(P)Review Oct. 7, 2015 Wealth Vs. Riches

Wealth vs Riches

Mark 10:17-31As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'"He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

OK.  In case you haven't ever heard me mentioned this before I'm-a-gonna-say-it-again: "Humans have a problem with money."  There, I said it again. Lets be clear, lots of the Bible talks about humans and money.  In fact in 11 of 39 parables Jesus talked about money and in 1 out of every 7 verses in the Gospel of Luke (averaged) he talked about money.  Jesus mentions "Hell" 10-12 times in all four of the gospels combined (depending on your translation).  So, to be clear, Money Is Super Important.

Let's do some math.  According the the FRB (federal reserve bank) there is currently 1.33 billion dollars of American paper money in world.  Almost half of that is held overseas as keepsakes, savings, and for trade.  America has roughly 318 million people.  That means that any given time, within our borders, there is enough cash for us all to have a little over $2,000 in our hands before there is no more cash left to be had.  All the rest of the money that you or I have is imaginary.  We think of our bank account as a representation of piles of actual cash sitting in a vault somewhere but in fact it exists only on paper... well not really on paper anymore, it really exists on some computer drive somewhere.  The banks, the governments, and us the citizens of the world have all agreed to play pretend and act like we have the money.  This is the reality of the world we live in.  No wonder it is so convoluted..

But riches have always been imaginary.  Sure the stuff is real. The homes are real, the cars are real, the clothes are real...  What is imaginary is the concept of rich-ness itself.  What does "rich" mean?  Are you rich?  Am I?  Compared to 90% of the rest of the world Americas bottom 10% are astoundingly well supplied with money.  But does that make that bottom 10% rich?  Does it make 90% of the rest of the world poor? What is "rich" that you or I would want to be it?

For most of us we don't even ask these questions since our culture just assumes that "rich" is a good thing that we all want to be.  But why?  Most of the most miserable and unhappy people I have ever known were "rich".  Most of the best, most noble and decent people I have known were "poor".  Why do we imagine "rich" is good?
The Ratio of Wealth:

What if we are confusing "rich" with "wealthy".  I believe "rich" is a measure of accumulated money, whereas "wealth" is something deeper.  Wealth is a ratio.  
Wealth is:How much you have Divided by how satisfied you are with it. 
If you are completely satisfied with what you have it would be a 1:1 ratio.
If you are only sort of satisfied with it the ratio might be 2:1
Or if you are very satisfied it could actually be a 1:2 ratio.

Thus, a poor person can be wealthy and a rich person can be poor depending on their attitude about their possessions.

All of this points to the irony to today's Gospel lesson.  We often focus on the tragedy of the "Rich-Man" who walks away from Jesus sorrowful.  We may even cheer with a little glee at the snobby-rich-guy getting shamed.  But Jesus was neither trying to shame nor induce sorrow.  He actually offered the man something of inestimable value.  He offered him a place at the table as a disciple.  Jesus loved the man's devotion and sought to reward him with a call to be an apostle.  Think about it, there could have been 13 instead of 12 apostles.  We could all be talking about the calling of Saint-Such-and-Such if he had responded differently.

The problem was, he imagined that his riches made him wealthy.

This is what we have to forever keep in mind:  Jesus wants to make us all wealthy... he is just enough of a realist to know that riches aren't useful for that task.  Wealth is found in relationship with God the Father, brought by the Holy Spirit, through the gift of the Son.  Wealth is found in relationship with our fellow humans, made possible by the sacrifice of Christ.  Wealth is found in a settled soul that is in peaceful relationship with itself through the forgiveness of sins.  Wealth is found when the satisfaction we have with life in the kingdom outweighs everything else and then that "Ratio of Wealth" swells beyond our wildest imagination.

Jesus wants you to be wealthy, he just doesn't have much interest in imaginary money.