Mark 10, Rich Young Ruler October 11, 2015 HPMF TV Joint Service Mark 10:17-31 17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 18 Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother. 20 He said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth. 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, Then who can be saved? 27 Jesus looked at them and said, For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible. 28 Peter began to say to him, Look, we have left everything and followed you. 29 Jesus said, Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
A young adult male who comes from a financially well off background runs to meet Jesus, he kneels before him to ask him this question, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? We have come to know this episode in the gospels as the Story of the Rich Young Ruler, it is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke is the one who describes him as a ruler, one in a position of authority of some type. Matthew is the one who describes him as a young adult, using a term that signifies a man between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight. So, this story rings true with our experience, it is so often young adults who keep us on our toes who push us to reconsider our lives in accordance to our beliefs, who help us reflect on how we are living in the world, and so this young adult is no different. He is curious, self-motivated to improve (he seeks out Jesus, not the other way around), assertive (willing to kneel before Jesus and ask that question he has been dying to ask). Like most well-off young people, his money probably came from his parents, but this has not made him complacent he has not seemed to take what he has had for granted or assumed it would always be there he is a high achiever, striving to follow the commandments in his daily living. And then his question, What must I do to inherit eternal life? The question he asks is not an abstract theological question, he wants to do know what good deed or deeds must he to obtain
eternal life. This young man is big on doing following the commandments of scripture and wanting to know what else he must do, how must he act. I think he would have been a good modern Mennonite in North America, somewhat well situated in life (mostly comfortable financially, at least in world standards) and he is concerned with right action, with doing good deeds, with right living. He doesn t ask Jesus about theology or if he is believing the right things, what he wants to know is about how to live on this earth so that he can inherit abundant and eternal life. Yes, I think it s safe to say that I like this Well-off young man quite a bit. The answer that Jesus gives is quite well-known, that he should sell all he has and give the money to the poor and then and come and follow Jesus. The young man is shocked at this answer (as are we); so shocked that he does not even utter a response, he simply turns away. Mark tells us that he turns grieving, almost heart-broken at these words of Jesus because he has many possessions. I think this painting captures the brokenness I picture this Rich Young Ruler feeling at this moment as he walks away.
And in Jesus response we once again see where Jesus would not be the pastor of a megachurch, at least not a mega-church anywhere outside of the neighborhoods of the poor and destitute, as his call to discipleship demands an undivided loyalty and life. Jesus is not polite to our programs of self-improvement, nor does he seemed concerned with greater number of followers he does not even seem interested in listening to this young man explain the dilemma of his money, of the need for a savings account, retirement, and saving for his children s education. What is so hard in this story is that Jesus is more willing to have someone walk away upset and grieving with their possessions still intact than to dilute his message or lower the expectations of what it means to be his follower. It makes me wonder, is this really good news? something that makes someone turn away in grief something that makes someone walk away in shock? I will say this story does not feel like good news to me, selling all that I have After the man leaves, Jesus continues speaking to his disciples, adding the quite famous line about the rich entering the kingdom of God,
That it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Before we go on, I want to address the eye of a needle and various modern interpretations. Many of you might know that there have been some interpretations to try and soften this line from Jesus. Professor and Bible Scholar Tim Geddert says, in his Commentary on the book of Mark that Aramaic scholars argued that the word camel was miscopied by scribes the word should actually be rope, because the two words in Aramaic are almost identical. Rope would make much more sense in that it would be hard, it would have to be stripped apart and put through the needle one thread at a time, but it would be possible. While this might make for a good sermon, it seems an unlikely interpreation. Geddert also remarks on the more common interpretation that many of us may have heard about there being a small gate in the Jerusalem wall that was called the Needle s Eye. Camels could get through this narrow opening, but they would have to first take off all their goods, they would have to strip themselves of everything they were carrying, and then they could make it through. In a brief search on Google images, I found five different examples of people s vacation photos where they were told by their tour guides that they were at the eye of the needle that Jesus was talking about, the small opening in the Jerusalem gate. Five different places that all claim to be the eye of the needle. This also makes for a good and interesting sermon, but Geddert (and increasingly more scholars) find this to be much more likely a modern attempt to soften Jesus words than a likely interpretation an attempt to make something that Jesus calls impossible by human standards, something that just might be possible if we are try hard enough. Geddert concludes that these completely miss the point of the text. Rich and poor are equally incapable of being saved apart from God s doing. The point of the text is that we who are wealthy have a particularly hard time accepting that we can t do it ourselves, or at least mostly by ourselves.
I want to now return to the question of whether or not this is actually good news? The more literal we take the passage, I think that maybe the less like good news it might sound for us in this room it feels more like good news when we take these as instructions for humility or as steps for not letting our wealth and possessions drag us down. It resembles good news less when we think of it as Jesus telling us to sell our possessions and then follow him. This is a call story, a story of Jesus calling another disciple to come and follow him, and it is the only call story in the gospels where someone declines Jesus offer, and the reason for this, we should note, is his wealth. Money, says Will Willimon, is too good a god to go down without a fight. Was Jesus asking this wealthy young man to do something terrible and difficult, or something liberating and wonderful? Perhaps both something difficult and liberating. What might seem like bad news to us, in our culture, is perhaps in reality good news (at least in accordance with how God created us to be how we were created to thrive). Whatever we might think, this story is part of the good news, and the fact that I sometimes read this as bad news is in part an indication of how trapped I am by my own culture rather than by the gospel. As I have said before, when Jesus words disturb us, the problem is not likely to be in the words. Some have called the story of the Rich Young Ruler a Progressive Christian altar call. This stood out to me, as I see myself a progressive Christian. A call to a life of more simplicity, more giving a call to living a more just lifestyle, a call to try and remove myself from the great trappings of wealth in a system that exploits the weak. And I think that is a good reading of the
story, at least in our contexts we probably should at least let that thought disturb us each time we read this story. But perhaps this scene is less a progressive altar call and more of a healing story. All the people in Mark s gospel who kneel before Jesus and ask for a blessing either have some dreadful disease or are demon possessed. And almost every time Jesus orders someone to go, like he does this guy ( go, sell what you own), it s in relation to a healing: go and show yourself, go and wash, go and tell no one. If this is a healing story, then of course it is good news. Jesus looks at him, loves him and he sees the demon in this young man the thing that most has control over him, the thing that most has power over him. Or, to use a slightly less loaded term, we might say that Jesus sees the sin in his life, the thing that he has made into a god, the thing that is most breaking his relationship with God, with his true self, with others, or with all of creation. Perhaps he sees it in his clothing or jewelry, perhaps it is the way he talks or carries himself more likely, it is Jesus being Jesus, seeing this man for who he is, seeing as God sees ( seeing the heart. ) And the good news, if this is a healing story, is that Jesus is trying to call that demon out, calling the demon by name Jesus is naming the sin, naming the thing that is most breaking relationship between this man, God and others; naming the thing that is causing him to feel enough of a void in his life that he seeks out Jesus; naming the thing which has left this man still searching, so much so that he kneels in front of a great teacher to ask him this question. It seems that this young man, despite his reading scripture, despite his trying to follow the commandments, and despite his family s money is still missing something. And so Jesus tells
him to divest so that he can really live by faith in God so that for the first time he can truly love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength AND truly love his neighbor as himself. If this is true and I ll admit that it may be as much a stretch as the rope or a door in Jerusalem s wall if this is true then I wonder what this story might be doing to us? How might Jesus be looking into us with love, perceiving that demon that still has power over us, that thing that is still causing us to be a divided people that thing that is separating us from God, from our neighbors, from creation from who God has created us to be. Barbara Brown Taylor says that, I am convinced that 99 percent of us are addicted to something, whether it is eating, shopping, blaming, pornography, or taking care of people. The simplest definition of an addiction is anything we use to fill the empty place inside of us that belongs to God alone That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us nothing on earth can fill it, but that doesn t stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. The do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole. In today's heartbreaking story, the rich young ruler missed his opportunity. He missed his opportunity to move fuller into his relationship with God, himself, and others; he missed a chance to participate more fully in what God is doing in the world; he missed the opportunity to participate in the mystery of the Word Made Flesh. He was on the edge of stepping into new life, a love deeper, higher, broader, more dense and glittering than anything he could possibly have imagined or possessed. But it is so hard. So hard to give up those things that have hold of us. So hard to release the gods that demand our loyalty, time and attention. It is frightening, I think to move away
from some of those things that have hold of us. When we see them, when they are named and called out when we recognize them, may we choose the hard path and difficult path of new life. The path of following Christ with an undivided life. It will be hard, perhaps as hard as a literal camel going through the eye of a needle, but not for God; for God all things are possible. Amen.