The Gospel of Abundance Left Behind
NRSV
You can go right ahead and skip this article. There’s nothing new here. You’ve heard it before. Surely you’ve preached it dozens, scores, maybe even hundreds of times already. After all, Jesus himself preached on this theme over and over and over again. A lot. If you read the gospels, you’ll find variations on it here and there and everywhere: sell all your stuff and give everything to the poor. It’s kind of the point of Jesus’ ministry. Entry level Christianity 101. But, since we’re here to talk about “superabundance,” someone has to talk about what you do with it when you get it, so I thought I’d bring it up.
Take, for example, that guy who came up to Jesus that one time–the rich man? He wanted to follow. He wanted to be a disciple. He was just looking to get started. He wanted to know the first thing he needed to do to get on the team. So Jesus told him, “Sell your stuff. Give everything to the poor. Then follow me.”
See what I mean? This is totally basic. Please don’t be offended that I’m bringing it up. Again. If you haven’t turned the page already you’re probably sitting there wondering why we even need to review this material. As far as Jesus is concerned, this is at the core of the Christian DNA. Elementary. Step one.
Jesus called the tax collector, and he left his counting table behind and all the money with it. That widow woman in the temple, who made her offering with the only two coins she had—Jesus praised her for putting in everything. Elsewhere, Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be my follower, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Those who want to save their life will lose it. Those who lose their life will save it.”
Jesus repeats this message over and over again. He’s kind of a one-note, really. I suppose he must have thought we were prone to distractions. Maybe he was worried that we’d get caught up in other things if he didn’t repeat it so often. If he hadn’t said it so much, we might try to ignore it. We might try to make the lessons he taught into more satisfying self-centered platitudes. If there weren’t thousands of verses in Bible that made it clear that the life of faith has to do with giving our lives and our things and our wealth to the poor, we might set up other litmus tests about what it takes to follow Jesus and start judging people: by their color, or gender, or sexuality; by their class, or by their creed, or, perish the thought–by their stuff. After hearing Jesus harp on this theme again and again, can you even imagine churches trying to proclaim that God wants us to have big fancy houses, luxury cars, and Power Ball pocketbooks? Surely not.
The life of discipleship is a life of giving away the abundance we receive. There’s one scene in the gospels, told twice—like a good pair of bookends: one at the beginning of Luke and one and the end of John—that makes this pretty plain.
First, Luke’s story: A group of fishermen (who, incidentally, never seem to be able to catch fish) are gathered at the shoreline, cleaning their nets from another empty-handed day on the lake of Gennesaret. A stranger enters the scene followed by a pressing crowd of people. At the noise, Simon looks up, his hands full of slimy seaweed that had knotted itself onto his net. The man was getting into his boat.
Simon dropped his net and started to charge toward the water. “I don’t know who you think you are, mister, but that’s my boat.”
“Great,” said Jesus, “then I’ll let you row. Get moving.”
Who was this guy? And what had he done that he needed a quick getaway? The crowd kept coming. Fearing that they might swamp the boat, Simon pushed out into the lake, the shallow waters, just far enough to keep the crowd at bay. Back on the shore, tangled in the grimy netting, James and John stared with open mouths at the absurdity of it all. That boat was their livelihood, too.
Surely stunned, the fishermen listened to the boat-thieving stranger. He was talking about freedom: from oppression, from hunger, from captivity. Jesus had been in the synagogue only days before, and quite likely his theme continued: speaking of recovery of vision and of good news for the poor. They were old words but charged with a new life they had never heard before.
As evening drew on, Jesus dismissed the crowd. Simon, James, and John lingered since it was their boat, after all. Jesus said to them, “Thanks. I know that was a little weird. But, um, let’s take it a little deeper.”
The fishermen waited, leaning in to hear words even more entrancing.
“The boat, I mean,” said Jesus. “Let’s take the boat out into deeper waters. It’s time for you to catch something.”
Simon was quick to respond. “Master, we’ve been fishing all night, and there ain’t nothing out there. But, if you say so, we’ll do it.” “Alright then, I say so.”
Out they go into the deep waters. They toss their nets into the dark depths, expecting another fresh catch of nothing. Suddenly, their nets are full to the point of breaking–so much abundance they have to call over other boats to join in the catch.
Now, the story doesn’t end here, but it is at about this point that many preachers would be happy to stop. Many sermons, especially televised ones, wrap up right here. Jesus has taught the crowds, and entranced his about-to-be disciples. If you just go deeper, their sermons say, the Lord will grant you an abundance, favor, wealth and riches beyond your capacity to take it all in. Flip on Joel Osteen sometime, or a host of other prosperity gospel preachers. They love this sort of text. The truth is, though, they tend to land one step short of the truth. Or, to put it into good-ol’ preacher speak: they may get you in the boat, but they won’t get you on the disciple-ship.
Discipleship begins not when they haul in the abundance–but when they leave it all behind. Luke 5:11: “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”
Their biggest catch ever. The jackpot hit. Their career dreams fulfilled. An abundance–left behind.
The writer of John’s gospel seems to have known this story, too, although it lands in a wholly different place in the narrative. In John 20, we hear the good news of Resurrection morning. We watch and wonder as Jesus moves through walls and breathes the Spirit of peace upon his disciples. The story seems to wrap up all nice and tidy. Then Chapter 21 begins and we have to do a double take. We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Disciples, lake, boat, Jesus on the shoreline calling out to them, a great catch of fish. This is where we got started–this isn’t the end–we’re right back at the beginning.
John saves the beginning for the ending, and it is a reversal that heightens all the stakes. In Luke, it’s one thing for Jesus to call a bunch of smelly, naked fishermen who never seem to be able to catch fish…at least he’s going to be with them, and teach them, and guide them as the story goes along. When John tells this story, we hear Jesus calling out to a bunch of smelly, naked fishermen who never seem to be able to catch fish who have already deserted, betrayed, denied, and doubted him…and he is about to leave them to fend for themselves. Will they, can they, continue to be his disciples?
This time, Jesus is not in the boat with them. At first, they aren’t even sure that it’s him. He tells them to toss out their nets, and they do. In comes an abundance of fish and then some: one hundred and fifty three, to be exact. Commentators have long puzzled over that number, but we’ll not sidetrack ourselves with code-breaking. If nothing else, the writer clearly wants us to see that there were a lot of fish, and this was not just another fisherman’s well-spun yarn.
They come to shore. There’s already some fish on the fire. Jesus has them bring over a little to add to the breakfast. He breaks bread and dishes out fish, and then gives Peter a little talking-to about getting back to work. That crazy abundance of fish never gets referred to again. Like the first time, it seems to have been left on the beach.
This is where discipleship begins, and, after we’ve gone and bungled things, it is where it begins again: not so much when abundance happens, but when abundance is left behind.
Jesus tells us to give everything away because that is what God has done. God has given away the whole kingdom and, what’s more, as we read in Luke 12:32, it was God’s good pleasure to do so. Pleasure–eudokeo–the same Greek word that God uses at Jesus’ baptism: “this is my son in whom I am well pleased”–the beaming pleasure of a father basking in the wonder of his child. Jesus is asking us to give our all–to do what God has done–not because it is a labor to perform, not because it is a test of faith, not because it is “the right thing to do.” Jesus is inviting us into this life because he knows that it is the source of the sweetest pleasure and the greatest joy. Jesus wants us to experience the joy of such freedom, the wonder of such abandon, the life and liberty of such spendthrift, reckless love.
It is God’s greatest pleasure to give away the full, glorious, impossibly wonderful superabundance of heaven: the whole of the kingdom–to us. God gives it to us, so that we might give it away, for God yearns for us to experience such joy, and know such love.
This is what it is all about. You’ve heard it all before. It is where the gospel begins and ends. “Give it all away. Leave it all behind.” Jesus said so, again and again.
Maybe we should, too.
