The Object of Our Trust

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Three cars converged on the church parking lot in the predawn hours. Two of them stayed in the lot for the day, as their owners piled into the third car. They took off on a road trip to see their favorite author appear at a bookstore a long way away from their town. They called him “The Teacher” and they bought everything that he had ever written. As they rode the several hours journey, they took turns giddily quoting his books from memory. When they arrived at the book signing, their energy was at fever pitch! They soaked in all of the words that he spoke to the crowd, gleefully bought multiple copies of his new book, and stood in line for over two hours for the chance to meet him.

The Teacher was gracious with his time, and talked to each person as he signed their books. By the time these three young men arrived, they had their speech memorized: “Teacher, we are so thankful for all that you have shared! We are your biggest fans! Each of us serves in our local church, leads Bible studies during the week, sings in the choir, and gives a full tithe every month. We figured if anyone knew if there was anything more we could do, it would be you!” The Teacher sat for a moment, considering their speech. He studied their smiling faces, most of whom had never been told they had done anything wrong. And with an amazing knowledge beyond belief, he spoke to each of them slowly and honestly:

“There is one thing that each of you lacks…

• Go, take your AR-15’s to a buy-back program, and give the money to a fund for victims of gun violence.

• Go, take down the American flag you hang outside your house, and research and donate to organizations fighting Christian nationalism.

• And you go and sell all you have, and give all your money to the poor.”

The three young men had no idea what to say next, stammered out a thank you, and drove home for hours in total silence…for the Teacher had just upended their world.

 

Scholar Cláudio Carvalhaes writes that what is at stake for this man in Mark 10 is more than just his bank account. He came to Jesus, hoping that Jesus would affirm his identity and his behavior. He had followed the law. He had obeyed the commandments. In that time and place, his wealth would have been proof positive that he had pleased God and that God was rewarding him. He came to Jesus asking for confirmation that he had done everything he possibly could to receive eternal life.

But Jesus did the opposite of what he expected; he asked this man to give up his identity. This rich man saw himself as a person for whom his possessions and money were salvific. They were what saved him and sustained him. But Jesus bluntly told this man that in order to follow him, to attain eternal life, to truly follow the commandments given by God, that he would have to die. At least the identity that he knew as himself would have to die. Jesus knew that those possessions were not saving him, but destroying him. For him to live in the fullness of who he was created to be, this core part of his assumed personhood would have to die.

Carvalhaes writes this about the man and his encounter with Jesus:

…the unexpected happens. For the fullness of his desire to be realized, he has to do something he didn’t anticipate. Jesus says: “Only one thing is missing for you to get where you want to go. Give up your source of trust and trust me. Come follow me, and we will figure out life together.” Oh, that was way too much. He was ready for anything but this.

Carvalhaes led me to wonder what are the identities that we think are saving us, but are actually destroying us? How much are we like the three young men who came away from the book signing, each of them grieving? 

 

The first identity that many in our world claim is saving them has to do with guns. What an incredibly difficult week this has been. Sunday, we received reports that an armed person entered a church in Houston, and in response armed church members killed her and shot her 7-year old child, who remains hospitalized in critical condition. Tuesday, a judge denied release in a case in Johnson County of a 17-year-old who allegedly recklessly discharged a gun that killed a 15-year-old Lawrence High School student. And Wednesday, a joyous celebration of the Chiefs’ incredible Super Bowl win turned tragic, when armed parade-goers under 18 opened fire, injuring 22—including children—and killing a mother of two.

Each of these are different cases, but what seems to be a common thread in our nation today is the proliferation of gun culture. There are many Christians who, like the man who approached Jesus, have done just about everything right according to the Official Church Checklist. And yet, their true deepest ideological commitment is to their interpretation of the Second Amendment, to the NRA and its political lapdogs, and to a culture that demands that all Americans must have unfettered access to any kind of gun. This becomes the thing that they trust more than all else.

Tony Campolo, a pastor and author and American Baptist saint, saw some of this coming some 30 years ago, when he wrote about gun control. His perspective then, and one I still value today, is that too many folks in our country value their political rights more than their Christian responsibility to care for one another. Campolo wrote these words almost 3 decades ago:

I certainly have the right to own a gun. The Constitution guarantees me that right…. But perhaps, as a Christian, I should forego that right for the sake of weaker brothers and sisters. Maybe I should choose to establish and obey a law I know is needed by those who cannot handle too much freedom with guns. Shouldn’t Christians be willing to give up their rights on nonessential things in order to secure what is good for others? Is that what Christian love requires?….We need to create a world in which the weak are protected.

He doesn’t advocate for an abolition of all guns, but pushes us to ask what might be a loving Christian response to the proliferation of guns and gun violence and gun culture and gun identity in our nation. I find myself more and more in agreement with Campolo…I am less convinced that we as a nation are going to be able to legislate away all violent sin, and more convinced that we as a nation have to limit the ability of those who choose to sin in violent ways to continue to cause significant damage.

 

Speaking of our nation, anyone get a little nervous when the Teacher told the second young man to give up his American flag? Anyone think, “Wait a minute, I’m proud to be an American. I love my country.” But in the same vein of gun culture, there is a culture of America-worship that I think Jesus would ask us to give up if we really want to follow him. Again, there are some who value the Constitution as much as the Bible, their nation as much as the Church, and their citizenship in America as much as their citizenship in the Kingdom of God. And some would say they value Americanism more.

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is an organization devoted to the historic Baptist principle of making sure that there is a separation between the powers of Church and state. They provide advocacy for religious liberty cases, and they fight against state or federal laws that use public funds to promote one religion over another. Like the man who came to Jesus assuming he had done everything right, many of us allow other things to gain priority in our hearts. The BJC executive director, Amanda Tyler, warns of a culture of what is sometimes called Christian nationalism, which suggests that God favors America and Americans and that America should favor Christians. This goes against historic Baptist principles, and against Scripture. Here is their definition:

Christian nationalism is a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life. Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively “Christian” from top to bottom—in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values, and public policies—and it aims to keep it that way. But the “Christian” in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion. It carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism.

The BJC forces us to ask: Is our deepest identity in Christ, or in the land where we were born or live? Amanda Tyler writes elsewhere this powerful statement:

If Christians do not distance themselves from the misuse of their faith for political reasons, they risk not only tarnishing Christianity’s reputation with the general public but distorting the gospel beyond recognition. This kind of power-broker Christianity has been used to perpetuate racial subjugation for generations and has contributed greatly to the trauma and pain in our streets right now. Christian leaders have a choice now about which side they will be on…

A choice like that which Jesus gave the man who came to him. He made his choice, and chose to prioritize of the commitments of this world over the things of Jesus. 

Finally, the Master confronts a third young man by challenging him with his wealth. This is more familiar territory, but that doesn’t mean it is an easier word to hear. Perhaps this goes without saying, but in the eyes of all of humanity on this planet, those of us gathered in this room, and likely all of us online, are phenomenally rich. Now, all of us can look up the income ladder, and see people richer than us. And all of us can look down it, and see people who have less. But the bottom line is that in a global sense, we are all pretty close to the top. In the big picture, we don’t lack much. And so, what that means for us is that when Jesus tells this rich person, “you lack one thing,” to go sell all that he has, our ears need to perk up. When Jesus delivers a universal proclamation about all rich people, that it is harder for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter heaven, it is on us to figure out what that means for us.

Our wealth can become such an important part of who we are that it changes the way that we look at others. But it doesn’t have to be. Look again at each of the identities that got in the way for these young men. Nothing is wrong with being American…the problem comes when we make Americanism our true faith. I would even say that nothing is wrong with allowing some people to own some guns; I can tell you stories of hunting and shooting with my Granddaddy growing up, nothing like the gun culture of today…but the problem comes when an insistence on that right causes people to be blinded to the damage and trauma that guns are causing in our nation. And nothing is wrong with money, in and of itself…the problem comes when our identity is caught up in what we have, especially when that means we are not caring for others with the money that God has given us. It is hard to be wealthy and Christ-like. But with God, nothing is impossible. These identities that we think are saving us are actually killing us. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I end this morning once again with the words of Cláudio Carvalhaes, who has a final word for us today.

To let go of his riches was to let go of a whole sense of self, of who he was, and embrace a new form of being in the world. The rich man would have to experience that change as a freefall until, now reinventing himself within the group of Jesus, he would turn the sense of falling to a sense of flying. What Jesus proposes to this man is what Jesus is proposing for all of us! The gospel is much less about what we think it is and much more about what we are unwilling to do. If the gospel is indeed about giving up our riches, we are all very far from being a Christian. We must continue pushing our own spiritual and material limits until we are able to detach our hearts from our possessions and turn ourselves to a simple way of living for the sake of others and God.

May it be so.