Homily 619 – 23 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
December 1, 2024
Epistle:  (220) Ephesians 2:4-10
Gospel:  (91) Luke 18:18-27

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

In today’s Gospel reading we are pretty much smacked in the face by Christian life, by the words of Our Lord personally.

It is difficult to hear.  We want to think that as long as we live a pretty good life, we’re in good shape – and maybe in fact we are.  We’ll get to that.

So the ruler, which would mean someone of the Jewish local congregation, is found in all of the synoptic Gospels, that is to say, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The account is pretty much identical.

The ruler asks Christ, what should I do to inherit eternal life.  And the answer is pretty straightforward – keep the commandments.

When assured that he had obeyed all the commandments since before he was considered an adult by Jewish law, Jesus paused.  There is an apocryphal Gospel account, the Gospel of the Nazarenes, which elaborates a bit on the encounter.  It reads that he rich man began to scratch his head, and the words of Christ, quote, “pleased him not. And the Lord said to him “How can you say ‘I have performed the law and the prophets’? seeing that it is written in the law ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ and look, many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying for hunger, and your house is full of much goods, and there goes out therefrom nought at all unto them.”

In other words, how can you really say you’ve followed the commandments, when the entire essence of the Law, Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself, is not evidenced by your actions?  Isn’t the first commandment to have nothing more important than God to you?

What Christ means is that our beliefs, our thoughts and prayers, mean nothing unless we back them up by actions.

We need to be clear – we are not talking about earning anything here.  The only way to earn anything with God would be to never, ever sin – not even accidentally.  It just can’t happen.  Even if by some miracle we were like the Theotokos and never committed a sin, we still have this pesky fallen nature, with our ego in the way, blocking our connection with God.

Not to mention, the moment we think, “Well, I can do that” we’ve sinned.  Because we can’t do anything, only God working through us will perfect us.  We can only say anything by God’s grace.  By God’s grace, I can try not to sin.  But I can’t guarantee an outcome that will match my statement.

So now, we are faced with a choice.  And it isn’t a theoretical choice – it is an actual, real-life, choice.  Are we going to hand our excess to the people in need, or are we going to walk away sad, bound – enslaved – to our material possessions?

Being a Christian isn’t a cakewalk.  It is difficult.  Part of the reason may be the poor have an easier time than the rich is because they don’t have much to relinquish anyway.  They don’t have the possessions that bind them.  In a very odd way, the poor are more free than anybody.  I would offer that they are generally happier, too.

The poor don’t have a decision to make.  They have nothing to give.  Yes, they do have to learn to be content with what God has blessed them with, but the concern is never that they have too much.

The rich have quite a different dilemma.  There is a famous quote from St. Basil – the food in your pantry and the clothes in your closet are stolen from the poor.  He can say that because of this passage of our Lord.

The sad part, to me at least, is that sometimes we don’t even recognize the excess we have.  It is probably helpful to at least go through our closets and our belongings and donate those things which we don’t actively need.  If you are like me, the most difficult argument to overcome is “I might need it someday.”  We’ve all seen the memes about a Midwestern Dad’s excitement on being able to use the scrap piece of lumber he has been holding onto for fifty years.

Doesn’t that attitude betray a lack of faith in God, though?  Do we really believe that God will provide the things we need, when we need them?  One of my mother-in-laws favorite things to do used to be estate sales.  Because when you die, the stuff you leave behind gets real cheap.

How about instead of selling it after we die for pennies on the dollar, we give it away now, to someone who can use it, and experience their joy and relief and praise to God for providing for them in their need – through you!  Practically, the if your children or in my case grandchildren are getting toys for St. Nicholas’ Day, or Christmas, and you don’t have a place to put them, maybe start clearing out space now, so that others can benefit and their kids can have a joyous Christmas season too?

Yes, beloved, the rich have a decision to make.  No time in history has this been more true than today.  Now, St. Paul also offers a word of advice about this in 2 Corinthians 8:12-15:  “For if the readiness to give is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.  For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.  As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”

You can’t give what you don’t have.  But if you do have, you also have a decision.  You can follow the lead of today’s billionaires and lock yourself away like the other rich man who made Lazarus invisible.  Just don’t see the needs.  But don’t think your faith alone will get you eternal life in paradise.

The rich young ruler went away sad, because he was unwilling to let go of his wealth.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran Pastor and Theologian from the first half of the twentieth century, put it this way:  Because he would not obey, he could not believe.

Perhaps we can’t earn our way to heaven.  But if we refuse to live our faith, we can’t have faith that gives us eternal life.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.