{"id":677,"date":"2011-11-16T12:58:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T12:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=677"},"modified":"2018-07-20T21:17:36","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T21:17:36","slug":"the-octopus-and-the-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2011\/11\/the-octopus-and-the-quarter.html","title":{"rendered":"The Octopus and the Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”<\/em>\u00a0 Mark 10:23, 24<\/p>\n

The rich, young man’s story is one many of us have heard many times before: an otherwise very good man (he has kept God’s commandments at least)\u00a0comes to Jesus and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”\u00a0 The answer causes him to walk away sad, because he cannot do the one thing Jesus says he lacks.\u00a0 “Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me,” is Jesus’ reply.<\/p>\n

In her book, Marking Time:\u00a0 Preaching Biblical Stories in Present Tense<\/em>, Barbara Lundblad\u00a0makes the case\u00a0that as familiar as this story is, we have a hard time seeing ourselves in it- precisely\u00a0because Jesus’ words hit\u00a0so close to home.\u00a0 We tend instead to avoid the “elephant in the room”- that Jesus is talking about the problem of money, lots of it.\u00a0 We do this by going down various\u00a0exegetical rabbit holes, like “this man was a fawning flatterer who wanted to add eternal life to his holdings,” or\u00a0“this man’s theology was faulty.”\u00a0 Or, “this man got his wealth through dishonest means,” or “the real issue is faith, not money.”<\/p>\n

But at the end of the day, we have to face the fact, Lundblad writes, that this text really is about money.\u00a0 About the fact that when we have lots of money, we find it hard to enter the kingdom of God, so that our poverty in an encounter with God’s grace- and in turn\u00a0our capacity to receive God’s\u00a0offer of abundant, unending life- can\u00a0only extend so far.\u00a0\u00a0So that we can\u00a0at best stand at the periphery of God’s kingdom and gaze on God’s riches with sadness, only to walk away.<\/p>\n

Nowadays it\u00a0is easy\u00a0to see others in the face of this rich, young man.\u00a0 He is the non-descript Wall Street trader bringing in big bonuses, with little appreciation for the struggles of people like us\u00a0on Main Street.\u00a0 He is the venture capitalist who will stop at nothing for a big deal, even if it means sacrificing the livelihoods of hundreds of workers struggling to get by at minimum wage.\u00a0 He\u00a0belongs to the richest, one-percent of Americans, as a billionaire who has amassed a great fortune, while we are in the other 99 percent.<\/p>\n

So it is harder to see our own selves in the face of this rich, young man.\u00a0 But there we are, too.\u00a0 Because as Americans we live and breathe in a culture that prizes wealth above all else- so much so that “money is becoming a kind of narcotic for us,” as Walter Brueggemann puts it. \u00a0Again, Brueggemann, quoted by Lundblad, writes:\u00a0 “Consumerism is not simply a marketing strategy.\u00a0 It has become a demonic spiritual force among us…”<\/p>\n

The “American dream?”\u00a0 It’s really a dream about money.\u00a0 More of it.\u00a0 Plenty of it.\u00a0 Enough to live “comfortably” at least.\u00a0 And, to the degree that it drives our politics and defines how we understand democratic participation and our identity as Americans,\u00a0this promise is, I suspect, quintissentially “American.”<\/p>\n

When Lundblad wrote her book, the year was 2007.\u00a0 It was before the worst of the recession had hit.\u00a0 Before\u00a0the housing bubble bust and the huge Wall Street bail-out that left many of us wondering where our tax dollars had gone, staring into the face of a monstrous national\u00a0deficit.\u00a0 Unchecked greed and the pursuit of excess were arguably\u00a0at an all-time high.\u00a0 But Lundblad didn’t know then what we know now:\u00a0 that if in 1999 average CEO compensation is 419 times that of the average line worker, according to Graef Crystal, in his book, In Search of Excess<\/em>, that disparity is only more exaggerated today; that the wealthiest one percent of Americans saw their income rise 275% between 1979 and 2007, while those in the bottom fifth lagged behind with only a 20 percent increase; that according to a report released this week by Senator Tom Coburn’s office, millionaires in this country have been receiving billions in taxpayer-funded support every year for “everything from child care to bad debts to boats and vacation homes” (The Huffington Post<\/em>).<\/p>\n

If we are\u00a0Americans, we belong to this system.\u00a0 We are part of it.\u00a0 We may not be among the richest of Americans, but we have done our part to contribute to it.\u00a0 To perpetuate the notion that wealth means more.\u00a0 More say.\u00a0 More power.\u00a0 More life.\u00a0 More virtue even.\u00a0 We have told ourselves that “the good life” equals being rich.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Majority World lives on less than two dollars a day.\u00a0 Clean, drinking water is in short supply.\u00a0 One solid meal a day can at times be hard to come by.\u00a0 These are living standards that would make just about all of us Americans- even the homeless women I met last night at the local shelter- “rich.”<\/p>\n

The other day I took the kids to the Georgia Acquarium.\u00a0 We were all\u00a0mesmerized by the Giant Pacific octopus.\u00a0 Did you know that octopi have three hearts and their blood is blue?\u00a0 Crazy.\u00a0 And they can live just about anywhere, from tide pools to depths of 2,500 feet.<\/p>\n

The thing that I still am marveling at, though,\u00a0is this:\u00a0even at a maximum weight of six hundred pounds, one of these octopi can wriggle its way through a hole that is only the size of a quarter.\u00a0 It may take a long while.\u00a0 It may take a few tries.\u00a0 But somehow one of these suckers can cram itself through an opening that small and come out just as alive and wiggly on the other side!<\/p>\n

A bit like a camel through “the eye of a needle.”\u00a0 Even if the “eye of the needle” was really a gate.\u00a0 (Another exegetical rabbit hole.)\u00a0 Because what Jesus is saying here is that when we’re rich we have a whole lot more stuff to dispense with in order to experience the riches of God’s kingdom.\u00a0 Riches measured not in terms of dollars but in love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness,\u00a0kindness, and self-control.\u00a0 Wealth counted not by the rise or fall of a stock index, but in denominations of free, abundant life.\u00a0 Possessions not in the form of a big house and cushy retirement package, but in the assurance of one’s part in God’s mission to redeem all creation.<\/p>\n

And insofar as we have enriched ourselves without thinking about how our wealth belongs to God’s mission, we are poor.\u00a0 Poor because we, like the rich, young man recognize our inability to let go of the very thing that keeps us on the periphery of God’s kingdom.\u00a0 That enslaves us in the mindset that we “are” only on the basis of what we “have.”<\/p>\n

Can there be any\u00a0good news here?\u00a0 The disciples weren’t so sure, but I think there is.\u00a0 I think it is when the rich, young man walks away as many of us do in all manner of ways, and Jesus still\u00a0“looked at him and loved him” (Mark 10:21).\u00a0 Because the same Love that points us in the direction of where the good life really is is also the Love that watches when we walk away from the very thing we need to do in order to enter the kingdom of God.\u00a0 Love like this makes all things possible (Mark 10:27).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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