This sermon was preached for Sunday, October 13, 2024 in St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon were: Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Hebrews 4:12-16, and Mark 10:17-31.
Appalachia has been on my mind and heart and prayers quite a bit lately, especially the swaths of Tennessee and North Carolina hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. My own first encounters with the region were in high school, when my church youth group served with the critical home repair ministry, the Appalachia Service Project, for a week each summer. Later in college, I worked as a summer staffer for that same ministry, this time hosting the groups of churches who’d rotate through our center each week to do basic repair work on homes and trailers in the surrounding hollers. As staffers, we’d oversee and assign the multi-week projects, so we’d get to know the families we were serving pretty well. That summer - that work and those relationships - forced me to confront the heart-breaking complexities of American poverty in a way the one-off mission trips just couldn’t. It changed - and is still changing - what I believe about Jesus’ command to give to the poor.
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| Our summer staffer team, West Virginia, 2011. |
There was one family from that summer that’s always stuck with me: a young grandmother who had custody over her four little grandkids in a falling down home. It feels voyeuristic and unethical to recite the private details of their desperation from the pulpit, but their situation was dire, just devastating to witness. All throughout the summer, I watched church group after church group fall in love with the family, just as I had. One of the final weeks of the summer, a particularly generous church group arrived. They immediately saw the need for beds and shoes - the kids were all sleeping in one room in a heap on the floor and the one year old was learning to walk on splintery plywood. So the church sent word home and raised the funds to purchase bed frames and shoes for the kids. I remember the teenagers’ excitement as they screwed together the bed frames, delighted to give to these people they’d spent each day beside. They’d gone above and beyond, this church - not just making the house warmer, safer, drier, but doing their best to make it more of a home, too.
Our last week of wrap-up, after all the church groups had departed and we closed down the host center, our staff delivered our leftover kitchen supplies to the various families and said goodbye. I remember being especially excited to bring that grandmother all the boxes of unused powdered milk we had. It had broken my heart to see the baby’s bottle filled with orange soda at the end of each month, when there was no money left for milk. We saw the bed frames immediately when we drove up to the house. They were disassembled and stacked neatly on the porch, ready to be sold. I felt a lot of things in that moment - anger, resentment, shock - but over atop all of it, sadness. Sadness for the church who gave those beds, sadness for the children who’d never sleep in them, sadness for the family who had to make impossible, heart-breaking choices over and over again.
What the family needed most of all was cash. But that wasn’t the need we wanted to see, nor the need we wanted to fill. We wanted to give our own way. I saw the lack of nutrition and had convenient milk to spare; the church group saw the lack of beds and wanted to respond. But the family knew their own needs better than we did. Respecting their dignity, their agency, would have meant simply giving them funds. Somehow that was so much harder.
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Go. Sell what you own. Give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.
This Gospel story has all the elements of what it means to have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ. We are seen, truly seen. We are loved, deeply loved. Then we are challenged to our very core.
I imagine this story had quite the impression on the disciples. The scene appears in all three Synoptic Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke, the central character is a very rich ruler and in the Gospel of Matthew, he’s a young man with great possessions. I like that in Mark, he’s just a man. A man with many possessions. And yet, vitally, Jesus does not ask the man to give these possessions away to the poor. Here, you get this beautiful table to use in this way. Here, you get this lamp. Here’s some bed frames for your kids. Instead, the man is to sell all his possessions and to give that money to the poor. There’s two sacrifices here, then, a double loss. First, his possessions, but then, secondly, his control. In giving money only, the man is entrusting the poor with direct funds. No strings attached. He doesn't get a say in what happens next.
A growing body of research on poverty alleviation has repeatedly shown that direct cash transfers are a higher impact, more sustainable, and more cost-effective method of reducing and preventing poverty. It's objectively better to send cash than to donate a cow. Cash is flexible, immediate, and immensely practical - allows the person to respond to what’s most pressing and most stressful. Turns out the poor know their own needs better than the non-profits, the government, or the grant-giving bodies. But giving cash requires trust. It requires relinquishing control. It just doesn't feel as good for the giver, if we’re being honest. Being asked to give cash feels like being used. Or shaken down.
In light of these findings and this Gospel passage, it’s helpful from time to time to pause and step back when we consider the effectiveness of our own church ministries. To ask ourselves: Is our goal here to relieve the burden on the poor? Is our goal to build dignifying relationships with neighbors of all sorts of statuses and circumstances? Both are noble, Gospel-driven goals all about loving neighbor. Churches are called to further both goals. Some ministries - particularly locally-focused ones - can and do both. Ministries like Habitat for Humanity, which result in both new neighbor relationships and a significant change in a family’s financial circumstances.
All these efforts require us to be honest about how the pursuit of one ministry goal can come at the expense of the other. Handing over cash may give freedom and dignity but it won't build a meaningful foundation for an ongoing relationship. Feeding, nursing, clothing, and visiting open the door to genuine friendship and hospitality but won't pave a path out of poverty. How do we make room for both Gospel-driven goals in our budgets, schedules, and hearts?
It's the honesty that's key - and most challenging. Really getting down to the how and the why. Now, it'd be one thing to stand up and extol the virtues of altruism. But that's not quite what Jesus is doing here. He's more honest about human nature - our high priest who knows our weaknesses, thoughts and intentions of the heart. Notice Jesus is not asking us to eschew our desires for a reward, but rather to shift what we expect and aim for. Treasures in heaven.
It's true that when giving feels good, it is its own reward. But the best giving, the most effective giving, the giving that's about the recipient and not the giver - you and I both know that it's sometimes a drag. Sometimes giving is inconvenient. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes the new mom really just needs someone to clean her bathroom so she can hold the baby, the homeless family needs a house more than a hug, and your kids’ teacher would really just appreciate a boost in their paycheck. Sometimes giving causes us hard choices and real grief. Other times we never get to see any benefit from our sacrifice, for ourselves or even for others. It is in those moments that faith in something beyond ourselves can really make the difference. Jesus gives us a reason to believe that the rewards and fruits of our sacrifices will come back to us in the end, even if it's in a lifetime beyond this one. He asks us to trust that it will be worth it.
The best news for me from this passage, though, isn't about all the houses, family, fields and treasure we get in the afterlife. It's that Jesus' asks of me, every big, painful demand God makes on my life, comes from God seeing me. And loving me. No matter what I lack.
Jesus sees you. Jesus loves you. And in that love, Jesus will ask you to give what you may be most reluctant to give. Your sense of control. Your money. Your say in what happens next.
All that loss, every loss, every cross, is not the end of the story.
I was also touched by the reassurance Jesus gives to the disciples. He sees the distress his now-famous lament about the wealthy causes in his friends. But we gave up everything, Peter starts to say. Then who can be saved?!, the disciples panic.
Jesus looks at them and says, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
May it be so.
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Appalachia Service Project is mobilizing to assist in disaster recovery efforts in Central Appalachia in the wake of Hurricane Helene. To give to their efforts, follow this link: https://asphome.org/helpafterhelene/
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