Matt:19
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Dear congregation, brothers and sisters today’s sermon is about charity and poverty and our response to the words of Jesus.
In the movie The Matrix we follow Neo, he’s our hero, he’s fighting the machines who have created the matrix, trying to bring down the system from the inside. But in Matrix 2 the machines reveal that they tried to create a world without the resistance, without neo and what happened? the reality imploded, as people refused to accept it. The machines realised that people will accept the system/reality they are presented with if they are allowed some pseudo freedom, pseudo rebellion, a chance to ‘feel’ that they are doing something. Then the system of oppression runs smoothly.
Is that like us? We buy our fair trade coffee and give money to charity, maybe go to a rally or a march. We struggle with Jesus’ commandment in Matthew:19, we pretend that it is nuanced we argue that we can do more to affect change if we engage in the economy and use our wealth to do good. But is the reality that this is all euphemism for – we don’t quite like the idea of being poor.
The fair trade coffee and the charitable giving is built into to system, to make us accept its injustice. Can we really say we have faith, can we really say that we are believers if we refuse to act on Jesus’ command? What was the rich young man’s response to Jesus, what could his argument have been which would have made Jesus accept him as a follower? What is our excuse for not selling everything we own and living in poverty? is it because we think we know better than Jesus. We could refuse to accept a salary of anything more than minimum wage, we could refuse to send our kids to the best schools thus taking the places of those more in need, we could refuse to have second houses, locking the poor out of the housing market, we could refuse to own a house at all, or a car, or anything not essential to a holy life.
Why don’t we? brothers and sisters, is because we don’t really believe what we think we believe? Do we just not like the idea of being poor?
