Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Mark 10:17-31

  • When a man asks Jesus for assurance of salvation, Jesus ties his desire of assurance to his wealth—a message that scares us, too.

  • When we talk about the problem with money, we need to dig into why we can’t trust in money to solve all of our problems now.

  • The challenge of Jesus’s teaching with the pious young man is that Jesus condemns wealth in a way few Americans are willing to accept.

  • In a story we assume is about wealth, Jesus reveals our misconceptions about life, grace, and the human project.

  • When Jesus tells us about the problems with wealth, we get hung up on whether or not he means us. But that isn’t the point. For the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 23B Collect Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good…

  • Jesus wants us to talk about money. I know you don’t want me to talk about money. And you know I don’t want to talk about money. But here we are. Just like I didn’t want to talk about divorce last week, but there it was. Jesus wants us dealing with important stuff. Jesus is saying…