Mark 10:23-31

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen

Ecclesiastes 5:10 “One who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor one who loves abundance with its income. This too is futility. 11 When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look at them? 12 The sleep of the laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich person does not allow him to sleep. 13 There is a sickening evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth being hoarded by its owner to his detriment. 14 When that wealth was lost through bad business and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him. 15 As he came naked from his mother’s womb, so he will return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand. 16 This also is a sickening evil: exactly as a person is born, so will he die. What then is the advantage for him who labors for the wind? 17 All his life he also eats in darkness with great irritation, sickness, and anger. 18 Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink, and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he labors under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. 19 Furthermore, as for every person to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also given him the opportunity to enjoy them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not often call to mind the years of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart. (NASB)

Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the character Spock of Star Trek fame knows what this gesture means. It’s the Vulcan blessing, “Live long and prosper.” It “wishes” upon the person to whom the gesture is directed and the words are spoken a long life filled with prosperity. It’s essentially a wish for the good life. And what person wouldn’t want a long and prosperous life right?

Well not so fast. A long life and prosperity might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. A long life, prosperity, and the human desire for such things can be a problem if that a long life and wealth become a life of sin and slavery to the gods of self and materialism. This is the problem that is addressed in both the Old Testament and Gospel lessons this morning.

King Solomon (2010-931 b.c.) wrote the book of Ecclesiastes and probably did so near the end of his life. What he wrote in chapter five and what the Gospel lesson from Mark chapter ten confirms is that human beings have a very strong tendency to love ourselves, our lifestyles, and our things more than we love the Lord Jesus Christ. And that this misplaced love causes more trouble than its worth.

Americans are particularly prone to a life of self and materialism. First of all, materialism, the belief that material possessions and physical comfort are more important than spiritual things is part of sinful human nature. This problem is made all the worse in America because we have a consumer and pleasure based economy and culture. We have historically had an economic system that makes the accumulation of wealth relatively easy if a person applies him or herself over time and is prudent with their money.

In Ecclesiastes five Solomon catalogues the ways in which the accumulation of wealth often diminishes the quality of life of those who think life is primarily about collecting and keeping material possessions. Jesus goes even further in the Gospel reading by teaching that wealth can make entry into the kingdom of God very very difficult (Mark 10:23–25). After the rich young man walked away from Jesus, Jesus said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!”

When the young Solomon took the throne, he asked God to grant him wisdom so that he could govern Israel with justice and make her a great and powerful nation. God granted Solomon’s petition. That wisdom made both Israel and Solomon very wealthy. In any time and place wealth equals power and wealth and power often bring with them pleasure and the pursuit thereof by the powerful.

What did Solomon do with all that wisdom, wealth, power, and pleasure? He went in search of the good life. He wanted to find those things that would satisfy the soul and bring about contentment.

I am not sure how collecting seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines moves a fella toward that goal of contentment, but He tried anyway. He amassed staggering amounts of money. He built houses and cities. He bought horses and chariots. He imported exotic animals and goods from far-off countries. Of all the men who would become king in Israel and Judah, Solomon was the wealthiest and most successful of all of them.

But for all his accomplishments and wealth, we find in Solomon an older man who reflected on his life and wrote the following. “‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher; ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is futility and striving after wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:14) It’s not the word of God, but one of my favorite songs echos the book of Ecclesiastes. “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”

In Ecclesiastes 5, King Solomon takes up the pointlessness of a lifestyle of the rich and famous, not to mention the lifestyle practiced by so many of our family, friends, and neighbors; the desire for more and more things and wealth. If not real wealth then, at least the appearance of wealth. It is so bad that a great many people take on huge debt in order to give the illusion of being well off. They buy and finance things they can’t afford in service to their god of self and egoism. They strive after the big pay off that will make them rich.

Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars playing the lottery, hoping to “hit it big.” A great many of these people are people who live, in part at least off, government welfare programs. They aren’t even spending money they earned. Wen the tiny tiny percentage win the lottery, they often find that their lives become even more unhappy as a result of their newly found wealth.

Even those who enjoy a health financial and investment portfolio find themselves frustrated with homes filled with stuff they don’t need.

In ways big and small, we too often discover what Solomon experienced and observed almost three thousand years ago. Solomon wrote, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity” (v 10).

Not only can wealth be unsatisfying, it can also be burdensome. Verse 11 “When good things increase, those who consume them increase….” The more you have, the more others expect you to give and do for them. It doesn’t take long before the wealthy one wonders if he or she has real friends, or friends for hire. Even leaders in the church face the regular temptation to treat wealthier members of the congregation differently than those with fewer financial resources.

“There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt” (v 13). Solomon uses a Hebrew word here that our translation translates, “grievous evil.” The Hebrew words ra‘ah kholah literally means, “a sick evil.” James Bollhagen, in his commentary, Ecclesiastes ([St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2011], 201), offers the translation “pathetic evil” to capture both the severity and the weakness of what Solomon describes here and in verse 16. Solomon bemoans the fact that wealth often hurts the man who owns the wealth. The reality is that the wealth owns the man, rather than they other way around.

The more a person has, the more time a person has to spend caring for those things, protecting those things, and managing those things. That means less time for other things that should have the right of way, like living a life in the church, or tending to relationships that really count, or being of service to one’s family, friends, and neighbors.

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10) follows on the heals of last week’s reading where a rich young man wanted to know what he needed to do to be saved. He was given the opportunity to follow the Son of God and Savior of the world. Instead of seizing the opportunity, he walked away sad, unwilling to part with his wealthy lifestyle and demonstrating that he wasn’t good man and that his real gods were his possessions and lifestyle.

Ecclesiastes 5:17 “All his life he also eats in darkness with great irritation, sickness, and anger.” (Mark 10: 24-25) Think here of all the people you have had to deal with who mirror some of the worst characteristics of the character Ebenezer Scrooge. Wealthy but without compassion, selfish, and callous toward those around them.Think of all those times you have demonstrated Scrooge like behavior.

Think of some of those families, maybe even your family that was torn apart because mom and dad had passed away and the siblings turned against one another over the inheritance.

Solomon recounts the sad story of a man he knew who lost his wealth through a bad business venture and was left unable to care for his own son (v 14). Maybe at some point you felt that fear of being unable to care for your family. Throughout my ow career I have had to console a brother pastor or two as they sat in such sadness and fear. As congregations shrink in size and financial resources, many pastors live in fear of not being able to provide the daily bread their families need. They are afraid of having to take a second job or a full-time job outside the church. They are afraid of losing their standing in the community.

Such circumstances should drive us more and more to Jesus because they should remind of a the most basic of all realities. Want and dependence are foreshadows of the reality that every single one of us will face one day. In the moment of our death or the return of Christ (whichever comes first), our earthly possessions will become worthless to us. We will leave them behind. Solomon reminds us, “As he came naked from his mother’s womb, so he will return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand.” (v 15).

Confess this reality in our funeral liturgies. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

With an appropriate sadness and guided by the Holy Spirit Solomon writes to us with the heart of a pastor/father making a case against chasing after wealth as the path to true prosperity and the so called “good life.” Real prosperity is found in contentment that all things work together for the good to them that love the Lord.

The truth is that in time the Lord God crushes our illusions of independence and self-reliance. In many and various ways He reminds us of our smallness and insignificance when we live apart from Him. In all three of the assigned readings, the Lord calls us back to faithfulness and trust. He calls us to rest in Him as we prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.” He calls us back to Himself and teaches us that all things will work together for the good to them that love the Lord their God.

Mark 10:29-31 “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age.”

He also calls us back to our vocations—our callings in the church, in our homes, at work or school, in our communities, and in our country. God is not only calling us to acknowledge our smallness for we cannot by our own works enter the kingdom of God, He is reminding us of His greatness. “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. . . With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.’”

Remember Zacchaeus, the wee little man? He was a very rick tax collector who came by his wealth in less than honorable ways. Yet, when Jesus came to his village Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus. When Jesus called him, Zacchaeus went with Him and gave back the money he had taken from others, some of them receiving four times what was taken. Jesus liberated Zacchaeus from his slavery to wealth and brought him into the kingdom of heaven. As He did for you.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

The Christ of God is the richest expression of God’s love. His love was demonstrated in the extreme poverty of death on a cross. We are sinners and are rich in things but poor in soul. In Christ we know what true prosperity is. We are given the richest of His glory in our baptismal birth and we take the riches of His glory with us in the moment of our death into the life everlasting.

AMEN

May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, 2021 – Live Long and Prosper In Christ

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