Readings for Proper 23B
-- the Rev. Leslie Barnes Scoopmire
Back in the 1980s, MTV ruled the airwaves. The empowerment of youth was a constant theme, and gender expectations were often turned on their heads: Cyndi Lauper took a song written for a male voice and laughed her way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Robert Palmer took a song written for a female voice and stood in a Savile Row suit in front of mini-skirted writhing supermodels pretending to be his backup band claiming innocence as he crooned to a randy date “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On.”
Dire Straits, a group of decidedly unglamorous blues rockers from England, created the theme song for MTV with the song “Money for Nothing,” about a real-life conversation their frontman heard between two deliverymen in an appliance store.
As the workers watched music videos, they resent their existence delivering expensive machinery to yuppies and consider that their career choices might be a dead end. Instead, they moan after the glamorous life of a pop star:
“Look at them yo-yos
That’s the way you do it
You play the guitar on your MTV
Aw, that ain’t working
That’s the way you do it
Money for nothing and your chicks for free.”(1)
And we all laughed (including the programmers at MTV itself, as they put the video into heavy rotation)—because we heard our parents complain exactly the same thing to us every hour that we had MTV going full blast.
And the queen of MTV was Madonna, who, like many female stars of the visual medium, had started out as a dancer until someone plopped a mic in front of her, lacquered her blond hair in crunchy waves, and cut all the hems, sleeves, and necklines off her outfits. Her life was filled with glamour and provocation—especially viewed with alarm by our parents. She wore religious jewelry, and her name brought to mind the mother of Jesus, but she sang about NOT being a virgin. She was a fashion icon, a middling actress, a serial dater, and provocateur. She reinvented herself more often than a Transformer, which back then was a just a silly cartoon out of Japan.
We were a generation raised on sarcasm, visual puns, and irony.
And one of Madonna's most ironic videos that we adored came out in 1985, when she rolled out a new song called “Material Girl.” In the video, instead of wearing the torn dresses and studded leather accessories that previously had been her costume, suddenly here she was gliding down a staircase from a soundstage straight outta Marilyn Monroe’s hit film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
A chorus line of handsome men in Armani tuxes fawningly danced around her as she sang of only dating men who could keep her in the lap of luxury as she is showered in cash, furs, and diamonds. The video was a story within a story, however, because in the reality off the set, she claims to be unimpressed by the expensive gifts of her suitors. The rich guy backing her video figures this out, and instead woos her with wildflowers and drives her off the set in a broken-down truck he buys off a handyman. And off they drive into the soundstage of true love.
The truth is that we DO just wanna have fun after working all day, especially with a sharp dressed man. We DO want exciting dates. And we DO live in a material world.
But the irony is that we also long for meaning, for purpose, and for real community and connection.
This is hardly a new issue. And talking about it without irony is fraught with tension.
We see this in our gospel reading today. Jesus continues, as he has for the last many weeks, toward Jerusalem and his passion and resurrection, and his disciples are struggling to accept the harshness of the fate that is awaiting him. The time Jesus and those disciples lived in was just as much a material world as now—only with lots fewer option. The vast majority of people in Roman-occupied Israel were abjectly poor. Then there were a few wealthy people. Nothing in between. On top of them were the Roman overlords, sucking the country dry of anything of real value.
Most of Jesus’s followers fell into that category of the working poor. Fishermen, handymen, day laborers, most of them. They knew what suffering was. So, the idea of a messiah who would suffer and die seemed hardly reassuring.
In the midst of Jesus repeatedly explaining how this would lead to the kingdom of God, today we have the sudden appearance of a rich man running up and kneeling at Jesus’s feet. The man runs up and kneels before Jesus. He then addresses Jesus with an honorific, one that gets brushed aside. Jesus is not swayed by flattery. What must I DO, the man asks, to inherit eternal life? How, in other words, can I add eternal life to my stack of possessions? Jesus responds by listing things NOT to do—did you notice that? Don’t cheat, don’t lie, don’t steal—he even throws “don’t defraud” in there even though that’s not actually from the 10 Commandments.
As Jesus so often does, he draws people into not just recalling the law but drawing out what it means to follow that law in practical terms.
Here we have a call story—but one that fails, at least at the time. The rich man wants “eternal life,” but uses language thinking it is something he can acquire or inherit. In other words, he wants the benefits of discipleship but doesn’t understand the transformative nature of it.
Notice also how many times Mark notes that Jesus looks directly at those in this story. Looks, and looks deeply, really seeing into who they are. But for the first time, in Mark’s gospel, we are told that Jesus not only LOOKS at the man but sees him and loves him.
LOVES him.
You only lack one thing, Jesus says. And that is to follow me. Jesus is telling that man, you are weighed down by your chasing after material wealth. It is standing in the way of committing to being a disciple. And the man, understandably, is shocked at Jesus’s suggestion, and goes away sadly.
This seems like a harsh, even frightening tale if we see ourselves as that wealthy man. Do we really have to give up EVERYTHING to follow Jesus?
But perhaps we can admit there is some truth in the idea that the word “possession” has two meanings. The first is something that we own. But there’s another meaning especially if we are familiar with scripture. Possession can also mean those who are controlled by some powerful force—that kind of possession. And even though we no longer believe in demon possession that kind of possession and that dislocated us from living a well-rounded life certainly is a huge issue even now. If we are totally honest with ourselves, we know that there are times when our possessions and the drive for more of them, possess us and prevents us from committing completely to loving relationships with each other, and with God.
But if ever there was a story for our time, this might be it. Think about the culture of the late 20th century that we grew up in. The drive for acquisition ruled—and yet also was often subtly critiqued, even in popular media. For every “Material Girl,” there was an also a reminder that we were also souls, or “Spirits Living in the Material World.” For every Ferris Bueller resentful that he didn’t get a car for his birthday, there was his friend Cameron Fry who’s emotionally controlling father loved a sports car more than his own son. For every Gordon Gecko tycoon crooning “greed is good,” there were workers fighting against totalitarianism in Poland by proclaiming their solidarity with one another.
Countless preachers in today’s America preach that Jesus is a wish-fulfilment genie: simply say you believe, and you shall be saved. No mention of following Jesus, of emulating Jesus, or sharing in the ongoing work of Jesus for the sake of the world—just say you believe, check off that box, and continue on with your life of chasing after worldly success, fortune, fame, whatever.
This creates a disconnect, making one’s own salvation the point of claiming to be Christian. This acquisitive mindset actually subverts the gospel good news and Jesus makes that clear here: to be able to follow Jesus, we have to let go of the things that stand in the way of our full commitment. That could be wealth, as in the case here. Or it could be anger, resentment, selfishness, or any of a host of other things.
In our gospel passage, the man’s possessions themselves are not the issue. His clinging to them over the call of Jesus to follow him IS the issue. And a little part of him knows it. Because for all the stuff he owns and that owns him, he still KNOWS there is something missing. That is why he approaches Jesus to begin with.
And so, we must ask ourselves: what things stand in the way of our own commitment to really following Jesus? How can we grow deeper into trusting God with all that we have and are? We ARE, after all, spirits living in a material world. And we can use those material things for good and still keep a roof over our heads. We can walk in love with Jesus and support the mission and ministry of Christ in a world that desperately needs him. We can do both.
One of the greatest things I learned in my teaching career is that not everyone is ready for the lesson you have prepared at the same time. Some kids were—but others might require more than one opportunity. And I think that’s another thing we can take away from this story. Nothing says that the man doesn’t come back later, and that he doesn’t come to a healthier balance between his obsessing with possessions and the loving call of Jesus to be able to follow him in action as well as in labels.
So perhaps we can use this uncomfortable story to reflect on all the times Jesus has called us to deeper relationship, but we have drawn back. What things possess us and hamper our deeper relationship with God and with each other? It could be cynicism. It could be fear. It could be our too-busy lives and never allowing ourselves a chance to sit in silence with ourselves, much less with God. It could be, like our friend Job, a string of unimaginable losses that make us wonder if God is punishing us, when we know God doesn’t act that way.
Jesus sees us and looks on us with eyes of love. He sees that we have filled our hands and our hearts with things that do not truly satisfy. May we hear his call to be brave enough to free ourselves from the fears, hesitations, grievances, and, yes, sometimes, stuff that doesn’t truly satisfy. May we release those things from their hold over us, so that we may be free to follow Jesus more fully, starting today.
Amen.
Citation:
1) Mark Knopfler and Sting, "Money for Nothing," from the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms, 1985.
Image: Madonna and dancers from her video for "Material Girl."