully maintained the old traditions made in the Church for the sake of usefulness and peace. Good order is very fitting in the Church, and is for this reason necessary. Yet, Lutherans also recognized that these traditions were not necessary unto salvation, but because of the need for good order for our brother’s and our sinful flesh’s sake, we accepted some.[28]

The word which addresses these traditions found in the Book of Concord is adiaphora.[29] It is a Greek word meaning matters not regarded as essential to faith, but nevertheless permissible for Christians or allowed in the church. If you search for adiaphora others relate it to many topics that touch our lives, including mandates, but primarily it deals with worship. Because early Lutherans used adiaphora to discuss customs that were not necessary unto salvation, we do not practice exorcism, confirmation by bishops, extreme unction and Corpus Christi processions. They are not necessary for salvation.

As Christians, we enjoy freedom. Luther wrote in Concerning Christian Liberty. “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one…. We conclude therefore that a Christian man does not live in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor, or else is no Christian: in Christ by faith; in his neighbor by love. By faith he is carried upwards above himself to God, and by love he sinks back below himself to his neighbor, still always-abiding in God and His love.”[30]

Without being vilified as a criminal or crackpot because one accepts or does not accept an executive order,[31] we realize that many religious practices – like mandates – are not necessary for salvation and that we can embrace or reject them as long as we live in Christ by faith and in our neighbor by love. A well-formed Christian conscience can lead one to object not only to this mandate,[32] but others as well.

For example, during the Second World War, more than 72,000 men conscientiously objected to armed military service. Most of these served in noncombatant roles or in the Civilian Public Service.[33] United States Army Corporal Desmond Doss served as a combat medic. Twice awarded the Bronze Star for actions in Guam and the Philippines, he further distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by personally saving 75 men, becoming the only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. His life is depicted in Mel Gibson’s 2016 Oscar-winning film Hacksaw Ridge.

Doss’ refusal to carry a gun caused a lot of trouble among his fellow soldiers. They viewed him with distain and called him a misfit. One soldier warned him, “Doss, as soon as we get into combat, I'll make sure you won't come back alive.” His commanding officers saw him as a liability. They intimidated him, scolded him, assigned him extra tough duties, and declared him mentally unfit for the Army. They attempted to court martial him for refusing a direct order—to carry a gun. They failed to find a way to toss him out, and he refused to leave. He believed his duty was to obey God and serve his country. But it had to be in that order. His unwavering convictions were most important.[34]

A well-formed Christian conscience can lead one to refuse military or civilian orders not necessary for salvation. We can embrace or reject them as long as we live in Christ by faith and in our neighbor by love. In short, I am more concerned about people’s eternal salvation or damnation than whether or not they follow executive orders. Like the rich man in our Gospel, what sometimes gets in my way of following Christ is not money, but being attached to my ideas and opinions.

Yet, unlike that man, I know that the way to eternal life is not to do things my way but His, and His way I am willing to accept. Friends, I pray that whatever it is that gets in your way of following Christ is something you can relinquish, and when you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Leviticus 25:35-37; Deuteronomy 23:19.

[2] 2 Kings 12:10.

[3] Psalm 49.

[4] Proverbs 17:16

[5] Proverbs 8:10.

[6] Proverbs 11:4.

[7] Isaiah 55:1-2.

[8] Mark 12:38-44.

[9] Luke 9:3.

[10] Matthew 25:14-30.

[11] Acts 8:9-25.

[12] 1 Timothy 6:3-10.

[13] Daniel 12:2.

[14] John 3:16.

[15] Ephesians 5:2.

[16] Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark. Baker Academic, Grand Rapids MI (2008), p. 203.

[17] Mark 10:14.

[18] Mark 1:29; John 21:3.

[19] Mark 15:40ff; Matthew 8:5ff.

[20] 1 Timothy 6:17-19.

[21] https://www.lcms.org/about

[22] You can read the Synod’s doctrines and beliefs here: https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/doctrine

[23] Genesis 1:28.

[24] 1 John 5:3.

[25] Deuteronomy 30:15-16.

[26] John 15:10-11.

[27] Matthew 5:18.

[28] See https://lutheranreformation.org/theology/adiaphora-in-the-lutheran-confessions/

[29] See https://bookofconcord.org/formula-of-concord-solid-declaration/article-x/

[30] Martin Luther, “Concerning Christian Liberty,” R. S. Grignon, trans., The Harvard Classics, vol. 36, New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1910, pp. 345, 372.)

[31] Executive Order on Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees, September 9, 2021.

[32] See https://www.concordmonitor.com/My-Turn-A-Conscientious-Objection-to-Mandates-42517913

[33] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_in_the_United_States#American_Revolutionary_War

[34] https://desmonddoss.com/bio/bio-real.php