Sermon from July 29, 2001
Carole and I spent last Friday afternoon in the land of pleasant living. At her suggestion we decided to have lunch at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We found an outdoor table at Phillip's Crab House. Temperature was in the '70s, humidity was low, and a pleasant breeze kept flags flying. The large umbrella kept the sun off as we enjoyed fresh tuna and an inimitable Maryland crab cake.

Moored not fifty yards away was a splendid Argentine Frigate, gleaming white with signal flags and the Argentine flag accenting the scene with mulitcolor. Water taxis plied their trade from the Inner Harbor around to Fellis Point and other stops in between. If you wanted, you could sail or power your way out of the Patapsco River and into the Bay down to Annapolis Harbor a few miles away where a billion dollars in boating rested at anchor. A few miles east lay the Atlantic beaches of Maryland and Delaware.

It is an accessible playground, and on a day like Friday with good food at hand and no deeds to do for a few hours, leisure life didn't get any better. You could understand the bumper sticker that said, "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania, but he's spending the weekend in Maryland." More than once on a Sunday afternoon, I have wanted to be out in this Chesapeake playground instead of here at our church. That reminded me of something we dare not forget.

In our generation God is leading the church of North America into a test, which is also a temptation by the devil, just as He led our Lord into the perilous desert test, which was also a temptation by the devil. The test is this: Can we Christians be people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? The fire for Christians in the West is staying true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice us away from Jesus Christ. The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives. In this context we can listen together with sharp ears to the words of Jesus Christ in Mark 10:23ff.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "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 man to enter the kingdom of God."

During my vacation, I finally read a John Grisham novel. The place where we stayed had The Testament on the shelf, so one day I read it. The story revolves around an American missionary, Rachel Lane, who serves Christ in the remote rain forest of Brazil, and Nate O'Reiley, a brilliant, besotted Washington, D.C. trial lawyer, who has to find her to tell her she has just inherited eleven billion dollars. He finds her, and a remarkable exchange takes place between them. O'Reiley finds her indifferent to what he came to tell her about and says, "You don't even know how much it is."

"I haven't asked. I went about my work today with no thought of the money. I'll do the same tomorrow, and the next day."

"It's eleven billion, give or take."

"Is that supposed to impress me?"

"It got my attention."

"But you worship money, Nate. You're part of a culture where everything is measured by money. It's a religion."

"True, but sex is pretty important too."

"Okay, money and sex. What else?"

"Fame. Everybody wants to be a celebrity."

"It's a sad culture. People live in a frenzy. They work all the time to make money to buy things to impress other people. They're measured by what they earn."

"Am I included?"

"Are you?"

"I suppose."

"Then you're living without God. You're a lonely person, Nate. I can sense it. You don't know God," (John Grisham, The Testament, Belfry Haldings, Inc., 1999, 232-233).

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

In our generation God is leading the church of North America into a test, which is also a temptation by the devil, just as He led our Lord into the perilous desert test, which was also a temptation by the devil. The test is this: Can we Christians be a people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? The fire for Christians in the West is staying true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice us away from Christ. The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives.

By now the disciples were suffering from nearly terminal amazement. Verses 26-27 report an increase in their amazement. The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Hold on to that last promise. "All things are possible with God."

Modern, democratic culture increasingly defines human beings as consumers and freedom as the freedom to buy. At street level this philosophy of human nature expresses itself in the slogans, "Shop 'til you drop," and "He who has the most toys in the end wins." Millions of people find it virtually impossible to live by this philosophy without incurring debt – debt that is sometimes crushing, always present and stubborly difficult to get rid of.

Advertising, brilliantly researched and memorably presented, is the major evangelist for this philosophy. In my reading I recently came across two quotations from books on effective advertising that in my judgment say volumes about the kind of world we have created for ourselves. Here is the first one. "Advertising can be described as the art of arresting human intelligence long enough to steal money from it," (ibid., 36). Here is the other. "Transactions are all that matters; meaning has no place. Under no circumstances will the advertiser accept the notion that selling could hurt anyone," (ibid.).

That is an insult and a danger to your freedom and dignity as a human being created in the image of God. You are far more than a consumer to "be organized, commercialized and manipulated," (ibid., 683) to satisfy the demands of a free market economy.

Second, modern, democratic culture increasingly defines human beings as a bundle of desires and freedoms as the freedom to indulge those desires when and as we will. At street level this philosophy of human nature expresses itself in the slogans, "If it feels good, do it!" and "No rules, just right." Millions of people find it virtually impossible to live by this philosophy without incurring consequences, some of which are highly distasteful, like a police record, and others profoundly dangerous such as AIDS.

We have all noticed this year television's increased catering to pruient interests. Most of us have concluded that drug producers, pushers and users are winning the war on drugs. Whether it is using pornography or drugs or stealing or lying, this philosophy of human nature and human freedom teaches people to be takers. What I want takes precedence over what you need. Creatively and insistently, the subliminal message goes out: the material takes priority over the spiritual.

That is an insult and a danger to your freedom and dignity as a human being created in the image of God. You are far more than a bundle of desires whose happiness depends on an undisciplined, unprincipled indulgence of those desires. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

In our generation God is leading the church of North America into a test, which is also a temptation by the devil, just as He led our Lord into the perilous desert test, which was also a temptation by the devil. The test is this: Can we Christians be people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? The fire for Christians in the West is staying true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice us away from Christ. The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives.

In verses 28-31 Peter, the usual spokesman for the rest, was bursting to set the record straight. Verse 28: Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!" After hearing the exchange between Jesus and the rich man and the statements about money and the kingdom of God, Peter wanted to be sure he was still on the right track. Jesus' answer is not at all what we would have expected.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first." "Peter, don't get cocky! There will be surprises when the secrets of our hearts are revealed."

Maybe you saw the article in Christianity Today about Tim Finley of Minneapolis. His story catches your eye, because at age 36 he walked away from a $700,000-a-year income at his advertising agency that was billing more than $100,000,000 a year. The crisis for him came at a national direct marketing convention in NYC in 1995, when he was one of the presenters. He could not justify staying in the industry, because he felt that when it came to what is eating away at our nation's moral and spiritual life he "was part of the problem, not the solution," (CT, July 9, 2001, 37).

I don't know if Tim Finley sold all he had, gave to the poor and had treasure in heaven, but his integrity strikes just the right note. We need examples of people who do not acquiesce in the elevation of the material over the spiritual. What we don't know is who the heroes are right here in this very room. We can't look at you and know the little deaths and the on-going struggles by which you too affirm the primacy of the spiritual over the material. Your lack of recognition now may well be redressed when God exposes the secrets of our hearts.

In our generation God is leading the church of North America into a test, which is also a temptation by the devil, just as He led our Lord into the perilous desert test, which was also a temptation by the devil. The test is this: Can we Christians be people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? The fire for Christians in the West is staying true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice when no one is watching. The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives. So, how do we go about affirming the primacy of the spiritual over the material?

The New Testament gives us two guides. One of them gives our souls their proper direction. The other teaches a habit of mind that is equipped to deal with our materialistic culture. In these two passages Christ holds before us a different vision of what it means to be human and a different vision of what it means to be free.

Above this chorus of consumerism Jesus Christ calls us back to our true selves, when He says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (all our legitimate desires) will be given to us as well." He calls us to challenge this consumer culture by giving priority to the spiritual over the material. The question for us is, "Does extending God's love and authority over increasing circles of human life have priority in our lives?"

1 Cor. 7:30-31 teaches us a habit of mind for our age. The Apostle Paul calls us to challenge our indulgent culture with renewed minds that buy something, as if it were not ours to keep, and that uses the things of this world, as if not engrossed in them. Think for a moment of all the stuff that fills your attic, basement and garage, all the stuff that fills closets and shelves. Do you look on that as not yours to keep? Does the interminable pressure to buy no longer engross us?

A decade ago, God allowed my family to live through more than a year, when I was out of a job. For seven months I had no paycheck. Our resources dwindled with alarming speed. By mid-summer, 1991, we had only the equity in our house remaining.

One of the most humbling moments in that humbling year occurred the day we had to pack all our worldly possessions in a self-storage place in Portland, OR. When the movers had left, I put the padlock on the door and the key in my pocket and realized that our worldly possessions that had filled a 2200 square foot house took up a pitifully few cubic feet in that storage area, and I had no idea of what shape they would be in when I came to collect them. In moments like that you begin to look at worldly possessions in a whole new light.

The other powerful force at that time was the people, who had been our life. How would people treat us now that I no longer had a title or a nice home or some money in my pocket? Some people stayed away because they just did not know what to say to us. Others, perhaps, stayed away because I no longer had title, home and money. But other people looked beyond those things to our character, values and heart, and they related to us the way they always had.

That experience set me free in a way that I did not expect. What I had of money, titles and possessions no longer served to measure the significance of my life. Things of the spirit did that: my relationship to Christ, my relationship to other people, ideas, investing myself into the lives of other people – all these intangibles towered up above the material blessings of my life. I learned something crucial about taking possession of things without those things taking possesion of my immortal spirit.

All of which leads me to a final question. Can this become a church whose people give priority to the spiritual over the material? No one can know how far down that road we have already gone. We can be sure we will not become such a congregation without struggles. I am sure of something else. You, my congregation whom I love and long for, are the key to our becoming such a church – you in your secret soul, where you make decisions and choose values. We have help from the Holy Spirit, but how badly do we want it?

Can this church be a people of integrity in a world where we are free culturally to do anything we can get away with? Can we stay true to Jesus Christ when around us all allurements entice us away from Jesus Christ? The only answer to the test will be the sacrificial answer of our lives. What answer shall we give?