A pollster was taking a survey of how much of people''s

income goes to different kinds of spending. The person being interviewed said,

"I spend 40 percent of my income on housing, 20 percent on clothing, 40

percent on food, and 20 percent on transportation and amusement." The

pollster said, "But sir, that adds up to 120 percent." The reply was,

"I know it!"

Some of us, when the credit card bills come due, are

probably discovering that we are spending at least 100 percent of our income.

As one man put it, "From the time an infant first struggles to get his

toes in his mouth, life is a continual struggle to make both ends meet."

Or as somebody else put it: "They say it''s better to be poor and happy

than rich and miserable. But couldn''t something be worked out, like being

moderately wealthy and just a little moody?"

Yes, money is on everyone''s mind these days. It was no

different two thousand years ago. Jesus knew that money was a major matter to

most people. That is why he talked more about money than any other subject,

and, to tell you the truth, it is very difficult to find anything good that

Jesus ever said about money.

One thinks immediately of the rich man and Lazarus--the

rich man with his bounty and Lazarus, lying at his gates in misery. You

remember that in the next life the rich man is in hell, and he wants to come

back and warn his brothers about the way he has misused his life and the way he

has mishandled his resources. He pleads to be able to send Lazarus to talk to

his brothers.

One thinks of the rich fool, the man who built great barns

to hold his grain and said, "Now I''ll eat and drink and be merry."

But the Lord comes to him and says, "Thou fool! Tonight is thy soul

required of thee. Then whose will these things be?" One thinks of the

passage in our Scripture lesson for today from the Gospel: "It is easier

for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." Then in the Beatitudes Jesus does not say, "Blessed are the

rich," does he? No, very decidedly he says, "Blessed are the poor,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It is very difficult to find

anything that Jesus said that was good about money.

With a little thought we can understand that, can we not?

For one thing, JESUS SAW IN HIS OWN DAY HOW EASILY MONEY CORRUPTS PEOPLE.

Hundreds of years before Jesus was born the prophet Amos was talking about how

the wealthy oppressed the poor in that part of the world--how those with power

and position would afflict the just--how easy it was for the wealthy to bribe

the judges, and thereby, make a mockery of the courts--how they trampled the

poor underfoot. Remember his famous lines about the "beds of white

ivory" and "selling the needy for shoes." Jesus was not the

first to raise up his voice about the misuse of material possessions. But

things probably had not improved much by the time he began his ministry. The

government was different, of course. And there was the benign influence of

Roman justice, but still, one could see how easily the corrupt person could

rise in the world.

For example, the tax collectors. Usually they were Jews who

had sold themselves to the Romans, betraying their countrymen by collecting

taxes on behalf of Rome, and adding a disproportionate percentage for

themselves.

Wealth has always had a way of corrupting people, and

business, and government, and even the church today. Anywhere there is money,

there is awful temptation.

A self-made millionaire was addressing a graduating class

at the local university. He was talking about the motivational force that drove

him, and he said, "All my success in life I owe to one thing--pluck. Pluck

and more pluck." One of the young people came to him after the graduation

ceremony was over and said, "That was a great speech, sir, but will you

please tell us something about who to pluck and how?"

Where there is money there is that temptation to exploit,

to take advantage, to oppress people. To paraphrase a sentence from earlier

years in our own history, "If you steal a railroad through sharp business

practices they print your face in the newspapers; if you steal a loaf of bread

they print your thumb in a police station." There is always that

possibility, that temptation, that makes money corrupts some of the best

people.

But it can not only corrupt in terms of our relationship

with society--IT CAN BE A HINDRANCE IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. And, indeed,

Jesus saw that clearly as well. This young man who came to him, who has come to

be known to us as the rich young ruler--all of us know his story well, and

there is one sad fact to be learned from it. It is that this young man could

have become one of Jesus'' disciples if it hadn''t been for his money. Look at

the record. Jesus is teaching and suddenly a young man comes running up to him

and kneels down before him in the dust and asks, "Good Master, what shall

I do that I may inherit eternal life?" There is no question about the young

man''s sincerity, his good intentions. He desires to be a part of the coming

kingdom. There is little question about that. He is a sincere young man. Jesus

admonished him about using that term "Good" too easily. But then he

says to him, "You know the commandments, `Do not commit adultery, do not

kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father

and mother....''" And you remember the young man answers the Master,

"I have observed these all the way from my youth." And the Scripture

says that "Jesus looked upon him and loved him." He was a fine young

man, he was a moral young man. There is nothing more refreshing than to

encounter a young person whose values, whose head, and whose heart are in the

right place. We have some young people in this church like that. There are so

many temptations for young people today, and when you run into a young person

who comes through it all with head high you want to salute, don''t you?

Someone once noted that an astronomer can predict with

perfect accuracy just where every star in the heavens will be at 11:30 tonight.

But he cannot make such a prediction about his teenage son and daughter. The

astronomer may admit that the universe is complicated, but he might tell us

that his teenagers are ten thousand times more complicated and almost

impossible to predict.

Well, they are not all impossible to predict, are they?

There are some fine noble Christian young people in this world, and we love

them. Just as Jesus looked upon this young man and loved him.

But Jesus, who could see right through the best of

intentions, knew that there was a problem in this young man''s life--and he put

his finger right on it. He said to him, "One thing you lack. Go your way,

sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in

heaven. Then come take up the cross and follow me."

Jesus knew that money was a hindrance in this young man''s

life, and he was proved correct. In the next verse we read that the young man

sadly went away, for he had great possessions. He could have become a disciple

of Jesus Christ except for one thing--his money.

I do not believe that Jesus was telling all of us to give

away all of our money to the poor in order to follow him, because money is not

a problem for most of us, it is not a real hindrance. But for some of us, it

is. For some of us our material possessions are the most important things in

our lives. And that is one way of saying that money has become our God. We

would give up anything except our comfort and security. Someone has noted that

it is ironic that Americans take the motto "In God We Trust" and put

it on our money, because if there is any people who trust in their money as

much as they do their God, it is we. It can be a hindrance.

Back in the days when $5,000 was a lot of money, there was

a very poor woman who always tithed the little money she had, 10 percent of

everything she received was given to Christ''s work. One day she received a

bequest of $5,000. Immediately she went to her church and gave $500 dollars for

missions. She never mentioned that gift to anybody. But after her death there

was found entered into her diary the day she received that bequest this

notation: "Quick, quick, before my heart gets hard." She did not want

that new-found wealth to become a hindrance to her spiritual life.

My friend, with this Scripture lesson in front of me, I''ve

got to ask you this question: Has money become a hindrance to your spiritual

life? Now, some of you may say that LACK of money is a hindrance to you right

now. And I believe that can be true. I believe when times are hard and we are

without a job and we are worried about our business closing, and things are

becoming uncomfortable, it can take a toll on our spiritual life if our

priorities are not in the right order.

Certainly we are not saying that money is bad. That would

be Biblically dishonest. Remember how God blessed Job before and after his time

of testing. Desiring money is very human, we all do it. There is no one here

this morning who could not honestly say that they wouldn''t mind having more

material possessions. None of us would mind if we got a phone call tomorrow

morning telling us that some wealthy person had remembered us in his or her

will.

There is a humorous story about an economist who went for a

Sunday afternoon walk. Somehow or another he encountered God on his walk. He

didn''t know what to say, and suddenly he remembered that as a little boy,

someone had told him that a thousand years was like a minute to the Lord. So he

asked the Lord if that was true. And the Lord said, "Yes, that''s

true." And the economist, by this time, had recovered his composure and

said, "Then perhaps it may also be true that what is a million dollars to

us is only a penny to you." And the Lord said, "Yes, that''s certainly

true." So the economist said, "Well, Lord, how about giving me one of

those pennies?" The Lord said, "Certainly, my dear fellow. I don''t

happen to have it on me, but if you''ll just wait a minute, I''ll go fetch

it."

To desire material possessions is very human. But to

worship material possessions is idolatry. Money can be a hindrance. We must put

money into perspective in our lives.

Dr. James Dobson, on one of his radio broadcasts, gave a

good illustration of this very basic need that each of us has. He was talking

about playing Monopoly. Now, I suppose all of us have played Monopoly at one

time or another--we passed Go and collected our $200 dollars, and we''ve gone

past Baltic Avenue and Mediterranean and on around by Tennessee Avenue and Ventnor Avenue, and finally we reached the wealthy part of town, Park Place and Boardwalk.

He said he was playing this game of Monopoly with his family and he just

happened to have a lucky night. He landed on all the prime property and bought

them up. He started putting hotels on all of them, and everybody who came

around the expensive section of the Monopoly board had to pay him enormous rent

every time they landed. His streak was going so well, and he was having such a

good time, just enjoying the $500 Monopoly bills stuffed under the board on his

side. He was really enjoying this immensely, and then he said, "All of a

sudden, the game was over." He was feeling so good and he looked at those

$500 bills stacked up and all the property he owned--but the game was over, and

he had to put all the money and all the hotels and all the property back into

the box and close it up--and he didn''t have anything. Then he went on to say

"Isn''t that a parable of life?" No matter how much we accumulate, it

all goes back into the box. We can''t take it with us--as the cliche goes. We

leave it all behind.

So we would be wise to hear Jesus'' words

to this rich young ruler, "One thing thou lackest. Go thy way, sell

whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in

heaven." There are some people who are rich in this world who are paupers

in heaven. That is the unavoidable teaching--money can corrupt. Not always.

There are some wonderful Christian people with much wealth. But money can be a

hindrance. I can say to you without any hesitation that if your income is

average or above average and you do not tithe, money is a hindrance right now

to your spiritual life. You may not be aware of it, but it is a hindrance.

There are some people who ought to be giving more than a tithe because God has

blessed you so greatly. Then Jesus beheld him and said to him, "One thing

thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and

thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come take up the cross and follow me."

My friends, money may not be the main hindrance in your life right now. There

are many other temptations in life, temptations of the flesh, temptations of

the spirit. Whatever it is that has become a hindrance to your relationship

with God needs to be laid aside this morning. That invitation is for us as it

was for the rich young ruler to lay aside that hindrance and to take up the

cross and to follow Jesus. Only then--only then--can be lay up for ourselves

treasures in heaven.”