SPECTAL GIFTS CULEBRATTION
BICENTENNIAL FUND, THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH {(U.S5.A.)

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

A MATTER OF VALUE

1. The Value of Your Soul
2. The Value of a Tradition

3. The Vaiue of Wealth

October 5 and 6, i989

John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

1. THE VALINE OF YOUR SOUL

“Aud Jesus summoned the multitude with the disciples, and said to
them, ‘If any would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up
their cress and follow me. Por those who would save their life will lose
il; and those who lost their life for my sake and the gospel's will save
it. For what is one profited, if one gains the whole world and forfeits
one's life? For whal shal? one give in return for one's life?'"

-Mark 8:34-37 (€Inclusive Languape Lectionary}

“What shall it profit a man or a woman to pain
the whole world and lose his or her sou]?"

Some time ago 7] was part ef a seminar in Washington which brought
together a group of Presbyterian ministers and government officiats who
happened to be Presbyterians. There were twelve of us. We were in a van,
waiting at the gate of the White House. A Secret Service man asked us For
our driver's licenses in order to do a security check. Mine was lost; more
accurately, it had been stolen. In any event, ali I had on my person with
my name on il was a church business card and the church credit card. I
tried the business card. The Secret Service man disappeared into his
office, returned with security badges, the kind you wear around your neck,
with the licenses clipped on. When he came to me, he said, "Mr. Buchanan,
way T talk with you?” T climbed out of the van amidst the laughter of my
celleagues who were telling him that I was indeed a very real threat to
national security. He asked if I didn't have anything which would simply
assure them that I was who [I claimed to be. Apparently, I had lost more
than my wallet and some money... my identity was at stake. So I puiled out
the church American Express Card which does have my name on it. He seemed
to be greatly relieved. J was approved. American Express got me in the
White House - when my word, the assurances of my distinguished colleagues
and my employment at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago were brushed
aside. I'm glad I had not left home without it.

Shortly thereafter, I encountered a John Updike short story entilled
The Wallet. It is about Fulham, a retired broker, who “had assembled a
nice life - blue-eyed wife still trim and presentable after thirty years of
marriage, red-haired daughter off in the world and doing well, handsome
white howse in the older suburbs.”

Fulham spends his time managing his own jivestments and thase of a
favored few old clients in an upstairs room. Every morning he goes to his
room with the Wall Street Journal, a second cup of decaffeinated coffee, ta
make phone calls, look out the windew at his néatly manicured lawn, te
survey and enjoy the world he has gained,

And then disaster strikes. One iorning be can't find his wallet.
Now, if you are not an obsessive persen you may pot understand what this
story is abouwi. Tf yoru are, if you spend as much Lime as [| du in a slate
of agitation because you can't Cind your keys or peu or glasses... you may
find if funny and provocalive. Fullam Jooks everywhere: under chairs,
beds, he even goes through pockets of suits he hasn't worn For months. He
goes a little berserk... lis wallet was “a friendly adjunct to his person,
a reminder, in its delicate pressure upon his Ieft buttock, of bis new
stape of Tife... containing charge cards for Bay Bank, Bragks Brothers,
Hertz, Visa, Amoco, American Express, Master Charpe, The Harvard Co-op,
Massachusetts General Hospital - plus his pliasticized driver's license and
cards signifying his membership in the Museum of Fine Arts, country club,
Blue Cross/Blue Shield, social security and various sentimental mementos
and pictures."

After several days of searching, Fulham announces to his wife that
someone, obviously, has slipped into the house and stolen his wallet,
punctuating his proclamation with obscentities.

His wife says: “I've never seen you like this."
“How am 12"
“You're wild."

"It was my wallet. Everything is in it. Everything. Without that
wallet, I'm nothing.”

Fulham finds his wallet. In fact, his grandson finds it foided up in
a blanket on the couch. And Updike closes with him "squeezing the beloved
bent book of leather between his two palms and feeling very grandpaternal,
fragile, wiser and ready to die.”

“Without that wallet, I'm nothing," Fulham said. Jesus said, "What
shall it profit a person to gain the whole world and to forfeit his or her
life?" He said that in the context of one of the most familiar, quoted and
preached-on incidents in the New Testament. Everyone agrees that it is
pivotal...

Jesus had just asked his disciples who they think he is. Peter has
answered for them: "You are the Christ." Jesus has told them that he must
suffer and die. Peter has argued with that, plainly not understanding who
Jesus is, Jesus has rebuked Peter severely, and now this powerful
sequence. "If anyone would come after me...deny self...take up a cross and.
follow. Whoever would save life will lose it. Whoever loses life for my
sake wil] save it. For what does it profit a person to gain the whole
world and forfeit, life...lose his or her soul?" It is a theme Mark wil]
return to time and lime again.

The Greek word is psyche and it means “life” but. aiso “soul” and also
"self." In point of fact, it may not be your life you are in danger of
losing. It's something deeper, more profound, more important, actually.
Tt's your self, that essential core of being inside you, that integrity
which if compromised or violated strips you of your saul. We are talking

here about soul... as in “Sout fuod" - food with characler and honesty;
mudiluted, without benefit of artificial coler, tasle or tenderizers...
real food: and as in “soul music" - honest, passig@male music, reflective
of the human sjtuation; pathos, ecstasy, sensuousness, real music:
Synphany Puthetique, Ode to Joy, Adagio for Strings, “I love you, Porgy":
and as in “soul brother/sister," that one with whem you relate with no
artificiality, no preliminaries, no word games, no manipulation and uo
posluring. Your soul... that essential authenticity deep inside you which
you may be keeping pretty well barricaded and insulated... but which is the
piace where you live and move and have being, where your passion, ecstasy,
tears and Jonging reside. Soul - your soul is the subject and that is what
Jesus said is so valuable and so fragile that you could lose it in the
process of gaining the worid, or even a little part of it. It is the very
heart of the Guspel.

What does it mean toe be a Christian? There are different answers
even in the New Testament. The Fourth Gospel and St. Pau] suggest that
it's a matter of believing in Jesus Christ. In Matthew the emphasis is on
abeying Jesus' reinterpretation of the law. Luke emphasizes compassion and
justice. The symbol of the Gospel of Mark is the lion, “strong, brave,
courageous.” To be a Christian, for Mark, is to follew Jesus on his costly
way to the cross. Nowhere is the Christian claim made with more strength -
nor the Christian promise with more eloquence. [see William Willimon,
Interpretation, Mark, p. 154,155}

It is a particularly relevant proclamation for our day. We are
asking strong and tough and courageous questions in a renewed way these
days. Perhaps the noteriety of the television preachers has embarrassed us
into taking our religion more seriously, inspiring us to an inguiry as to
what exactly this stuff we say we believe is all about. Perhaps the
challenge of the new biology, the environmental crisis, the continuing
tragedy of urban deterioration... In any event F am convinced that there is
anew integrity and earnestness of spirit alive in our culture. We want
substantial religion. We want religion that cam assume a place of
respectable dialcgue in the university. The most popular course at Harvard
last year, reported the New York Times in a Sunday Magazine cover feature
was Harvey Cox's basic Christianity and Culture. We want a faith capable
of conversation with the world about the great issues confronting us. We
are embarrassed, resentful in fact, when our faith becomes a caricature, a
reactionary bastion of worn-out and irrelevant moralisms.

We're ready for tough, courageous religion ~ which doesn't hide
behind picus gestures and cliches.

We want to know what it means to be a Christian in this wonderful but
complex and challenging time, and the power and directness of Mark speaks
to our need.

For another thing, we now know that the "new narcissism,” the whole
gospel cf happiness through materialism, acquisition, accumulation,
“whoever dies with the most toys wins” is a lie. It doesn't work. [Et
isn't true.

The movie “Wall Street” was nol a great motion picture. in many ways
jt was grossly oversimplified, but if was a two hour commentary ou our text
this morning. Fr is about Bud Fox, an aspiring, ambitious young breker and
Gurdon Gekko, «a Tabulously wealthy trader. Fox wants what Gekko has, is
slowly seduced by the glittering allure of Gekko's life, finally seils out,
dees sume inside trading, gets rich, loses his soul and then, a little too
predictubly, gets honest, loses his money but regains his soul.

The point is critical. We have tried to define ourselves in terms of
what we eurn, buy, accumulate. "Without that wallet, I'm nothing.” In the
past two decades we have undergone a revolution of the spirit. Altruism
has been replaced by greed. Hepe has been replaced by resignation
masquerading as realism. Twenty years ago this culture was inspired by a
noble and good idea]. We could, we believed, build a world in which people
were free from racism, poverty, hunger, unnecessary illness, and a world
moving in the direction of peace. Twenty years ago, it was neither silly
nor uncommon for college students to express their personal hepes for the
future in terms of contributing to the general welfare and reconciliation
and peace of the country and the worid. We know the extent of the
revolution that changed that. To centinue to believe that the highest and
best a person can achieve is toe contribute to the healing and wholeness of
the world - is, today, to be scorned, dismissed as a naive, do-gouoder,
worse yet - a "liberal." We put aside the noble dreams and replaced them
with a more manageable one - get rich. When young people are asked today -
about their hopes, dreams and aspiration for the future - many answer by
saying what they hope to earn and own.

Even religion, in the age of Narcissism, became intensely
individualistic and personalized. The most popular varieties continue to
market personal salvation like soap powder and take a strict "hands off"
policy about the great societal issues which confront us and which
challenge us and make demands of us. The church has foltowed suit ~ or
has wanted to, it seems. We Preshyterians are obsessed with our declining
market, wringing our hands over the fact that numbers are down: that we
aren't mainstream or mainline anymore: that we are not keeping pace with
competing groups or with the secularism of our culture. We must be
concerned, but sometimes our concern is expressed in ways that raise
significant questions of theological integrity.

Martin Marty, in a whimsical editorial about the obsessive and
frantic interest in mainline church growth and church growth statistics,
notes that the Mormons, who are growing, are willing to make 1,500 house
calls to produce one “friendly opening” and that the Episcopalians who are
declining, haven't made 1,500 house cails since the death of Thomas Cranmer
in the 16th century.

We are tempted, as peaple who love the chureh and want it to survive and
succeed, to keep away from these “hard sayings" of Jesus’, about taking
up a cross and giving life away, this unusual harshness. We are inclined
to talk about the benefits of religion, not the costs.

The Wall Street Journal published, and Roof and McKinney reprinted, a
delightful article by a Kansas City advertising executive who, with tongue

in cheek, has come up with a markeling plan for revitalizing America's
major religious faiths."

"My strategy is to consalidate the various name brands, even the strong
Clagship brands like Southern Baptist inlo one identifiable, Exxon-like ;
entity. Phe target audience here is Mom, Tad, Betch and Sis - solid
suburban Americans who want a little God in their life and somewhere to go
before branch, After Lost-markeling various possibilities, T have decided
upon the name Mitidle American Christian Church, or MacChurch, for ad
purposes. I will not be.sure of MacChurch's theology until focus groups
are run, but J plan on following the promotional path blazed sno
successfully by Holiday Tan. In other words, this will be your ‘nro
surprises’ church. When Dad brings the family here, he can be sure that
they wil] not be asked to speak in tongues, handle snakes or pive money to
the Sandanistas."

Among the ad man's proposals are a new brand of Judaism for baby
bodmers ang a “market segmentation" approach for Roman Catholicism. "RC
Light for post-Vattcan IT liberals, RC Classic for traditionalists and RC
Free for those more interested in liberation theology than Papa] Buils."
"Protestantism," he says, "presents marketers with special problems:
the individual churches wil] have to understand that there is just so much
theological shelf space, that product differentiation is not viable for go-
as-you-please Pratestantism. Thus, the Middle American Christian Church or
MacChurch." [see American Mainline Religion, Roof and McKinney, p. 229]

Now, no one is quite that bold about it, but there is among us the
sense that if we were a little more market conscious, if we stopped asking
people to give and started giving them what they want, we might be more
successful. And there are plenty of success models to emulate.

However, just at the moment we begin to be convinced that the market
strategy is correct, just when we inguire seriousiy of the super suburban
churches booming with growth, just as we shift the weight of our theclogy
to the supply side of the ledger, here comes Jesus - saying things like:

"Tf any comes after me and does not hate his own life - renounce ail
that he has...he cannot be a disciple...

and
What does it profit to gain the whole world and lose one's soul...
and

Whoever would save fife wili lose and whoever would lose life for my
sake wili save it...

and

If one would come after me - deny self - take up a cross and
follow..."

What is at stake here is seul, not just the quality ef }ife in our
culture. What is at issue is that core of being, that essence of you -
which is your san).

One of the pioneers of modern psychological theory, Eric Erikson,
tanpht thal human Jife can be defined by a series of issues, which each
individual wast resolve, Erikson said that the crisis of middle adulthood
is between “penerativity and stagnation.” Generativity is “the readiness
to care for the next generation” - the wildingness to live fer a purpose
lareer than my own Jife. The danger, Erikson taught, is stagnation. If
you don't make thal commilment to care for life beyond yourself — either in
your own children, or in some way the children who are the next generation
- you stagnate. And, said Erikson, you will begin to indulge yourself
obsessively - as if you were your own one and only child.

The psychiatrists and psychologists know that the more we give away
the more we have. The more we hoard, save, protect and squeeze - the less
we have and are. ‘The issue is our own souls,

The heart of Christianity is the teaching of Jesus that in order te
live you must love, and in order to love you must die. Put another way,
the bold and radical proposal of the Gospel is that learning to love means
learning to die. But in that process you gain something infinitely
precious ~- your dwn soul.

The compelling power of the Gospel is that this man, Jesus of
Nazareth, so thoroughly believed it - he lived it out. He so thorouphly
loved God and his friends and the world and his own soul, that he died
rather than compromise his integrity, his sense of who he was and what his
life was ahout, Some of thase people who first heard his words - lived
them out and literally gave their lives away rather than cempromise their
hope and faith. And so, down through the centurfes, disciples of Jesus
have remembered and bravely lived out the power ef his words - Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther Ring, Desmond Tutu, Alan Boesak.

Sometimes history and circumstance draw the issve very clearly for
as. When we visited Dachau last summer, the point was made for me
eloquentiy. One of the remaining barracks is the is the "Priesterbunker,”
the barracks for ministers and priests who saw in Nazism an absolute
conflict with devotion to Jesus Christ, who acted on that perception and
whe ended up in a cancentration camp. And there is not a clergyperson —- or
a layperson for that matter, who does not look at that barracks and wonder,
could I have done that? Weuld T have done that? There are times and
circumstances when the issue is clearly drawn. That was one of them. And
so Dietrich Bonhoeffer, knowing whal. was ahead, could write about cheap
grace and costly grace and the familiar and stirring but also distressing
lines:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
Clearly Alan Boesak and Bishop Tutu and those around them, black and

white, believe that time and circumstance are drawing the issue sharply in
South Africa; and that their loyalty to Jesus Christ is forcing them to say

no ole their government. Jo was reading some of Boesak's sermons recently Lou
try to dearn a Jittle bit about his thinking because T do helieve be is on
ihe edge of the basic theological! issue, as Bonhoeffer was fifty years ago.
And 7} was interested to discover that his iulroduclion to a collection of
highly polilical sermons contains a warning abort a too eager martyrdan or
Christian masochism, “that dark longing within the hearts of so many
Chrislians lo be Clopeed into the arms of Jesus - or into Lhe fires of
heli." [The Finger of God, p. &}] That is, we are not all called to be a
Bonhoeffer or a Boesak, nor does Lhe issue come at. all of us with equal
clarity. Wistory and circumstance differ and require diffcrent response,

Widliam Witlimon once wrote to the point:

“To be martyred is one way to pay for the faith, but I submit it's
tough to pay, day by day, in a lonely, duil, ignored-by-pagans wilting that
comes from waiting."

The cost is not alway dramatic, he says.

"The woman who devotes her life to raising children in need of a
home, the man whose faithful devotion to a mentally ill] wife is quiet and
steady, the youth whose civil disobedience for conscience's sake leads ta
prison or exile, these are among the countless thousands, who threugh the
centuries and in many contexts, have interpreted the text with their
lives.” [Interpretation, Mark, p. 156-7]

One who paid with everything she had was Eva Jane Price,
Congregational missionary wife, in China in the 1890s. Her long
correspondence with her parents in Des Moines has been published recently
under the title China Journal. It is a fascinating, informative and moving
story. She was 33, her husband 41, when they decided to go to Oberlin
College with their two children to prepare for Missionary work. She was
very human and winseme: wife, mother of three - two of whom died in
childhood. She loved God, but she also loved her own life, children and
her mother, and the farm in Iowa. It took three months to travel] to China
so a letter to her mother took six months to be answered. The letters are
full of the stuff of our own humanity - the daily details of life in an
utterly alien culture - which she did net understand and which called her
“foreign devil." And, of course, the loneliness and isolation which caused
one of her friends to go mad and another to decide to commit suicide. In
an e¢arly letter she writes, "Mother, what do you think I wanted the other
day? Well, I'll tell you if you'll promise never, never te tell ~- one of
your big aprons so I could put my head in it and cry and imagine it was in
your lap." [p. 29)

Th 1900, eleven years after they left Towa and Oberlin College, the
Prices and their remaining daughler were murdered in the Boxer Rebellion.
In her last letter, os the rebellion closes in on the small missionary
compound she wrote... "Our lives are worth pothing unless the Lord keeps
them. We are all expecting to die and God is giving us grace, and we pray
that you at hame may be abundantly blessed by him. We would not choose ta
die now and in any horrible way, but pray without ceasing that God will
choose for us and make us glad to go the way he says." [p. 236]

=~]

Tine and circumstance de not draw the issue as sharply for everyone.
pray God thalowe doo net have to fare the issue as dramatically as Eva Price
did, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did, as Alan Boesak is.

Bul pray God that aur goad fortune does nol protect us also from the
opportunity to decide lo live. Pray God that we are nol so anesthetized by
comfort and security and the orderliness of our lives that we never get
around to living them by giving them away.

Jesus would say that you haven't valued your awn soul — haven't
really lived, im fact, until you have loved passionately and fully and
deeply; loved enough to deny yourself, to forget yourself, to die a litile
er a lol. Jesus would say that ta love deeply is always to die a little to
self. If you are biessed you have already begun to learn that... to lave a
child, another person, a cause, Ged. To leve fully is to die lo self and
Simultaneously to be yourself, to have life more fully and abyndantly than
you ever imagined possible.

The heart of Christianity is that at the moment of self-giving you
are more yourself, more alive than ever before.

The heart of the Gospel, as Peter and the disciples learned, is that
when you have him as Lord and follow him — you knew who yon are... When you
give your life to him, or when you give your life to to others, which is
always very close to giving your life to him, you are given something back
- your identity, yourself, your soul.

In his journal, Henry David Thoreau wrote:

"All that @ man has te say or do that can possibly concern humankind,
is in some shape or other, to tel] the story of kis leve - to sing; and, if
he is fortunate and keeps alive, he wil] be forever in love. This alone is
to he alive to the extremities.” (Thoreau's Journal, May 6, 1854]

What is the value of your soul? It is priceless. Protect it.
Enhance jit. Make it grow. You are not ahead if you gain the world and
lose your saul.

You could gain your soul —- your very life ~- if yeu learned to love
enough to die.

Jesus said that. It is the truth.

2. THE VALUE OF A TRADITION

"Now when the Pharisees gathered together to Jesus, with some of the
scribes, who had cume from Jernsalem, they saw that some of Jesus’
Giscitples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. (Fer the Pharisees,
and al] the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the
tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they da
not eal unless they purify themselves; and there are many other tradilions
which they observe, the washine of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.)
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, ‘Why do your disciples not
live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?!
And Jesus said to them, 'Wel] did Usaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it
is written, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
You leave the commandments of God, and hoid fast human tradition. '”

“Mark 7:1-8 {Inclusive Language Lectionary)

You leave the commandments of God, and hold fast huwan tradition.

Two bundred years ago, in May of 41789, thirty-four Presbyterians met
in Philadelphia and decided that they were a national organization... the
Presbyterian Church. They represented 420 congregations scattered
throughout the new nation and its frontier. Together they were the
largest, best educated, most orderly church in the new world. They had a
strong sense that they were a part of the new era in world history which
was coming to pass with the birth of the American Republic, and they had
important contributions to make. They had been there fram the beginning.
Two Presbyterian churches, established im 1640, were already nearly 150
years old in 1789.

Earlier this year we remembered that event as we celebrated our
Bicentennial. We did so in a world which is radically different and from a
posture in the world which has changed radically and is still changing.

The simple unvarnished truth is that there are 25% fewer Presbyterians in
our country than there were 20 years ago. In May Time Magazine

featured a major article, "Those Mainline Blues" which explored the
phenomenon which is now familiar te all observers of our culture, the
mainline dilemma, or the demise of the mainline church. We may, that is te
say, be looking at the end of a major religious tradition known as
Reformed/ Presbyterian. It is a valuable tradition, one that baptized,
nurtured, challenged me and continues to do so. We are here because we
care about the Presbyterian Church. And there is a sense in which my own
commilmenl toe the Bicenlennial fund is because I believe it is a way I can
contribute to the shape of my church's future.

The group that met in Phildelphia in 1789 understood that it was time
to think anew. The presitting officer was John Witherspoon, President of
the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Thirteen years earlier he had
signed his name to the Declaration af Independence, just two blocks down

the slreet, Che only clergyman Lo do se. Toe show his support of the new
society, Wilherspoon aud several of the others had stopped wearing a wig in
1776.

They elected John Rogers, one of their awn, to be Moderator. And
then the Presbyterians went to work. They appointed a few missionaries ta
organize churches on the frontier: they commissioned several
representatives (o open discussions with other Christian churches, they had
a fierce argument about a liymnal, they discussed the schools and colleges
they had founded and they composed a Jetter ta the President of the United
States, George Washington. Calvinists that they were, Lhey presumed nat
only to speak to their congregations, they spoke for the church to the
world, always very risky business. “We ought not to forget our consequence
in the Republic,” they said. [Tt is one of our traditions.

Presbyterian values have been, J would submit, like seasoning in the
larger context of American calture. We have never been as prominent
numerically as we were in 1789, but we have always been a critical
minorily, 4 lively source of flavor for the rest of the culture, Like salt
of the earth, leaven in the loaf and even, on occasion, Light in the
darkness.

The values, I submit, are critical.

-Education, fer instance. It had its source in our early notion that
lay people should not have to depend on anyone to tell them what was in the
Bible, so it was imperative that people read and understand. And so
Calvinists dominated beth private and public education before the Civil
War, founding two-thirds of all the calleges and universities. How very
desperately our nation needs a new commitment to quality public education.

-And the Deliberative Process as a fairly dependabic way ta establish
consensus and thereby the basis for responsible people te live together
Presbyterian Ethicist, Bon Shriver, said in a discussion of the abortion
debate, and the other ethical dilemmas lurking in the near future such as
genetic engineering, that we must recover the tradition of careful
deliberation and compromise, instead of the currentiy fashionable approach
of confrontalion followed by shouting at one another.

~And the Intersection of Religion and Life, there from the beginning
and expressed in a centuries' old pattern of doing good in the world which
by some odd logic is spurned today so that "do-gooder" is a criticism
rather than a compliment...

~And the tradition of Conscience, Dissent and Suspicion ef Authority.
Calvin and Knox were dissenters; they did not Jive easily with the
eslablishment. One of our earliest preachers was thrown in jail for
preaching in New York without a license and we've been doing it ever since.
Elijah Parish Levejoy was a Presbyterian editer of a SL. Louis newspaper,
burned oul by a pro-slavery mob and later killed by another mob in Alton,
Illinvis for bis anti-slavery editorializing. Henry Van Dyke risked his
prestige and repulation by voicing a lonely protest against the Spanish-
American War. Bill Coffin did the same during Viet Nam and no Presbyterian
my age or older was not asked at least once by a nervous pulpit committee

10

during dhe sixties if we would ever engpavye tu civil disobedicice.

Alan Bowsak's challenge to apartheid is perhaps the most serious one
of al] because it is based ow a clearly Calvinist foundation which, afler
al] the economic, socieJogical and peo-politica]l arguments have been aired,
simply cannot accommodate ilself to a system in which aethority and power
is exercised by 20% of the peaple.

-And Toleratian, Openness, a Willingness to adwit our mislakes, a
refusal to take ourselves too seriously because we know in our hearts that
God alone is sovereign. Even at cur most belligerent we never claimed to
be the only church or the only answer to the truth, or the only way to
warship or express the faith.

Education - deliheration process - suspicion of concentrated
authority - the intersection of religion and life - toleration. J submit
that the world needs those values which have been born and nurtured by the
Presbyterian tradition.

May we be reminded, during the year of our 200th anniversary, that
the church of Jesus Christ is not called to be successful, but to be
faithful, whether or not that means successful, that the Lord himself was
crucified, not elected Chancellor of Jerusalem, that the whole point seems
to be redemption, through suffering, strength through weakness, and that
when God's people start allowing the world to set the agenda and to define
what success means we have fallen into a very serious trap of idolatry for

—

which the prophets of Israel had a very graphic description: whoring after \

Babylon, they called it.

In the meantime it is tempting to look to the past as the only
residue of meaning and hope. Presbyterian journalist, Vie Jameson warns
that “It is safe to say that every generation since Adam has looked back
wisifully at the good old days." {Presbyterian Survey, June 1988] The
fifties, for instance, before Civil Rights and Angela Davis and the turmoil
and stress of the sixties.

Jesus knew the religious tradition of the past. He chose to break
with it. When the orthodox religionists challenged him he put it very
plainly... “You leave the commandment of God and hold fast ta human
traditions.”

There is within the Gaspel of Jesus Christ a permanent discomfort
with the status quo, the establishment, Che “tradition.". It is part of the
genius of Presbyterianism, even while it is celebrating its own traditions,
to know that, and therefore, to Jean into the future with hope.

The Time article ended enigmatically and wrongly, 1 thought. |

"Perhaps, then, mainline churches are being cast into a role... not
unlike that of the Furopean refugees who are known to history as Pilgrims
and Puritans.” That's tt, I think.

If we were mainline, we are better suited not to be. We are, by
nature, a minority, always slightly at odds with the establishment, always

ii

preposinp a counber-culture, an alternative value system.

But then, this conclusion... “Onlike their V7th century predecessars,
fhey have no New World Lo conquer.”

That is wrong. Part of who we are as Presbyterians in this cullure
is a4 peaple who are not inlerested in conquering, but are absolutely
committed to living faithfully and thoroughly in the New World Lhat fs most
certainly emerging.

We have work to do. We have new churches to hujid and old ones to
Jove and nurture.

We have declining churches and hig, healthy, growing churches and
there are still three million of us.

We have the grace to laugh at curseives and the maturity to know that
God's church can never be a pious enclave.

We have a tradition of passionate love for God and God's world and
God's Kingdom of peace, and justice and love.

We have a lot going fer us and even though you and I won't see it, my

strong sense is that there will be plenty of lively, cantentious, caring
and bright Presbyterians around to celebrate a Tricentennial.

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3. THE VALUK OF WEALTH

"And #s Jesus was selting out en a journey, some one ran up and knelt
befere him, and asked, ‘Good Teacher, what must I de to inherit eternal
life?' And Jesus said, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God
alone. You know the commandments: "Do not kill, De not commit adultery,
Do not steal, Do not. bear fulse witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father
and mother."' And the questioner said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, all these I have
observed from my youth.' And Jesus looked upen the questioner with Love
and said, ‘You lack one thing; yo, sel] what you have, and give lo the
poor, and you willj have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ Dismayed
by this word, the person went away sorrowfyl because of having great
possessions,

“And Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, ‘How hard it wil]
be for those who have riches to enter the realm of God!' And the disciples
were amazed at Jesus' words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how
hard it is to enter the realm of God! It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the realn of
God.' And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to Jesus, 'Then who
can be saved?’ Jesus looked at the disciples and said, ‘With human beings
it is impossible, bul not with God; for all things are possible with God.'"

—-Mark 10:17-27 (Inclusive Lectionary Language)

How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!

My, i wish he hadn't said that!... In his book, Harvard Diary, Child
Psychiatrist, teacher and author, Robert Coles, reports his research on how
chiidren of wealthy families come to their values. He was particularly
interested in how religious, church families dealt with the ethical issues
of their own wealth. A prosperous New Orleans attorney said...

"I can find passages to make me feel good about this life I've always
enjoyed, and always will enjoy until IT die. But I have a lepal mind - I
majored in English, liked literary criticism... so I can't overlook what I
read. I can't turn a clear-cut message into a confusing one... He gave us
that. unforgettable image of the camel trying to get through the eye of a
needle. Well, 1 guess I'm one big camel, and even now, I can anticipate
the crunch I')) be in.’

Coles says it was "one of the most Biblical moments I will ever
experience - the sighl and sound of a professing Christian aware that he
was in deep trouble." (Iarvard Diary, "Christ and the Rich," p. 19-21]

Et is a troublesome topic - this matter of Christ and wealth. There
was a iegendary incident ance involving John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Harry
Emerson Fosdick. Rockefeller was the wealthiest Protestant layperson in
the country, He was a devout Baptist: his contributions alone constituted

13

12% of the budget of the Northern Raptist denomination in the 1920s.) By
1960 he had viven away $552 million. He was a leading layman and chairman
of the pulpit. committee of Park Avenue Baplist Church in New York.

Rockefeller las a vision of the church of the future - non-sectarian,
rational, world-embracing. We wanted the leading preacher of the day,
Harry Enerson Fosdick, ta be the paslor and he wanted to convince the Park
Avenue Baptisls fo sell their new building and join him ina new venture on
Riverside Drive. Fosdick, in the meantime, was being thrown oul of the
Presbyterian Church for being too progressive. Rockefeller was successful
on al) fronts. Fasdick was called. Riverside Church was twilt and was,
and is, an embodiment of Rockefeller's vision. The lependary incident
eccurred in the early stages of negotiations between the wealthy
Rockefelier and the progressive preacher. (They later became dear and
life-long friends.} In Roeckefeller's office, Fosdick was protesting that
“he did not wish to be known as the pastor of the richest man in the
country." Reckefeller responded, "Do you think that more people wiil
criticize you on account of my wealth, than will criticize me on account of
your Lheology?" [Robert Moats Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Preacher,
Pastor, Prophet, p. 161-162]

Now we may not be as large a camel as the attorney and we surely do
not relate to the Rockefeller fortune, but J would prepose ta you that the
differences are in degree and not essence. Comedian George Carlin knows
that when he talks about our "stuff." We have to have more space, not so
much to live in particularily, but to keep, protect and display our “stuff.”
One of the observable characteristics - and consistent behaviorism of the
young urbanite is apartment hunting - the reason is that being upwardly
mobile means accumulating stuff. We need more walls for our art, shelves
for the stereo, drawers, closets, square feet... Some of us know about
that very personally. If you didn't have much “stuff" as a child, chances
are your "stuff" is pretty important to you. If you are defined
economically by the Great Depression and therefore had parents who were
frugal, never bought on credit, thought that even gasoJine credit cards
were evil and gasped when you told them what your last mortgage was + you
know what E mean and “stuff" is important to you. E. B. White wrote a
hilarious essay about moving from one apartment to another in New York City
and the difficulty he had parting with accumulated but essentially
worthless "stuff." I loved the essay because when we were preparing to
move to Chicago, I used to check the alley every night to recover the
treasures someone was discarding during the day. My children were doing
the same thing - recovering baseball cards, beloved but worn out
basketballs, beginners piano lesson books, treasures! college notes,
textbooks. Why, you never know when you might need those nates on
Introduction to Geology, or when it might be so muddy and awful out that
thase oid sneakers would be perfect.

The kind. of possessions we cherish is determined oflen by our
prefessian. Not everybody owns jewels and furs and Jaguars. We might look
al ads in The New Yorker, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine the way a
voyeur looks at Penthouse, but for some it's art or recerds or books. A
minister friend of mine tells about the spiritual crisis in his life when
his study burned. All his beoks, ail his sermon manuscripts, lectures,
classes, files - were destroyed. Tle tald that it felt like he hadn't

14

existed. He was deeply depressed, in prief. Later he came to understand
his attachment and what it meant Ubeologically. Finally he even understood
that there was a new freedom in being unencumbered. But it was an
extraordinarily painful experiouece.

There is a jet of ambivuity and discomfort about this topic and il is
very much heightened by the incident which constitules our text this
MOP Ng.

Jesus and enlourage are on their way to Jerusalem, on the way te Lhe
eross, thal is to say. He bas just rebuked the disciples for turning
children away: "Let them come" he said, “to such belongs the Kingdom..."
At just that moment a wealthy young man runs te Jesus, throws himself at
his feet — creating an interesting contrast, to say the Teast.: an
aristocrat kneeling at the feet of a poor man and asking what he must do to
inherit eternal life. Jesus recites the second section of the Ten
Commandments which the young man has already kept. That is to say, he has
done ajl the right things but he still doesn't feel right. He hasn't
experienced Ged’s love and his own salvation. Please notice how gentile
Jesus is with him. He does not criticize or condemn. He simply issues a
prescription: five imperatives: eo - sell all —- give to the poor ~ come -
follow me. I don't know whether Mark had his tongue in his cheek when he
wrote the next line, but I think he must have. It's a funny line. The
young man's “countenance fell..." 7} should guess so. He was appalled, as
a matter of fact, for Mark observes, “he had great possessions." He had a
Jot of them and he loved them.

The young man fades and Jesus makes an observation about wealth which
astonishes his disciples. The official teaching of Judaism was that wealth
is ordinarily evidence of divine blessing. Rich people were good people.
The Scriptures of the Old Testament may be used both to support God's
preferential treatment of the poor and alse God's favor expressed in wealth,
health, long life, possessions. But by the first century the popular
position was that wealth was evidence of divine blessing: Poor people are
sinners. They didn't have the resources or the time or the inclination to
he good Jews, They were working full time just to survive. The disciples
are amazed and disturbed to hear that it will be difficult for wealthy
people to get into the kingdom because they assumed the kingdom was filled
with them,

Then comes this stunning little parable with which Christian people
have been arpuing for twenty centuries: “It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
Gad."

There have been some very Imaginative attempts to get us out from
under that one. In fact, the textual scholars who spend their time
examining ancient manuscripts under a microscope say that there is evidence
that this text has been tampered with repeatedly. We aren't the first
ones, apparently, to wish he didn't say it or mean it.

Later scholars would try to help by pointing out that the Greek ward
for rope is quite similar to the word for camel and that what Jesus
probably said was that it is easier for a rope, a piece of twine, to go

through the eye of a neediv. At Teast the image is consistent. The task
is diffienl!, bul, in a sense, doable,

The most imaginalive effort is the sugpestion thal ancient cily walls

had small openings through which late arrivers might safely enter the cily

wilhoul Lhe danger of opening the pales. This opening, they contend, was
caljJed the "eye of the needle." A camel could pet through — on his knees,
with his wuwner pushing and pulling, it's a wonderful iwage, Preachers on
Stewardship Sunday have been knawn to sugpest that loaded camels,
particularly, are going to have difficulty, and that the way lo squeeze in
js to unload some of the goods - as in a pledge to the church. It is an
approach ta fund raising net to be taken lightly. Scholars trace this
interpretation to the ninth century and sadly conclude that the whole
matiler is spurious.

The sequence is not yet concluded, however. Assume that Jesus has
used hyperbele, which, in fact, he did and which in fact was a respectable
teaching method among the rabbis. Mosl agree that "if you want to follaw
me you must hate your parents” is hyperbole, not specific moral
instruction. Assume that he had used an oulrageous situation to make his
point: that he intended to create some tension with his stern demand. The
disciples are astonished. They aren't rich men: in fact, they are poor.
But they immediately recognize that if what he said is true - all of them
are in trouble. They love what they have even if it's one robe and one
pair of sandals. They are uo more willing than the rich, young man to sell
ai] and give it away. “Who then can be saved?" they ask Jesus. And they
gel an enigmatic answer: “With human beings - with you ~ with human
effort, creativity, hard work ~- it's impossible, bul not with Ged. With
God, all things are possible.”

Whal we really must do is go back and Jock again at this interesting,
wealthy young man. What actually was wrong with him? He's not bad. In
fact, he's good, admirable, upright, generous and he is theologically
sensitive. He's got courage and character. What's wrong here? What about
him causes him to miss the grace and love of Jesus Christ? We is, by the
way, the only person in the Gospel of Mark, whe Jesus calls and who does
not respond by following. He ean't. He's not free to. That's what is
wrong. He's imprisoned, I think, by his possessions. He's even sorry
about it. There's a sense in which he knows what's wrong. In point of
fact, what Jesus teaches him is that he doesn't own a thing actually. He's
owned by his passessions, in service to them, dependent on them for
happiness, security and joy.

He has worked so hard, been so successful, accomplished so much that
there is no roam in his life for grace; maybe there is a very fundamental
character defect here. file's in a hurry - no time, no empty spaces for the
surprising gifts of beauty God's wor]d gives, no place perhaps for gifts of
friendship and love. He stands in poignant contrast to the child Jesus has
just used as an example of the Kingdom. Remember Karl Barth's lovely image
of grace as a child on Christmas morning surrounded by gifts - and weren't
we all touched by grace ~ just seeing those beautiful Jittle children in
the orphanage in Tijuana yesterday? ‘The child hasn't earned a thing yet.
The child knows that al] of life is a gift: from the sun newly warm every
Morning, to the simple gifts of playing with friends, to the miraculous

16

appearance of food at. mealtime, to the seeurily of parental leve amd a warn
bed, the child knows that all is grace. This young man has quite forpotten
what Gl is to reewive that which he has net earned,

li fs not appropriate to resolve the tension jn Lhis text teu quickly
op easily. I believe it was meank te make us uncomfortable and reflective.
Bul it is fair to abserve that Jesus did not say go - sell - give, to every
wealthy person he encountered. He had wealthy friends: Nicodemus,
Zachens, Joseph of Arimathea. He didn't te]] them to seli it all. What he
said to this young man was his personal prescription for sal]lvalion

There is, 1 would submit, no more important task for modern American
Christians than coming to terms with the reality of value and weaith. Bob
Lyno, Presbyterian clergyperson and former executive with the Lily
Foundation, said one time that the American mainline church has to do one
of two things soon: either come to a new understanding of iis own
affluence or else get poor. JT have been pondering that for several years
and. know he is right.

The first thing to do is to stop feeling guilty for who we are.
Theologian, Douglas John Hail, in a book on the topic, The Steward: A
Biblical Image Come of Age, points out how useless it is for middle class
Western Christians to feel guilty for being middle class Western
Christians. “One can sympathize with the impatience and occasional anger of
ordinary people when they are addressed as if they were directly to blame
for the abject poverty of multitudes..." a lesson for every preacher wha
has been tempted to scoid the men and women who come to worship on Sunday
for worid starvation. And then Hall quotes Robert Hempfling who says it
even Clearer... “I'm tired of feeling guilty about being middie class and
being characterized as mediocre, superficial and banal." [p. 85]

The second thing is not to resolve the tension Jesus created tao
easjly by suggesting that we're not wealthy. We are wealthy. We are the
wealthiest people in the world and in all of history. We who are wealthy
are becoming wealthier - while the poor are becoming poorer. Tax breaks
for us haven't trickled down on anybody. In a journal article a few years
aga, two psychologists pointed cut that we love "poor talk," but the
reulity is that in two decades our disposable income has risen 57%. It
isn't true - that's "poor talk" - that we “had more when we earned less.”
What is true, these psychologists pointed out, is the "adaptation leve}!
principle": i.e., yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities and
that middle class Americans are susceptible to persuasion to spend it all:
spend more than we have. The simple fact is that we have bought into the
cultural ideology that "stuff" will make us happy, secure, cantent. And if
you buy into that, you are imprisoned.

The third thing is to listen to Jesus and to hear what he said.

He did not condemn wealth. Wealth is not an evil in itself. Even
Robert McAfee Brown, one of our most eloquent advocates of economic and
social justice suggests thal denial is not helpful. We cannot resign from

the middie class he says.

The issue is responsibility: the responsive and responsible use of

17

what we ave. Amd that is actually a thealugical question with its roots
in aur very basic and formative theological positions - i.e. our Lheolopy
af ooreat jan. Plois one coinsidence that we are Jookinp al the creation
stories in Genesis with new scholarly intensity these days - for there -- in
those stories, Prom the edpe af history, we Cind a concept of Ged and a
concept of our own humanness thal is remarkably relevant. Jl is one of
responsibility... Dominion as Stewardship, D. J. Wall ecalis it in a new
book, Tmagiidip God. —

One of the consistent problems we have with Lhis whole matter of
wealth jis Chat vur basic theological stance is more Greek than Hebrew.

Canadiau Theologian Hall argucs Lhat if you begin with the Greek
premise that the worid is a bad place, you will end up with a basically
irresponsible posture regarding the things of thts world. Hall] says that
ihe Biblical image of steward is very important and a steward is not simply
one who makes a generous pledge - rather he/she is one who sees himself as
a manager, a participant with God in which one is called to use responsibly
the goods and wealth at hand,

In any event, Hail maintains that this positive and powerful
theological image was watered down early in our history because of the
force of Hellenism. Hellinism is defined hy Hall as a “mishmash of
Egyptian, Persian, Greek and other cultures created largely by the conquest
of Alexander the Great." [p. 31 Stewardship |

And Helienism is what shaped and molded both Western Civilization and
Western Christianity.

The Gospel was Hebrew ~ in style. Christianity was born in Hebrew,
thought and spoke and acted out of Hebrew background and confronted
immediately a world becoming Greek.

The essence of the Hebrew world view - was that creation wus a whole,
nol a layered affair, or a bifurcated affair - and that the whole is good.
When God steps back, looks at creation, and pronounces it good, God is
speaking Hebrew,

Hellenism — based on the philosophic categories of Greek Dualism, on
the ether hand, harbored what Hall called an abiding suspicion of matter.

"The waterial world, including of course human body, was regarded as
inferior, the seat of evil, dangerous, fundamentally unreal. To get in
touch with the Real, one had to slough of f so far as possible one's
material attachments together with Che passions asseciated with them.
Through such detachment one might rise te the realw of the spirit. Hence
the function of religion - and philosophy - was to Jift persons cut of
‘bondage to the flesh' and related them to the transcendent -— realm of pure
spiril. Salvation in Hellenism means salvation from the world." [p. 32]

In Hebrew thought, Sin is broken relationship.

In Greek, Sin is wrong thoughts and deeds.

18

Ji Hebrew - Padfth is worldjy, God blows breath into a body Goel las
furmed from dirt - the body - and af] the wonderful things it dues - ts
good.

Evil enters the world - through the human spirit. “Matter in this
faith is the victim of spirit.” [p. 33]

Helienism infers that. the material world itself is evil, ineluding
the body, and the source af sin. Hellenism suspects God made a mistake
when we were created sexual. God - in Hebrew thought — had feeliups, gels
angry, Joves, grieves... In Hellenism - God is characterized by apatheia,
detached, coud, unmoved.

In its early formation stages Christianity as religion fell under
heavy influenee of Hellenism.

And thus - because of its strongiy anti-material otherworidly
tendency, the image of Steward atrophied before it had an opportunity to
grow,

Wali sees a continuing Bocetism, a despising the world in modern
culture.

Certainly the taxic pollution of the air we breath, the water we
drink, acid rain, and the human tragedy of overpopulation and the heman and
spiritual holocaust which is occurring in urban ghettoes - reveals # deep
antipathy, bordering on hostility to the created world...

We now know, if we ever doubled it, that our technology will not
save us and cannot serve as a foil for our despising of creation. The
technology challenge we hoped might save us can eusily destroy us.

Even religion participates in this hostility toward the wortd...
Media religion continues the docetic heresy, Hellenism in living color,
with fountains in the background.

"Perhaps the desire to escape from ‘reality' has never heen so strong
as it is in our present time. It ca be observed that the most popular
activities in the Western World today are activities that offer the
illusion of escape: sex, sports, food, travel, entertainment. And perhaps
the most escapist activity of all is religion." [p. 43]

Hall proposes a revivification of the Steward Image. [1 hegins with
the questions:

i, Do you or do you not love/care for this worid? We are called ta
love the world as God loves it.

2. It proceeds with a realistic affirmation of one's personal power
and influence (related to affirmation of goodness of creation and
personal werth). “You have the power to love and change the world.
Will you? We are called ta co-create, to stand up and be fully
human. “The Bible presents a God who calis us to stand on our own
feet and be God's partners in creation.”

19

$3. Then Hall offers a new and fauseinatius rubrie: The
Stewardship of all Believers, as alternate for Priesthood of
all. which if ever understood we surely don'lL anymore... Our
people think all it means is we don'lh need a priest to pray for us —
which doesn't approach the power of the melaphor. [see p. 128,9]

The world needs people who Tove it. Rosemary Radford Reuther says
(hat ali the accumulated problems of several centuries ure coming Lo crises
in the next several decades... nuclear weaponry, population, economic
injustice - poverty/wealth, and the ecolagy. Those crises are so large and
profound that they can only be addressed by a profound love for the world:
by people who know God's love for the world and wha know how to he faithful
by loving it effectively and creatively and living in if responsibly and
praductively.

In fact, productivity - and there does not seem to be a way te have
productivity without semeone making money, a lessan which the Soviets not
only have learned but now openly acknowledge - is the anly thing that can
possibly feed the world's hungry people. We may not choose te apply it for
good ends, but in point of fact, there is enormous potential for justice in
the right use of the wealth we produce. We are all tired of unlikely
analogies, but the truth remains that the cost of one new jet fighter could
establish 40,000 village pharmacies and that one half the military
expenditure of the Western nations would resolve water and agriculture
problems which create famine, permanently. We could do that if we wanted
to.

So -

1. Stop feeling guilty.

2. Don't deny that we are wealthy.

3. Listen to what Jesus said and did not say about wealth.

The fourth thing is te understand how intimate and personal this
subject is for all of us. The detail that jumped out of this text this
time for me is the note that when the young man said he had done ali that
the law required and still didn't fee} right, Jesus "“Jooking upon him,
loved him." And then later, it happened again. The disciples are
astonished at the eye of Lhe needle business and Jesus “looks al them" in
Jove and compassion and grace. This is persona]. This is very near the
heart of the matter for them and for us.

To think there is a sense in which he was absolutely, literally,
fundamentally, accurate ahout the way things are with you and me - 2,000

years later

There is a sense in which you and — dantt own a thing which we are
not willing to vive away.

There is a sense in which you and I are owned by whatever we cannot
and will not pive away: a sense in which whe we are is defined very

20

precisely by what we can or cannot give away.

That's Lhe fssue here. Lel's not resolve it toa easily and Tet's peat.
compromise it. With the disciples, 7 am astonished - not simply by the
demands he seems to be making of me - but by the truth 1 know in wheal le
said. J identify with that rich young man. T don't own anything To can't
give away. You can't live until you know something for which you are
willing to give everything, including your life.

The final word is grace. Truly. Costly grace. With God all things
ure possible. You dun'l have to force il, or dragit' in. He said it.
He's not dene with that young man. There will be other encounters: God
loves us all - rich, poor and in between. "Jesus, looking upon hin, Joved
him." God wants al] of us to live fully, joyfully, free from frustration,
anxiety and fear.

It's what the Gospei is about.
There is no resolution in text, nor is there much of a conciuding
resolution to these reflections. The words must take their own shape in

your life - in ways known best and only to you. But do hear them again:

“- 90 - sell - give - cowe - FoJlow - and you will have treasure in heaven."

21