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The disciples were exceedingly astonished and said to Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints, for two weeks now, the Holy Spirit has put before us this story from Mark chapter 10 for us to consider, especially how it is that we think about money and wealth and possessions. Last week, with the rich young man who came to Jesus asking how to be saved, Jesus gave him the commandments, which he boldly claimed to have kept. So Jesus gave him the instructions: “Sell everything and give that to the poor, and come and follow me.” He left sad, we remember, because he had many things. He had great possessions.
And that’s where the gospel reading from today picks up. Jesus is looking around. I have this sense that Jesus is watching him go, and maybe even wondering as he’s walking away sad. Remember, Jesus looks at him and loves him, and as he’s walking away sad, hoping maybe that he’ll come to his senses, that he’ll turn around, that he’ll come back, that he’ll say, “Lord, you’re right, I should give up everything and follow you. I’ve changed my mind.”
And he doesn’t. He walks off into the distance, and as Jesus is watching him go, he turns to the disciples and says, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” Now the disciples are amazed at his words, maybe because Jesus is so interested in getting people into the kingdom of God that whenever there’s a difficulty that arises, that’s kind of an amazing thing for them to pay attention to.
I think even more, this has to do with the theology of the Pharisees who loved money, that’s what Luke tells us, who were themselves wealthy, gathering up stuff for themselves, and I think who understood physical riches, wealth, to be an indication of God’s blessing. Jesus comes along and says quite the opposite. Having wealth and riches doesn’t help you enter the kingdom. In fact, it becomes a hindrance.
Jesus says, “How hard it is for those who have wealth, great wealth, to enter into the kingdom.” And to their amazement, Jesus responds to them. In fact, he looks at them. The text is so interested in where Jesus is looking. So first, he’s looking maybe after this man who’s so hard for people who are wealthy to enter the kingdom, and they’re amazed. And so Jesus turns his attention right on them. He says to them, “Children, it is hard to enter into the kingdom of God.” In fact, Jesus goes on to make something of a joke. He says, “It’s easier for a camel…” And at this, the disciples marvel.
In fact, the text kind of falls over itself to try to capture their astonishment. It says, “They were exceedingly astonished,” and said, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus responds famously, “Well, with man it’s impossible, not with God. With God, all things are possible.”
Now, at this point, we want to maybe make two notes, and then we want to finish looking at the text and then kind of go back and review it. But we see that Jesus is saying that it is impossible with our own resources, by our own choices or with our own whatever; it is impossible for us to be saved. We cannot save ourselves. In fact, we cannot even have a part of our own salvation. It is God who saves and God alone.
With man, it is impossible to be saved. But Jesus is making the extra point that not only does our sinful nature and our completely inept will and our fallenness stand in the way of us getting into heaven, but there’s even another obstacle if we have wealth. We don’t want to miss the point because we might be tempted to abstract it and say, “Oh, Jesus is just saying that nobody can get into heaven unless God is helping them,” which is what he’s saying, but he’s saying that it’s even harder for people who have a lot of wealth to enter into the kingdom.
That doesn’t help, but in fact stands as an obstacle and a hindrance. Then the disciples, I think, as they must be reflecting on this, and I think this is probably what we’re all called to do, is just to reflect this morning on our own thinking about money and wealth and riches. I was thinking about this— I mentioned it this morning— that you know, we’ve had it two weeks in a row now, and I’m wondering if it’s too much to keep talking about it. But then I saw the election polls this week that indicated that everybody’s major concern is the economy. It is number one, or number two, or number three. In other words, all of us are apparently right now thinking about money, so it’s good for us to think about it.
But here’s what happens next, and it’s kind of amazing. The disciples, as they’re reflecting on this, notice that they have in fact done what Jesus asked this other guy to do. They said to Jesus, he said to the guy, “Sell everything you have and come and follow me.” So Peter speaks up and he says, “Lord, we’ve left everything to follow you.” And I expect, I don’t know if you expect it, but I expect a rebuke coming for Peter. I mean, I expect Jesus to turn and rebuke Peter because, number one, that’s always what he does to Peter. Number two.
But number two, specifically, Peter is claiming something here that seems like it would ask for the Lord to kind of sit him down. “Hey, the first are going to be last, Peter,” which is what he says at the end. “Hey, Peter, you think you’ve given everything up, but you really haven’t given everything up.” And in a way, that’s what Jesus says. He says, “Look, it’s true. Everyone who gives up house and home and things in this life, will he not receive them back one hundredfold together with persecutions? And in the world to come, eternal life.”
Now, just a quick note on what that means. I think that what Jesus is saying is that if we are giving anything up for being a Christian, we’re really not giving anything up. If you give up your home because you’re a Christian, you have a hundred homes. If you give up your family because you’re a Christian, you have a hundred moms, a hundred dads, a hundred brothers, a hundred sisters, a hundred children. If you give up your wealth for being a Christian, you have that a hundredfold. And why? It is because you have the Lord and his church.
This is important for us to think about—that every single person, just for example, in this room right now, is here. You are here because the Lord Jesus loves you, baptized you, called you to be his own Christian. And the Holy Spirit brought you into this place to hear the word of God and to receive his gifts.
You’re a member here in the fellowship of this altar, which means that not only do you belong to Jesus, and Jesus belongs to you, but you belong to his church, which means that you also belong to each other. If you have brothers and sisters that hate you, then look around. You have a hundred brothers and sisters right here in the room. If you’ve forsaken your parents because of your love for Christ, then look around. You have a hundred parents, moms and dads, right here in this room. If you’ve lost your house because you’re following Jesus, look, you have here a roof over your head. You are in the Lord’s house and in the Lord’s family.
All of these things belong to you. It’s impossible for us to lose all of these things because the Lord, our Heavenly Father, promises to take care of us. Now this is great, that the Lord gives us to each other also. When he gives himself to us, he gives his whole church to us. And we rejoice in that. The Lord will not let you fall. And he’s given you to each other to make sure of it.
Now, Jesus also says, though, to Peter, “You’re going to receive houses and brothers and sisters a hundredfold in this life, but you also get persecution and you also get eternal life.” So really, Peter, what have you given up? Not too much. So Peter and the disciples can go with Jesus, not like the rich young man who leaves the presence of Jesus weeping. They can go with Jesus rejoicing.
Now, the task for us for the rest of the sermon is just to think about money and to think about wealth and to think about how we relate to it. Really, it takes us back to the seventh commandment: “You shall not steal.” In that commandment, the Lord gives us this great gift that he, in fact, wants us to have possessions, that he gives us permission to put our name on things, and he gives us the seventh commandment for the sake of the sixth commandment, and the fifth commandment, and the fourth commandment. That is, he gives us possessions to serve our family and our life and our children and so forth so that we can bless one another.
And it’s not wrong to have things. The danger comes when we treat them wrongly or when we even have a bad relationship to them. So the vice of the seventh commandment is this: the Lord in the seventh commandment forbids us from being lazy and greedy, and he commends to us a life of hard work and generosity. And we should just maybe first think about that because we can use that to kind of hone in our own conscience and our own mind when we think about how we relate to wealth.
We can just ask the questions: Do I work hard or am I lazy? Am I greedy or am I generous? We’re shooting for generosity and hard work. We’re trying to avoid laziness and greed. Now, the trouble, of course, is that all of us have a sinful flesh. Even just putting the question out there, even though I think that’s a very helpful question. And we want to say by the help of the Holy Spirit that we are all hardworking and generous.
The problem is that we have a sinful flesh that is not. It’s lazy and greedy. And we know that. If we just have the commandment, here’s what happens. At least this is what happens in my own conscience. Probably happens in every conscience. Because without the gospel, all we can do is feel a sense of our own guilt and try to fight against it with our own pride. Right?
Well, I was kind of hardworking this week, and then I’m like, “Oh, but I shouldn’t say that because I know I’m a sinner.” And I say, “Well, when I’m lazy,” and then I feel guilty about it, but I did give some, but I could have given more, but I didn’t give enough, and now we’re just back and forth on this pendulum of pride and despair. “I did enough? Surely I didn’t.”
The answer for this, by the way, is only and always the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ, who left the treasures and riches and glory of heaven and who himself became poor so that in him you might have the riches of God. Your sins are forgiven. All your greed and laziness forgiven. And all your generosity done with self-interest and all your hard work falsely motivated is purified so that the Lord, in fact, receives those as good works and righteous offerings. That’s great.
But the Lord, I think, in the text, wants to invite us to something deeper. We have a half step there in the Old Testament lesson from Ecclesiastes where Solomon, who was the wealthiest man in the world, says, “Don’t love money.” James reminds us that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, but Solomon says it just ends up empty, vain. It’s just like a breath that fades away. Don’t love money, and he gives us a better option, and this is pretty good, something for us to work for.
He says, “Don’t love money, rather find joy in your work.” That’s the opposite, I think, of a lot of people who hate their work and just do it so that they get paid. Right? Because there’s a love of money motivating, Solomon switches it around. He says, “Look, if you have joy in the work and the labor that the Lord has given you, then it won’t be a problem if you have plenty or have little.”
But Jesus goes then even deeper. And this is the preaching of our Lord Jesus about money that really has to kind of cause us to search our own hearts and our minds and our consciences. Because the danger of money is not simply that we would be greedy and lazy, but rather that we would begin to trust in it. It’s a strange thing that money has this sort of characteristic that it invites us to look to it for all good, to look to it to be happy and secure. Right? To turn to it when we’re in distress.
And that, dear saints, is the exact definition of what it means to have a God. When Martin Luther starts the large catechism, “You shall have no other gods,” he says, “How do you know what your God is?” And this is how you figure out what your God is: What do you trust in? What do you look to for all good? And what do you run to in times of trouble?
For whatever reason, we’re tempted to treat money as if it can be our security and our happiness. If I can have enough, then I can be happy. If I can have enough, I can be secure. I think the people who designed money, who kind of invented the dollar bill, thought that it would be good to remind us that that’s a foolish thing by putting an eagle on it, to remind us that it just flies away.
It’s here one day and it’s gone the next. And even if it doesn’t fly away, it’s not even as good as it is today as it was yesterday, right? It’s a flighty, airy, kind of breathy thing that’s not worth trusting. But still, it has that kind of illusion that we can trust in it and that we can lean on it.
Jesus says that this is idolatry. You cannot serve both God and mammon. You can’t serve both God and wealth. You’ll love one and hate the other. You’ll serve one and despise the other. So we are called, instead of putting our trust in wealth and riches, to put our trust in Christ. And no matter if the Lord has given you plenty or enough or barely enough or not enough, he has given you himself. He has given you himself. He has given you his life unto death on the cross. He has given you his body and blood and the forgiveness of all of your sins.
He has given you his spirit and the hope for eternal life. And you have all of these things, and by them, you are rich beyond imagination. So we rejoice, even though it’s more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle, we rejoice that with God all things are possible, that our salvation is possible, that your salvation is possible, because Christ loves you, died for you, forgives your sins, and is even now working to bring you into the joys of eternal life.
This is our confidence, dear saints, our wisdom, and our peace. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
