Choices and Options (Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost)

Back when I was in college, our campus ministry program included a couple of retreats each year.  And at those retreats, we often had a guest speaker, who would share with us some of the ways they lived their faith.  And I still remember one person in particular.  She was a recent college graduate who had decided to dedicate a year or two of her life after college to working with poor and marginalized people.

She spoke to us about her work, and why she felt it was her calling to do this.  And she told us that, while she had a college degree and came from an upper middle class family, she had decided to give it all up (at least for a couple of years) and that she had chosen to “identify with the poor.”  And thus, she told us, she really now understood what it was like to be poor, because she had chosen to live that lifestyle.

And I remember we were all pretty impressed that she was willing and able to do this.  But somehow, while I knew she felt that she understood how it felt to be poor and marginalized, it didn’t seem quite right to me, even though I was sure she meant it.  And as I reflected on her words, I realized why neither she nor I could ever truly “identify” with the people she was helping.  And that was because she had “chosen” to live this way.

She had a choice.  She had options.  At any point, she could have said, “I’ve had enough.  I’m going home. I’m going to go get a nice middle class job.”  But the people she was serving couldn’t do that.  Those options weren’t available to them, and they didn’t have the ability to make those choices.

And maybe the most important thing I learned from that discussion was that I thought of myself as a “poor” college student.  And financially, that was true!  I had no money and I already had a bunch of student loans.  But even so, I had options.  I had choices.  And it’s those options and choices that gave my life wealth.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus, having encountered a man with “many possessions”, turns and says to his disciples, “how hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”  Now unlike the man with “many possessions”, as far as we can tell, the disciples had relatively few.  Certainly, they weren’t rich.  And so, logically, it would make sense for the disciples to start doing the happy dance and exclaim, “Yay!  That means we get in because we’re not rich!”

But they don’t.  They’re perplexed.  And when Jesus reinforces his words with this stuff about it being harder for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, the disciples exclaim, “Then who can be saved?”

Perhaps, for as clueless as the disciples usually are, they get it this time.  Maybe they realize that much of the “wealth” of life is not about “possessions”, but about having choices and options.  And maybe they see that making the wrong choices, and exercising the wrong options, is so often what keeps people from truly following Jesus into the kingdom.

After all, that’s what’s been happening so far:

• The rich man’s problem is really not that he “has many possessions”, but that he just can’t make the choice to give them up and follow Jesus on the journey that Jesus is about to set out on…

• The disciples, even though they have made a choice to follow Jesus, have consistently been exercising the wrong options as they follow Jesus – they’ve bickered about who’s the greatest and continually tried to exclude others (like the kids) from being close to Jesus…

And so maybe at this point, the disciples really do understand that if their inclusion in the kingdom of heaven is based on human beings making the right choices and exercising the right options all the time, “then who can be saved?”

And to this question, Jesus does NOT answer, “just try harder, pray harder or be willing to suffer more and eventually I know you’ll get it right.”  Instead, Jesus directs the disciples’ attention away from themselves, and instead towards God’s grace and mercy.  “You’re right (for a change!)”, says Jesus.  “For mortals, it is impossible.  But not for God; for God all things are possible.”

And so Jesus’ words here aren’t just about material possessions.  And they’re not really about camels or needles.  Instead, they’re Jesus’ call to:

• Recognize that often, our greatest “wealth” comes in the form of the choices and options that God gives us each day.  Each day, both the rich man and the disciples had choices about how they would live and what they would do with their time, their talents and their stuff.  And after all, much of the reason we so often think of money as “wealth” is because money gives us choices and options that we wouldn’t have without it.  And so Jesus’ words ask us to consider what our “wealth” really is, instead of limiting “wealth” to money or stuff.  Today, in our adult Sunday School class, we’re learning more about the New Neighbor Interfaith Alliance, which is a volunteer interfaith organization that helps refugees who have been resettled in Montgomery County; and always, part of the work of helping refugees is not just to help them regain “stuff” that they’ve lost, but to do things like help them acclimate to the community; to learn English; and to navigate some of the often perplexing things about living in Montgomery County!  These are the things that help people to have options and to have choices that can help them move forward in life.  It’s a kind of wealth that’s more than simply sharing a few of our many possessions…

• Consider, and maybe re-consider, our choices and options each day.  Sometimes, people read this story and think, “Oh, I’m not that wealthy, so this doesn’t apply to me!” (Just as I might have in college!)  But in fact, Jesus was calling this rich man to follow him.  Giving up his stuff was intended to both do good for others as well as free him of responsibilities so he could better follow Jesus into the coming kingdom. And Jesus’ question to all of us is, how are the choices we make, and the options we choose, helping us to follow Jesus in growing into the kingdom of God, and becoming the people Jesus calls us to be?  And if those choices and options haven’t been the right ones, are we ready and willing to make different choices?  And that’s not a one-time question, but a question Jesus asks us each day as the world around us changes, and we’re called to make choices and changes that we hadn’t even envisioned just a few years ago.  And often, making those changes makes life better for others.  I was thinking about that as we got ready to welcome Posaunenchor back for the first time since Covid.  And one of the big changes we’ve made and continue to make is the ability to stream music so that folks who are shut in and unable to come to church can listen and enjoy all this great music…!

• Remember that, whether our choices are good or bad, they’re not finally what get us into the kingdom of God.  Instead, it’s God choice for us that makes that happen.  This rich man actually asks the wrong question.  He asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  But inheritance is something you’re given as a gift, not something you earn (like your salary).  And sometimes, the option to give up control of your life and your fate (even if it means putting those things in God’s hands!) is hard to do!  But knowing that all things really are possible for God – and not even possible, but promised – is what makes it possible for us to trust in God’s forgiveness and even to change and make different choices than the ones we made before …

Choices and options.  Most of us have these in abundance each day.  Some of them come from the abundance of our possessions.  But all of them come from the abundance of God’s grace in our lives.

And so Jesus calls each of us every day to recognize all the forms of wealth we have.  Jesus invites us to make choices and choose options that help us to follow him more closely into the kingdom of heaven and become the kind of people God intends for us to be.  And Jesus promises that even when we make the wrong choices, or choose the wrong options, God’s promise of forgiveness is always there for us, because nothing is impossible with God.

Amen.