Richard Davenport

November 10, 2024 – Proper 27

Mark 12:38-44

                I’m not sure how big an issue it is right at the moment.  I know it was a big problem just a few years ago, when the economy was running a little better.  I’m sure it’s still out there to some extent, because while the scale may change, the root problem is always there.  It was bouncing around on the news for quite a while, the massive credit card debt carried by a sizeable portion of the country. 

                The fact that people owe a lot to credit card companies isn’t necessarily a problem.  Life happens, after all.  Sometimes the only way you have to pay for a sudden expense is with a credit card. Hospital visits, car repairs and those sorts of things can spring up without warning and you may not have the cash on hand to deal with them right in the moment.

                The bigger concern was for those people who use their credit cards to live above their economic means.  It’s one thing to desire luxuries and comforts that are out of reach, as long as it isn’t a matter of jealousy or covetousness and as long as you continue to be grateful for what you do have, it’s quite another to claim those things anyway and end up being poor stewards of what God has given.

                Eating at fancy restaurants all the time because that’s what affluent people do, buying the fancy sports car because you want to show all your friends how well off you are, the tailored clothes, the expensive jewelry and all the rest, all things you can’t really afford, but you want them, you really, really want them anyway.  The consequences of going beyond what you can afford aren’t immediately in front of you and so they don’t seem real. 

                Obviously, just because you don’t see the consequences doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  Eventually the credit card bills come due and you don’t have a way to pay them. You got to enjoy the benefits of your goodies for a while, but then you lose them, and probably a lot more.  Soon you’re worse off than you started. Hopefully you learn your lesson, but many never really do.

                Living above your means isn’t just a wealth thing either.  You can live above your means when it comes to fame too.  You can be so determined to be friends with everyone, to be the life of the party, that it just consumes all of your time.  You form shallow relationships with everyone you meet, in the hopes they’ll all think you’re a great guy and when someone just doesn’t jive with you, you may even go out of your way to win him over, just so you can say everyone likes you.

                Maybe it isn’t so much about being liked by everyone as being recognized by everyone, being respected by them and having fans everywhere you go.  Posting all sorts of crazy stunts on social media or talking up all of your many accomplishments.  You try to be the expert in every field, or at least act like it, so that people will always come to you for advice and respect what you have to say. 

                Whether you’re trying to be liked, respected, famous, or whatever, you’re still living a lie.  You’re claiming to be something you’re not, because inevitably someone will refuse to like you, or perhaps a whole group of people.  You’ll commit some huge faux pas and everyone will see you’re not as respectable a person as you made yourself out to be.  You’ll give some bad advice and everyone will start seeing you as a fraud.  But none that will stop you.  You have to keep going.  You have to rebuild your reputation.  You have to work harder and convince them again, to win them all back. 

                It’s all for show.  Sure, you enjoy some of the benefits of your status for a while, but you have to work harder and harder to maintain it, to prove to everyone that this is where you really belong and this is how everyone should see you.  You have to spend more money, you have to make more friends, you have to impress more people, to have to keep achieving, you have to keep working to make the illusion work.  You have to keep telling yourself that it’s worth it and that you can do it.  You have to keep deluding and lying to yourself and to everyone else and, in the end, it will come crashing down anyway.  The bills will come due.  Your friends will figure out you’re a fraud and you’ll be left with even less than you started with.

                The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day certainly aren’t unique in what they do.  There are always people who think so highly of themselves and what they deserve that they’re willing to show it off to everyone else.  They’re more righteous and they want you to know it.  They want to be recognized for their righteousness. They want that fact to be known far and wide. 

                It’s ok.  It works for a while.  At some point though, the problem becomes apparent.  You can’t maintain it.  Someone’s going to figure out you’re a fraud.  You aren’t perfect.  You aren’t anywhere near perfect.  You cover up your mistakes.  You compound your dirty lies with more lies.  You bargain.  You wheedle. You bully.  You try to silence those who know, but you can’t change the fact that they know.  Soon enough, everyone knows.  God is never fooled and soon you’ll be standing before him and everyone will see you for who you are, someone who just pretended to be better than he actually was. Your shame will be on display for all to see.

                There’s that temptation for all of us in one way or another, to be seen as better at something than we actually are, to take the shortcut.  It may not be something possible for us right now, but we want people to think it is. We also want to enjoy the benefits those who are better than us receive. 

                The scribes Jesus encounters today put on a big show of their righteousness and their willingness to go the extra mile to fulfill all of the tenets of the law.  They convince a lot of people and get a lot of accolades for the status they seem to have.  They get respect, honor, and status.  But it’s all a sham.  They can’t keep up the charade forever.  On the last day, everyone will see them for who they really are.  They put on a big show.  They may have even kept it up throughout their whole earthly life. But, when the time came to settle accounts, they didn’t have enough to pay the bill they had racked up.

                Jesus points them out because of the danger they represent.  It isn’t so much that what they’re doing hurts the disciples or any of us, but that they are just like us.  The only difference is maybe they’re being a little more open about it than we sometimes are.  Whatever it is you wish you had more of, whatever it is you act like you have when you really don’t, it’s all dangerous.  Fame, luxury, social status, wisdom, all of them are misleading and can tempt you, leading into a life that looks good but ends in grief.  Devastating as those may be, trying to live as if you are righteous and good, trying to convince God that you are better than you really are comes with even greater consequences.  You may fool other people.  You may even fool yourself, but the truth always comes out in the end when God goes through your life with a fine-toothed comb and recounts every time the sinner you really are came through.

                This is something Jesus hits on time and time again. The ambulance doesn’t come for people who are perfectly healthy.  It’s those who are sick, so sick they can’t even get to a doctor on their own. Trying to convince everyone you’re just fine doesn’t change the fact that you’re bleeding out, or that some disease is ravaging your body, or that your heart is failing.  You can’t act those things away.  You can either admit it or you can die.

                The great and unfathomable sign of God’s love is seen in what Christ does for us.  God doesn’t need to act above his station.  There is nothing higher than God.  There is nothing greater than God.  He doesn’t need to prove anything.  He doesn’t have to demonstrate his greatness to us or to anyone.  Yet he lowers himself, he lives below his station. He becomes a man and subjects himself to all sorts of things God never would have to deal with, all of the cares and concerns of mortal life.  He makes himself subject to insult, injury, and bloody death.  Instead of living above his position, he went beneath it. He came to us and lived with us and like us.

                Jesus reorients our lives.  Going down is going up.  It doesn’t seem like it should be the way of things and it isn’t how the world generally operates, but that’s how it works with God.  Not that we should seek out sin or be comfortable with it, but rather that we should accept it as who we are.  Likewise, that we not seek out luxury, social status, fame, or any of those other things that tempt us.  Instead, we are content without them or even reject them as unnecessary.

                Jesus steps down.  He goes down into the depths, the very lowest place anyone in this world can be, the most reviled, the most hated.  He is the most rejected and shunned.  He goes to the bottom and it is there that he is given glory and honor. We, as worldly people.  We continue to seek the heights, climbing higher and higher, only to find there are always more heights to climb and that we will eventually fall from them.  Jesus asks us to follow him instead, to take a different path.  He leads us in a way we do not know and would never find.  He leads us in humility and repentance, admitting we are sinners and that we deserve nothing.  He leads us to the cross and death, to the most miserable and forlorn place any person can go. He leads us there and in his death we find life.  When we follow him, repenting of our sins and accepting our place at the very bottom, it is there that he has mercy on us.  It is there that he reveals his power and glory to us.  It is there at the bottom that we are lifted up.  We act righteous, but never are.  When we accept that we are unrighteous and unclean, unfit to be on the heights with God, then God has pity on us and lifts up to him, washing our sins away in the death of Christ and making us alive again in the life of Christ.

                We do not live by our own merits.  We earn no luxury.  We earn no fame, no achievements, no standing before God or anyone else.  All are gifts and all are undeserved.  Trying to live even above that doesn’t make things better, but only worse.  Accepting our sin, we find grace in Christ.  Accepting our humble place, we find glory in Christ.