"Release" - Deuteronomy 15:1-11 & Matthew 19:16-22 (October 11, 2020)
/Deuteronomy 15:1-11
Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it from a neighbor who is a member of the community, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed. From a foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any member of your community owes you. There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today. When the Lord your God has blessed you, as he promised you, you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near’, and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’
Matthew 19:16-22
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.
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Releasing is an important practice. We release things that we love. We release things that hurt us. We release things that we’ve inherited in order to pass them along to the next generation. Other times, we release things that need to die in order that new things might grow in their place. This concept is not a new one for us; some of y’all may remember last year when our them for Lent was “Cultivating and Letting Go.” Letting go is a spiritual practice, especially in the context of a society that teaches us to hoard resources and take more than we need. Last week, our theme was “remember.” And today we’re remembering two passages that talk about “release” - one in the context of individual release and, the other, communal release.
In today’s passage from Matthew’s Gospel, a man comes up to Jesus with a very specific question. He asks him, “what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Notice he doesn’t say what do I need to do to have eternal life. Instead, he asks what good deed must I do to have eternal life. It appears that the man is looking for a simple answer. He wants to know the exact amount of pocket change he has to deposit in the heavenly vending machine in order to receive eternal life. He’s looking for a simple transaction that reflects the economics that he has come to expect. If you pay for A, then you get A. If you pay for B, then you get B. Transaction complete.
But Jesus’ reply is certainly not what the man wanted to hear. He says “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will receive treasure in heaven; then come, follow me”
We have five verbs there and their order is important: go, sell, give, receive, and follow.
The man in the story, as far as we know, only got as far as the first verb, go. And, honestly, that’s also the first reaction I have when I’m confronted with this story - I want to go, to leave it behind and move on to another part of the Bible that doesn’t ask such ridiculous, and hard, things of me. And yet, Jesus time and time again gets right in our face and demands that we take a hard look at our money story.
My friend and colleague, Rev. Dr. Leah Schade writes that she is often tempted to reverse the order of these verbs in today’s passage. Instead of “go, sell, give, receive, and follow,” she writes that we’re tempted to start at the end of what Jesus says and work backward. “Hey, how about this? I can follow Jesus’ prescribed sequence in reverse! 1) Follow him. 2) Get my heaven-treasure. 3) Give some money to “the poor.” 4) Sell off a couple of things I don’t want at a yard sale. 5). Go happily on my way. Dusting off my hands of any guilt – I’m off scott free.” When it comes to our faith, we want to follow Jesus first. But today’s story reminds us that we’ve got some major work to do before we are allowed to call ourselves followers.
So, what now? What is Jesus calling us to do. I really struggle with this passage, I always have and I probably always will. I’m a typical 30-something year old millennial; my debts far outweigh by assets. I literally cannot just give up everything and walk away. The credit cards companies and the banks that hold my student loans will find me and I will be put in jail.
At the end of the day, I believe this story is about relationships. We have relationships with everything, people, objects, concepts, and, yes, money. Ultimately, I believe that Jesus intuited that this man’s relationships with his possessions were keeping him from living fully into the relationships with his neighbors. When our relationship with money damages our relationship with our neighbors, it keeps us from the Kingdom of Heaven. The man in today’s story was in a toxic - perhaps even abusive - relationship with his possessions. They held him down. They kept him from embracing the communal nature of the Beloved Community. Remember what we’ve been talking about over the past few weeks: Jesus didn’t teach us to pray “give me this day my daily bread” but “give us this day our daily bread.” When the manna fell from heaven, it was enough to sustain the whole community. Hoarding wasn’t even a possibility but even if it was it would have been unnecessary.
The man in today’s story clearly has much to release in order to free himself up to be a full participant in the Kingdom of Heaven. But let us not turn this man into the “designated patient” so as to deflect from what this story asks of us. What is holding you down? Do your possessions keep you from being in relationship with your neighbor? Is my amount of wealth a stumbling block to my helping my neighbor who is struggling to pay rent or provide food for their children?
What do you need to release to get the order of those verbs right - to go, sell, give, receive, and follow?
Perhaps if enough of us take those verbs seriously, particularly the verbs “sell” and “give,” we might just receive what we need to break cycles of poverty and unemployment. Because, releasing our obsession with, and dependence upon, “more” isn’t just an individual exercise; it’s a communal one as well.
We’ve talked at length recently about how God provides the Israelites in the wilderness an economy that is vastly different from the economy of Pharaoh’s domain. In Pharaoh’s economy, he and his administration amassed absurd amounts of wealth on the backs of the enslaved Hebrews. Pharaoh wasn’t the only thing worshiped in Egypt. Possessions and productivity were equally worshiped. And it was a self-perpetuating cycle; that is, until God interrupted it, defeated Pharaoh, and led the Israelites through the wilderness.
However, it didn’t take long for the Israelites to default to the economic model forced upon them by Pharaoh. Once a little time passed, the Israelites started to backslide to economic behaviors that God had saved them from in the first place. They quickly forgot the “daily manna” model that God provided for them. They forgot that God didn’t save them from one ruthless economy just to deliver them to another one.
The Israelites began loaning money and charging interest in order to profit off of others among them. Those who couldn’t pay their debts or even keep up with regular payments with interest were forced back into slavery. Land was taken from those who fell behind. The dreaded cycle of generational poverty started all over again.
So God, yet again intervened. God gave the Israelites a forced gift - a gift those who loaned money probably detested and a gift those who owed it probably celebrated. It was called the year of Jubilee. Every seven years, all debts were forgiven. Slaves were freed. Land that had been seized from those in debt was returned to its original owner. God instructed the Israelites not to take advantage of this gift and do foolish things in the year prior to the jubilee year. God told them that this was a gift that would prevent them from slipping back into the idolatry of more, more, more.
You see, the jubilee year was another form of manna, if you think about it. Manna spoiled if you gathered more than you needed for any given day. The year of jubilee was a similar idea. Predatory lending “spoiled” after seven years and everyone was given a reset button. The whole community was released from the burden that they had imposed upon themselves in the time in between jubilees.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. It’s a pipe dream. Its about as realistic as that man in today’s Gospel passage actually doing exactly what Jesus asked him to do and selling everything and following him. Sure, it’s a nice idea, but let’s be real, it ain’t gonna happen. He certainly wouldn’t do it. I certainly wouldn’t do it. Would you?
This sounds pretty radical. No politician in this country that I know of - either Democratic or Republican or even a Democratic Socialist like Bernie Sanders - would propose clearing debts every seven years. It’s just not feasible, right?
Well, at the end of the day, I’m not a politician but I am a pastor. So this I’ll say. The difference between the economy of the United States of America and the economy of God’s kingdom is that one is infatuated with the wants of the individual and the other is focused on the needs of the wider community.
Loving our neighbor as ourselves, that mandate that the Bible makes perfectly clear, is not just about being “nice” to your neighbor. The love that God compels us to show our neighbor is not a wish-washy love. It’s not enough to just “not be a jerk” to our neighbor and feel proud of ourselves and call it a day.
You cannot love your neighbor while remaining indifferent to their suffering, be that suffering mental, emotional, physical, or, in this case, economic. Loving your neighbor means making sure that they have health care. Loving your neighbor means having the courage to say Black Lives Matter to make sure that your neighbor isn’t shot while jogging or sleeping in her home. Loving your neighbor means releasing ourselves from our economic dependence on fossil fuels that is literally destroying our planet. Loving your neighbor means not just being nice to your waiter or waitress but ALSO advocating for them to earn a livable wage.
Loving your neighbor is a costly endeavor. It is. It isn’t easy. It takes commitment, it takes self-discipline, it takes humility and compassion. But the cost of loving our neighbor, the cost of economy of grace, releases us to other things. This country desperately needs a jubilee year because we have much we need to release. In the book of Deuteronomy, the release of the jubilee year allows everyone to relax, reset, and BREATHE. The jubilee year ends the rat race of “me versus you” and starts a new journey of “me with you.”
What if we moved the needle, even just a little bit, from our current economic model and closer to a model that God has given us in scripture? How many lives might be transformed by such a release? How many lives would be literally saved from such a release? How might we change definition of worth and worthiness? How might our neighbors rejoice if the Church took the lead to fight poverty and not the poor?
The possibilities are endless, if only we release ourselves from that that weighs us down…
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.