A Good Retirement Plan

“A Good Retirement Plan”
The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry
September 18, 2022

Matthew 19.16-30

Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, 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.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

Archeology is a matter of how far you want to dig. At a site where people lived for centuries, each layer you dig through has artifacts, treasure. The question of archeology is: how deep do you want to dig?

If you dig down through 500 years of strata, you arrive at the early modern. If you dig down a thousand years, you arrive at the medieval. Go down another 500 and you find the Byzantine. For most archeological sites in the Near East, the real goal is to dig down 2000 years— the Greco-Roman.

There are other cultures beyond this, earlier civilizations. In Egypt and China, digging past 2000 years of strata is just the beginning.
For good or for ill we don’t often think like archeologists, let alone live like them. But today, in our passage from Matthew, it is as if we need to dig, and to ask ourselves how far down do we want to go? Don’t feel pressured to answer right off. The rich young man said, “no thanks” to excavating his soul. He didn’t want to dig. And if that is not to your liking, I cast no judgment. Digging deep within this passage requires a bit of work and its Sunday and the weather is nice. I get it.

Just in case, though, I would put before you that there are three levels of descending depth, challenges, to dig through. The first level is the fear of money. This is the easy level, and it is the silent part of our story. The second level is the question of desire, what is the good you seek? This is the heart of the passage. And the last level, where things get a bit dicey, is the matter of risk, what are you willing to dream in this life? Would you seek a beautiful life if it was offered to you?

Those are the levels in the reading for the day. I believe you must move through them in order.

Let’s begin to dig.

The first level we need to get past is best done with monkeys. Several experiments have been conducted with monkey enclosures. The experiments utilize three different kinds of enclosures. One is the classic concrete urban monkey jail. Chain link, no plants, no toys, a tree with no leaves, and no color. There is a little place in the back for the monkeys to hide, but for most part they are on full display.

The second monkey enclosure is filled with plants and grass and water and there were some toys. Monkeys can hide in the bamboo or play on grass or bathe by the water. The third enclosure was like the second, only dialed way up. Lots of everything; opulence; and, perhaps most important it was a kind of palace.

The researchers found the monkeys in the first enclosure were miserable, angry, violent, and they didn’t take care of themselves. They looked awful and were mean. Not surprisingly, the monkeys in the second enclosure were happy. They were content and took care of themselves. They were not violent. The third enclosure had a surprise though. Opulence had no neurological impact. The level of happiness between the second and third enclosures showed no chemical difference.

How these experiments help us dig down in our reading today is this: poverty robs people of happiness. Not having enough, not living with beauty or contentment makes us miserable, ruins our life. The first enclosure is a terrible place. When there is enough, when the place we live is safe, then we thrive.

Everyone knows this. Right? We know that if we sleep in a car and have no place to shower and if we must beg for food, then we suffer. And it doesn’t have to go that far. Just not being able to pay the bills, being afraid of illness, losing your job, being one unexpected expense from bankruptcy, this is debilitating. The weight of fear can crush us.

For this reason, the call of Jesus for the young man to sell all he has and give it to the poor, this conjures fear. Having nothing is not a good place to be. We know this. Yet, it is as if Jesus is not aware of our fear. It is tempting to stop digging right here. We can follow Jesus up to this point and then we say, “I am going to keep my stuff.”

The fear of money, not having enough money, is real. This is not a fairy tale or a trivial matter. And the direction of Jesus seems insensitive to this fear, almost cruel. For it is one thing to say to the young man, give from your wealth, but he says give it all away.

The first level is the fear of money. If and when we overcome the fear of money, what we find is the question of desire. What do you want? What is the good you seek? This is the beginning of our passage today. How do I live? You can’t really ask this question unless you dig past the fear of money. Let’s assume we have dug past this, let’s assume we are content with enough to live on. We can keep digging.

What we find if we keep going is desire. Once freed of fear we find the moment to ask, what is it we really want? This is where Jesus and the rich young man start their conversation. If our basic needs are covered, then what is it we still hope to find? I have enough of this life, so do I gain an eternal life? What is the good we seek in life?

I have a friend who helps people plan for their retirement. He meets with young couples and helps them set up a plan so when they retire there will be enough money to live on. At the end of his consultation, he gives them his best financial advice, a word of wisdom that will do the most to insure their financial well-being. I imagine the couples expect him to talk about frugality or savings or paying with cash and avoiding credit. But what he says is not so much about money. He says, be nice to each other. Take care of each other. Be patient and kind. For if you are not, then all the planning we have done falls apart.

I like that advice. And it’s true. Nothing ruins a good retirement plan like divorce. But there is also a deeper level here. For the most part, as we live out our life, if we are freed from fear and begin to ask the question of what is the good we seek, we find it is difficult to answer. What does it mean for you to be a good person? How are you to forgive, to love, to speak the truth? We know we want to be good, but how? This is where the rich young ruler approached Jesus. He had enough money. Hence, now he asked the question: how am I to live a good life?

My friend’s advice is much like Jesus’: keep the commandments. Commandments like: don’t be a jerk. Don’t steal, don’t kill, give honor where honor is due. If you are not living in fear, then you have the freedom to ask what is good in life, and what does it mean to be good? How are you to live a good life?

Here, again, is a place to stop digging. Lots of people stop here. This is a challenging question. Freedom from the fear of money is good, you need to be so free. But being able to trust yourself, know yourself, be true: this is the challenge of a lifetime. My friend’s advice is poignant here as well. To know what we desire is often about who we desire. We rarely achieve great answers on our own. To find what it means to be a loving person, we need people to love and to be loved.

If you are so inclined, there is yet another level, the level of risk remains unearthed. Jesus points to this when he speaks of the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God and inheritance and the order of things, and he bids the young man to risk everything he has for the possibility of finding it.

The kingdom of God is hard to find. Mostly because we give up along the way. We can see this in our reading. People give up on this passage when Jesus dismisses the fear of money. And then finding what you truly desire in life is exhausting and frightening if it is sought with honesty. People stop here, stop looking, digging. To go deeper, to dig further, to reach the Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God this requires great effort. To reach this level what we must do is entertain the possibility of greatness as a different kind of freedom.

We confuse greatness with having more. To be great is not having more than others. Being great is a whole other way of living. This is why the scientists didn’t find a difference in the opulent monkey cage, having more didn’t provide a different life than the modest monkey enclosure. The happiness of the McMansion was not greater than the happiness of the three-bedroom ranch in the suburbs.

We often confuse being great, having a great life, with having more than others, more than enough. More money, more security, more stuff, more power, more prestige. If this is the path to the kingdom of God, then Jesus would have told the young man, just keep going, get more stuff; you got a lot now, get more. God is with those who have the most. But he didn’t say that. He said the opposite. If you want perfection, give your wealth to the poor.

Perfection makes us nervous. And rightly so. But what if perfection is not the absence of error but the presence of what is good and true and beautiful. To live a beautiful life. This is the vision we find if we keep digging in this passage. The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God; thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven: we pray this prayer again and again. And each time we pray I believe we desire to see these kingdoms. We hope to see beauty in life; but do we hope to live a beautiful life?

No one would balk at the need of having enough. And the freedom that comes from having enough, is the freedom to seek what is good in life. Is this not what we hope for each other? If you have enough, then you can ask, what does it mean to be good, to be kind, to be loving. Like my friend’s advice, the best retirement plan, the best way to a good life, is to be nice to each other. We get it.

But what does it mean to find, to live, to see a beautiful life? Are we bold enough; do we dare even dream? A beautiful life is not having more; it is the freedom of losing this life to find another, being empty so to be full. Do we risk such a dream? Will we keep digging?

As a church we will seek to lift the poor, feed the hungry, remember the outcast. This is the way we follow Jesus, and it is also how we live well together. We believe it is a matter of justice that we all have enough, that we don’t allow people to suffer in poverty. And we want to love mercy, to be a good person. This is the greatest desire. Yet will we risk what we have for beauty?

Jesus said, the kingdom of God is near us. A beautiful life is close at hand. Dare we believe it? Amen.