The 100% Rule

This morning after the service. And I know how. I know how long the sermons going last. Because I preached it once. But after the service, if you want to hang out and this front section. And I’ve got about a five-minute presentation about the global Methodist Church, and then I want to answer your questions. I’ll have you out of here in ten minutes.

You can still beat the Baptist to the Piccadilly. I promise. And if you can help us, if you watch the, the rebroadcast of this service on cable television. It’s been kind of glitchy the past couple of weeks. And if it’s glitchy again, would you call the church office or send us a text and just let us know we’re dealing with, we’re dealing with those folks and trying to work out whatever the phantom issue is.

So, help us out. Allison, this morning comes from the 10th chapter of Mark’s Gospel, starting with the 17th verse. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked, 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’ve kept all of these since my youth. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, you like one thing. Go and sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come and follow me. When he heard this, he was shocked, and he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them, children, how hard it is 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. They were greatly astounded and said to one another, then who can be saved? And Jesus looked at them and said, for mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.

Peter began to say to him, look, we’ve left everything and followed you. Jesus said, truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brother or sister, or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive 100 fold now in this age houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, fields with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. Friends, this is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The first last lecture here at Trinity invited a Baptist prophet, a man born in North Carolina, trained at the Yale Divinity School. His name was Will Campbell. Will Campbell was an irascible author and theologian and preacher who spent a lot of time in churches talking about racism and injustice and equity. Virginia Lasky was still alive when he came to Trinity to do the Lasky Lectures.

He was amazing.

Several years before he died. He was asked to come and speak to the Riverside Church in New York City. Riverside has always had a history of very progressive liberal pastors, and the church is on the left side of the theological spectrum, just almost universalist in its theological outlook. And they told Will Campbell that they wanted him to preach on the subject at Riverside Church could do to help the future of race relations in America.

Well, Campbell walked in the pulpit and read the text I read to you this morning the story of the rich young ruler and he said he started his sermon with asking a question, what can Riverside Church do to help race relations? What can this church do to better relate to its next-door neighbor over in Harlem? And when he was sure he had the congregation’s attention, he asked his answered his rhetorical question.

Nothing.

There’s nothing you can do to help unless you’re willing to walk outside and look at this big old building and be willing to sell it, then you might be able to do something. The inviting pastor was a gas. The hospitality committee was in shock. They wanted Will Campbell to say something reasonable and practical and fashionable. They wanted him to say something liberal so they could feel better about themselves.

And he was having none of it.

You can’t solve the problem unless you’re willing to lean into the radical solution. Liberal congregation got out. Liberal.

Will Campbell and Jesus. Have at least this common ability to upset their audiences. To say things that shock Jesus would not let the Orthodox Committee write his speeches. They would not let him develop sound bites. They couldn’t stop him. When he said to the crowds, I came not to bring peace, but I came to bring a sword. I came to pit parents against children, children against their parents, brothers against sisters, neighbor against neighbor, he said, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it all. And then he. He lobs this hand grenade that we read this morning. The story of the rich young ruler. Now we call him the rich young ruler. And many of the Bible headings heavy me that the rich man or the rich ruler. We give him all three qualities that make him somebody important in American culture.

We make him rich. He’s got assets. He’s got many possessions. We know he’s got so much that when Jesus tells him to go sell it all, he grieves and is astonished. He’s rich. How much is rich? How much money do you have to have where you can say, I’m rich? What do you have to be able to do?

For you to describe yourself as rich. He was a ruler. We don’t know what his position was, but let’s make him an opinion leader. He was the guy that people went to for advice. Had a question? Go to this guy. Have a problem you can’t solve. Go to this guy looking for insight. How to live, how to invest, how to make money.

Go to this guy.

And he had the third thing that is so desired in American culture. He was young.

He was rich. He was powerful and he was young. If he came in a methodist church, we would sign him up to join the Methodist church. And then we would make him the chairman of the finance committee, because he’s got everything our culture says is valuable. Everything our culture says validates another human being. If you’re rich, if you’re a ruler, if you’re young, you are validated by culture.

Jesus said, look, you know the commandments. And Jesus lists the commandments on the second tablet, the commandments where human beings relate to one another. And he said, I’ve kept all these from my youth. He’s a rich young ruler. Who’s a good person? Is he missing anything? He’s got it all. And Jesus said, he looks at him, and the Greek says, And Jesus considered him and loved him.

He’s not lying. He’s gone from the outside in, from the inside out. He’s good. And Jesus said, okay, Baba, you like one thing, just one thing only. Go and sell all you have, Seminole. Give the money to the poor. You’ll have treasure in heaven. And then come and follow me. And he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

The New Common Lectionary is a series of four readings every Sunday that liturgical churches use. There is a Psalm, an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, and a gospel reading. And if over the course of three years you read all four readings, you will have read the entire Bible in a worship service or had it read during a worship service.

And I imagine when we get to the readings in the month of October, there is this group of theologians, scholars, monks, nuns, they’re all sitting in a room, and they start reading the gospel lesson and they all start giggling because every October something financial pops up in a reading. I didn’t pick this reading, I did. I picked it a year ago when I was working on these sermons, and I’m looking at what we’re going to read through between now on the 10th of November.

And I just see this little committee tittering at us going. They’re churches that are starting their financial campaigns. They need the rich young ruler that’ll get them off to a good start. Just tell them Jesus said, give it all.

Wait a minute. He did.

We preachers love talking about tithing, giving 10%. We can talk about tithing in our sleep. It’s just how we’re set and our default method. And invariably you preach a sermon about tithing. As you’re standing by the door shaking hands, somebody will wander up to you and they’ll say, you know, we’re not an Old Testament church anymore. We should do what Jesus told us to do.

Okay, then I like this. In the Old Testament there are three tithes. Three. There is the little vertical tithe. There is the tied for feast and festivals. And there is the poor person tithe, which was taken every other year. So, if over a ten year span you want to practice Old Testament tithing, it’s 23%.

Give it all. 23%. Pew Research Council all been instituted. The University of Indiana School of Philanthropy, George Barna and Gallup have all looked at this. And here’s what they discovered in North America. Most people give an average of 2.5% to charity every year. It doesn’t matter if they make 15,000 or 250,000, they give 2.5% to charity. And the church is included in a charity.

They further have discovered at least the church people who did these studies, that only 5% of people attending churches in North America give more than 3% annually to the church.

That’s it.

There are two times you make Methodist quiet. One is when you feed them, the other times when you’re talking about their money. I hear your silence. It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m going to. I’m going to ease up on you in a minute. Those numbers are interesting because you and I live in a tip culture. Yesterday I went to the donut shop in Arcadia, and I bought two cinnamon rolls, and they clipped their little credit card reader around for me to pop in my pin number.

And do you know what? They had the audacity to ask me that I want to leave a tip. For getting donuts out of the glass counter. That’s right there you go to Walmart. Yes, I am an efficient checker at Walmart. I do a good job. You know what they ask you? Do you want a rounded up for charity?

I just spent $237. I don’t want to round up. You go to Lowe’s. Do you want a rounded up for charity? What are they asking you? They are not asking you to make a commitment. They’re asking you to tip. They’re telling you, hey, you can help people out and financially it doesn’t hurt you. You will never miss this change that you’re giving.

And the tip culture that’s driving us all nuts has found its way into the church.

23% Old Testament Jesus gives it all.

Oh. Something’s not right here.

John Wesley, in one of his early sermons, said to his people, method is, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to make all you can. I want you to make all you can, save all you can and give all you can. And when he said, I want you to make all you can. He said, I want you to work hard and industrious and be honest and be aggressive, but don’t hurt your family and don’t hurt your health with your job.

And he was particularly talking about the people who were in the failed business and who were in the hat business. Mad Hatter comes out of Great Britain because those people were crazy, because they’re real Mercury all the time. Make all you can. Don’t hurt your family. Don’t hurt your health. Then save all you can. Wesley. He wasn’t saying.

Take everything and put it in a money market. He was saying, look, you’re going to spend money. Just be very careful how you spend the money. Don’t waste your expenditures.

You remember those bag phones? You absolutely had to have? How do you feel about that Apple A8 now? Yeah, I see, because AT&T keeps sending me text messages. Here. Are you qualified for an iPhone 16? Why do I need an iPhone 16. Think about all the expenditures you’ve made that are now sitting in a closet.

Do you wonder when you’re going to have a garage sale? That’s so you can make more money selling your stuff. You can go buy other people’s stuff. It’s what a garage sale is about. Wesley Lived his mantra of make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. When he was a fellow at Lincoln College in Oxford, his first salary was 30 pounds.

He figured he could live on 28 pounds plus give 2.8 pounds as a tithe. Therefore, he had an extra 2 pounds to invest in the Kingdom of God. The next year he earned 60 pounds. He still lived on 28 pounds and gave away 42 pounds. The next year he earned 320 pounds, and he still lived on the 28 and he gave away 92.

He spent his whole life living that mantra. Wesley made a lot of money. He also gave a lot of it away. And when he died, I think he had a place setting and some books and a robe. That was in. Save all you can make out, you can say, well, we can give all you can.

Now here’s the point.

Jesus is not talking about money to the rich young ruler. Feel better now? Relax. Relax the shoulders. Go ahead. Let the tension go. He’s not talking about money. He’s talking about salvation. You see, in that culture, if you were rich, people assumed you were blessed by God and you were saved by God. So rich people automatically were the people in heaven.

That’s why in a couple of weeks, when we get the rich man and Lazarus, everybody’s going to be shocked when they hear Jesus because he reverses that. Even here, Jesus says it’s impossible for human beings to save themselves. My thesis of the rich man was not that money was evil for creating evil. It’s that Jesus was an excess tree.

Jesus wouldn’t primary. This man had all he needed. He was good. He was young. He was powerful. He had money. He didn’t need anything else. He almost asked Jesus about eternal life as a curiosity that, yeah, if it fits in, I’ll get some eternal life and I’ll hang it from a mere rearview mirror in my fast car, and I’ll look at my eternal life.

But I don’t really need it because I’ve got everything I need. I can control my outcomes. I can map my future because I am in control.

Rich young ruler has nothing to do with money. It’s all about you. And who you’re trusting in for your salvation. Are you going to save yourself?

You know, the most dangerous thing in your house is not a loaded shotgun that might discharge. It’s not a swimming pool that somebody might fall into and accidentally drown. It’s not your car to go 100 miles an hour. The most dangerous thing in your house is your checkbook. Because it can rule your soul. Or that little app on your phone where you can look up your assets and liabilities and you can say to yourself, self, I have enough stored up for years and years and years.

Let me eat, drink and be merry.

The story is the story of salvation. And lest you think that money is not important, there are 500 verses in the Bible on prayer. There are less than 500 verses in the Bible on faith. There are nearly 2000 verses in the Bible about money and what you can buy with it, because it becomes your master.

I’ve been preaching stewardship sermons now for over 40 years.

And you’re always looking for a way to communicate, because immediately when people hear you going to talk about money, they. I don’t believe you. I was in Lake Charles, and we had just finished a capital campaign to build a building, and it was budget time. And I thought, oh, Lord, what am I going to do?

Because stewardship is not about money. It’s about how you take care of what God has given you, not your neighbor. Not your kids. Not your parents. How are you going to take care of what God has given you? So, I went to Walmart. This was back in the day when people checked you out there, went to Walmart, and I bought one of those round.

The blue wading pools had a diameter of about five feet, and I went to Lowe’s and about some gold spray paint.

And I got on the driveway and I painted my blue swimming pool gold. And then I went to Hobby Lobby because I don’t know, we don’t have them in here because they’re baskets. But if you go in the sanctuary of Methodist Church, the offering plates around, and if you’ll turn them up in the bottom is a felt pad.

And that’s the silence, the offering. If you’re putting a dollar in, nobody’s going to hear that. But if you put $0.25 in, that thing’s going clang unless there’s a liner. So I put this nice green liner in my new offering plate, and I went into the sanctuary and I popped it up against the altar where everybody could see it.

And I said, I’m introducing you to the new offering plate here at First Methodist Lake Charles. We’re going to fill this up. And they looked at me and I thought, oh, not again.

And I went on and on and on and had a little fun with it. Put it down on the floor flat. I said, here’s how you fill it up. And I stepped into it. That’s the offering acceptable to God. All of you. Not your money, not your resources, your heart. That’s what the rich young rulers about your heart.

Back when Google went public in 2004, they introduced the management world to the Google 20% rule. The Google 20% rule says that a Google employee on the Google Payroll can do 20% time, or 20% of their office. Hours can be spent on projects not directly related to their job, as long as the project benefits Google. And it’s fun.

Now to read about the Google 20% rule to find out if it still exists, because some Google employees say it’s still there. Others say it was an urban legend in the beginning. But can you imagine a company that says spend 20% of your time being creative? The truth is, Jesus has the 100% rule. He wants all of you.

He wants your hopes. He wants your dreams. He wants your plans. He wants your life. And he wants it so he can bring you abundance. So he can bring you blessing so he can bring into your life that which you need. And that which will bring you eternal life. So y’all. Turns out the rich young ruler. Nothing to do with money or possessions and everything to do with your heart.

Would you stand and pray with me?

We thank you, O God, for the heart you have given us in Christ Jesus. And we pray as we always do. Let’s make our hearts pure. Make them right. Make them new. We pray in your name. Amen.