Trading Down

Text: Mark 10:23-31

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            In 1970 there was an experiment done at Stanford University to test whether children grasped the concept of delayed gratification. In this experiment, preschoolers were told that they would receive their preferred treat (either a pretzel or a marshmallow) if they could wait 15 minutes. The experimenter would then leave the room. The children had a button they could use to call the experimenter back in and they could have a treat if they asked for one before the 15 minutes was over, but it would be the one that wasn’t their favorite. Among the children who were tested, those who waited without seeing the treats were able to wait the full 15 minutes more often than the children who could see them. Those who could see the treats would either take them or ask for them before the waiting time was done.

            This test has been repeated over the years, sometimes with children, sometimes with animals, and as you might expect it yields different results. But interestingly, those who wait with the treat visible to them are much less likely to wait for the better treat that they can’t see yet. This speaks to our natural tendency to trade the unseen thing you’re waiting on for the lesser thing that you can see now. It’s a truth that God has made known to us for ages. Our reading from Ecclesiastes this morning revealed that those who chase after money will not be satisfied with that lesser thing, even though they trade away their peace of mind and their restful hours for it. And if we hear what Jesus would tell us today, we see that same lesson repeated. Last week we heard about the rich young man who left Jesus’ presence because he was disappointed that Jesus explained that he should sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and then come follow Jesus if he would inherit eternal life. And now today, Jesus is explaining what went wrong in that interaction. Jesus looked around at His disciples and said, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And when they were astounded, He repeated, “Children, how difficult 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.”

            Now we should say that Jesus is not sticking it to rich people just to attack them, as it is so popular to do today. This is not a passage that proves the rightness of any kind of redistribution of wealth. If anything, it’s a call against the kind of coveting that leads people to even want that sort of wealth to be given to them. This is not a judgment on the inherent goodness or badness of capitalism or socialism or any other kind of social structure. No, for Jesus, this is not a matter of trivial earthly things like money or goods. It’s a matter of eternity. It’s a matter of faith. And faith is hard. This is why Jesus expands it to not only include the wealthy. He shows the challenge for all who would receive eternal life: “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God!” It’s hard enough for anyone, let alone those who have the distractions of worldly riches buzzing around the edges of their attention all the time.

            When we really stop to think about it, we’ll be as shocked as the disciples were. They were amazed that Jesus would say such a thing. And then, when He repeated Himself, they blurted out, “Then who can be saved?!” If those who have the ease of wealth, with nothing to really worry about, are going to have a hard time entering the kingdom of God, what hope do those who have to scrimp and save and work every day of their lives going to have? If those who don’t have the leisure time to go to hear God’s Word are going to find it difficult because of their lucrative jobs, what about those who have even less time or energy?

            But Jesus flips all our faulty human reasoning on its head. The rich will not have an easier time, because they’ll always have their attention drawn away by their jobs that pay so well, or the lifestyle they’re expected to live, or the creature comforts that will draw them away from the comfort of the Word—which is the only way to really enter the kingdom. Jesus is pointing out the danger in trading what God has said is really best for lesser worldly goods. There’s always a risk in inviting the glitter of worldly splendor into our lives, because if we give it a little attention, the world is going to ask for more. Like any other idol it will demand more and more and more, so that Solomon’s words this morning are proven true every time: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.”

            This is not to say that these earthly things are evil by nature. We happily confess that God gives things in the world. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, and that includes things in this world that support our bodies and lives: clothing, shoes, food, drink, house, home, land, animals, and all we have. We pray every day for God to give us our daily bread—those things we need to stay alive in this world and do the work He has given us to do. God gives nothing evil, so these things—money, clothing, house, home, possessions—are not evil by nature.

            But it’s what we do with these gifts that determines whether they benefit or harm us, whether they remain good or become wicked. So Solomon says, “There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt.” That was the trouble the rich young man last week found—he liked his possessions and the happiness and comfort they brought more than he liked what Jesus was offering, even though what He was offering was eternal life. And so it is with any gift that God gives us in this earthly life. We can find ways to misuse food, drink, medicine, friends, family, and money. And we all do it. Like children, we all trade the eternal good for the lesser treat we can see at the moment.

            So we might cry out in vexation and astonishment with the Apostles, “Then who can be saved?!” And this question is exactly what Jesus wants us to ask. For left to our own futile devices, left to our own account of what is good and what is best, we will fail. We’ll fail either by thinking the wrong thing and assigning the wrong value to things, or we’ll fail by acting against what we know is best, like children who trade away the best treat for the lesser one, even though we know the best is coming. With man, with our own focus on what we can see and count and measure, with our own weak willpower and resolve, with our own tendency to trade the eternal for the temporary, with man it is impossible.

            But with God all things are possible. For God has entered our world when He sent His Son to take on our human nature, our flesh. He has entered not only our world, but also our own personal lives as well. He’s come into your life in the gift of Holy Baptism. He breaks into your weekly comings and goings with His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. And here, with you, He’s shown you what is best: entering the kingdom of God, living under His merciful and gracious reign, rather than under the tyranny of riches. What’s best is still unseen at this time, grasped only by faith, something to wait for. And our Lord reminds us of this constantly. He teaches us over and over, so that we can rejoice in those earthly gifts and see the One who gives them all—gifts like daily bread and house and money. But He also teaches us to never hold on to them too tightly; never fear losing them more than we fear losing God and His Word; never love and trust them more than we fear, love, and trust God.

            So what do we do in the meantime, while we’re waiting for Him to return and come back into the room with the reward we’re waiting for? Wise Solomon gives us some guidance: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him. Everyone also to whom God given has wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.” And with those gifts, we’re taught to be generous. There’s a story about Martin Luther and his wife Katie. Katie was upset with Luther because he kept giving away a lot of their money and household possessions to anyone who asked for them. Luther then looked at his hands and asked her if she ever noticed how God had created hands with fingers that spread so wide. He then said he suspected it was so that coins could pass from out of our hands easily, falling anywhere and everywhere they could.

            That teaches us something about generosity and a healthy attitude toward the treasures God gives us in this life. For even if those things easily pass from our hands, we have a God who has infinitely more to give us. He created the universe, after all. Or as Jesus said, when Peter brought up the fact that they had given up everything to follow Him, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions”—to keep us grounded and trusting God to deliver us, surely—“and in the age to come eternal life.” This hundredfold is found in Christ’s Church. It’s found in our life together. It’s found in Christ Himself, who gives us everything, even beyond our comprehension. In the name of Jesus, the generous. Amen.