I can’t think of any new and original stories relating to stewardship to tell you, so I’m going to share an old one. It goes back to my days as a counselor at a summer camp in Maine. Picture a dozen boys on a balmy sunny day at in a clearing off a small parking lot at the beginning of a trail. For some of the youngsters this was their first real climb up a mountain. They had never experienced the exhilaration of looking over dozens of lesser peaks, across a jigsaw puzzle of ponds and forests stretching in all directions, and not a human structure in sight. Perhaps they would spot a thread of a highway and be able to make out a small moving speck as a truck or car before it slipped away under cover of a shaded valley. As the boys took it all in, they would become aware that there was no sound at the summit save the wind as it swirled down upon the bare rock and muffled their voices. Again, this was all before them, waiting for their discovery that morning.
The counselors had lined up everyone and distributed the lunch boxes to be tied to the campers’ belt loops. Right before we set out we passed around a large jar for everyone to get a handful of trail mix. For the first few youngsters, it worked well, as the jar was handed down the line. Then one lad decided to try to get a giant fist of mix, twice as large as anyone else’s. But in trying to get his hand out of the neck of the jar his fist was simply too full. Of course he could have released some and his hand would have easily come out with less. But no, he wanted to show his friends how much he could get, and his pride did not wish to admit failure in front of his buddies. Over and over, he jammed his hand in the jar, grabbed a large fistful of mix, and then when he tried to pull out his hand, his full fist always got stuck in the jar's neck. He tried to do it quickly; he tried his other hand, but he couldn't bring his other hand, full with mix, out the jar either. "Come on", said his buddies, "forget it, we are all ready to go. We want to see if the waterfall along the trail really is 200 feet tall as our counselors have claimed.” " No,” the frustrated fellow cried, “I know I can do it, just one more try, one more try, and I'll get it all." Finally, we had to take the jar from him and pass it on, otherwise we would have missed the adventure to climb the mountain and stayed all day in the parking lot until the camp truck came to pick us up. Fortunately, by the time the rainbow from the waterfall had come into view, the trail mix in the bottle had been long forgotten, even though a certain counselor had exaggerated just a bit and the waterfall was only actually 40 feet tall.
I wonder if that boy grew up to be like the rich man in today's Gospel. Yes, the rich man was a nice guy, liked and admired by those who knew him, but he became stuck, he couldn't let go of whatever possessions on which he so desperately depended.
It's important for us to understand that Jesus doesn't simply give the rich man another task to test him. It was the man's own denial that he depended on something other than God that held the man back, not Jesus.
"Let go of the heavy anchor that you are holding," urges Jesus to the man with many possessions. That anchor is controlling your life. You know the commandments; you know what is right and what is wrong. Now open your mind to the grand adventure that God invites you take with me." "But I can't trust to let go,” cried the rich man.
I am not so sure that Jesus expected the rich man to immediately sell all that he had. That would have been perfection and none of the other disciples were perfect disciples. It wasn’t a case of having him relinquish hold of a little money. It was a case of a little money having such a tight hold of him. I wonder if Jesus had not hoped that this individual would understand that discipleship always involves being caught between two conflicting perspectives, the demands and perspective of the world and the demands and perspective of the Gospel. What if the young rich man had replied, “Help me, Jesus, I can’t seem to let go of my wealth. I want to trust you, but I trust my wealth, too.” I think Jesus would have said yes and invited him to start walking with him and the rest of the disciples. Instead, the man sadly shook his head, and walked away out of Jesus’ life.
All of which is to say, Christian stewardship is another invitation for us to enter into the struggle. We don’t know what is in store for us as disciples. However, when commitments to the community of faith are always placed on the end of our “to do” lists, or we promise to fulfill them if there is ever a space in our busy schedule, we will become stuck as sure as the lad with his fist in the trail mix jar. There are plenty of times I’m tempted to keep my feet planted in place, staying where I am in my comfortable little life, playing it safe, and conserving what I have. Then I think back to that day in August, as we were about to climb one of the prettiest mountains in New England and the lad who had no idea what lay ahead, but was too distracted to begin the climb. We could have spent all day slowly eating our lunch at the mosquito-infested bottom of the trail while trying to grab the last biggest bit of trail mix out of the jar. The waterfall that awaited us would never be seen; the satisfaction of an accomplishment as we stood on the summit would never have been obtained. Thank goodness we didn’t stay in that dusty parking lot and it is only when I hear the tale of the young rich man that I’m reminded of the trail mix holding us at the bottom.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
