How Rich ARE You?

I am loaded. Ranking in at 86,086,957, I am in the top 1.43% richest people in the world.

Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world.
Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where
would you sit on one of those lists? Here's your chance to find out.

Go see where you rank on the Global Rich List.

For the month of October, our church will be re-visiting the narratives in Mark 10 in hopes of re-discovering or un-covering little gems, seeds of faith so to speak, that might help revitalize our faith journeys as we follow Jesus, the One who came to show us the Way.

In this morning's message, our associate pastor invited us to revisit the story of the rich, young man who was instructed to sell all his possessions and give to the poor. "He went away sad because he had great wealth." Our invitation this morning (this week, this month, this lifetime) was to consider whether we would be like this tortured young man, gone away to grieve over the difficult challenge presented to him, or whether we might consider daily the myriad ways in which we should answer (re-interpret, redefine) the challenge to change the world.

Grieving. Perhaps what we need to grieve is not the loss of our possessions, and not the possessions themselves. What we should mourn is the magnitude of need that is in this world; I must grieve that I often forget our common humanity and too often allow the rest of the world to suffer while I live in relative wealth.

On the surface, the Global Rich List is a fun little website that tells me I'm ranked in the top 1.43% richest people in the world. Underneath it all, it is about our skewed definitions of basic necessities. What I consider basic is not what others consider necessity. Now, I and other members of our church will not necessarily host a giant yard sale to sell our possessions. We will not immediately put our houses on the market. Neither will we donate our cars. That level of charity neither transforms our lives in a lasting way nor does it transform the world for the better except temporarily. Any action merely focused on the distribution and redistribution of material possessions -- just stuff -- could not possibly transform the world.

This October, let us mindfully ponder the question of what we must do to gain eternal life...