Wow! Another zinger today! There is a familiar song from the musical Mary Poppins that suggests that “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way.” Well, you’ll have to look very hard to find any sweetness in the Gospel today. When it comes to the subject of money and possessions, Jesus just did not sugar coat the story. Taken out of context, this is one of the most haunting passages in the New Treatment.
“You’re asking way too much of me.” Have you ever thought or actually said that to an employer, a teacher, a friend, a partner or spouse? Maybe even God? The demand you felt being made on you was just too unreasonable, the expectation totally unrealistic.
I suspect that the man in Mark’s story had a similar reaction to what Jesus asked of
him. Sell it all, give it all away? Seriously? Now, unlike the first twelve disciples,
Jesus did not go looking for this young man; the rich young ruler came to Jesus—
with a big question.
It’s interesting that he poses his question around the concept of inheritance, which
implies receiving some kind of wealth. He thinks that he can "inherit" eternal life
because the Jewish tradition taught that eternal life was often seen as a given, as
something one got by being born right. For the Jewish people, belonging to God’s
chosen ones was a matter of race. For Jesus, belonging to the people of God was a
matter of grace.
Here is someone who had money and success and yet his life was still empty and
even obedience to the law leaves life meaningless. He has kept all the
commandments from his youth, but he still has not found eternal life. He is still
searching, so he comes to Jesus looking for answers and for real meaning in life—
not unlike any of us probably do.
That's when Mark gives us a touching picture of Jesus who really understood this
man. He says something that is not included in any other Gospel’s account of this
encounter: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” While Jesus states that the man
lacks "one thing," he actually gives him two commands: to go, sell what he has and
give it all to the poor and to come and follow Jesus.
In Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor's sermon on this text, she says: "It is a
rich prescription for a rich man, designed to melt the lump in his throat and the
knot in his stomach by dissolving the burden on his back, the hump that keeps
banging into the lintel on the doorway to God.
“It is an invitation to become smaller and more agile by closing his accounts on
earth and opening one in heaven so that his treasure is drawing interest inside that
tiny gate instead of keeping him outside of it.
“It is a dare to him to become a new creature, defined in a new way, to trade in all
the words that have described him up to now - wealthy, committed, cultured,
responsible, educated, powerful, obedient - to trade them all in on one radically
different word, which is free"
Could it be that the opposite of rich is not poor—but free? Yet, this young man was
not free to take the hand of Jesus because his hand was too full of stuff and his love
of his many possessions. Being "rich" may have less to do with how much money
we have and more to do with our attitude about the money we have and our sense
of gratitude for it and our use of it to even in some small way build the Kingdom of
God.
“You’re asking way too much of me, Jesus” That may be what we are thinking
when we hear this Gospel. This is one of the most haunting passages in the New
Treatment. I often wonder what one thing I’m lacking. Well, to be honest how
many things I’m lacking and how would I respond to Jesus if he confronted me.
Maybe that’s why I’m not so quick to pose the question that the rich young man
did. What’s the “one thing” for you?
I do believe that Jesus is not telling us that we must go and sell all we have and
give it to the poor. He is saying that if God is to be the fundamental reality in our
lives, then there can’t be any big competition. Money in the New Testament is
neutral, not intrinsically good or bad. It’s how we make and spend it that can cause
either health and justice or illness and greed.
At the heart of this encounter between Jesus and the rich young man is the truth
that there is nothing we can do on our own to inherit eternal life or earn our way to
heaven. Whether we are rich or not, it’s only through God’s grace and mercy that
we get there.
No question we ask, no resistance we put forth can defeat the determination of God
in Christ to have us for God’s own and to give us a life that’s worth living, a life
that is lived on the foundation of loving God and neighbor rather than just getting
answers to our big questions.
Some time ago, I read a story about a woman who experienced a dramatic life transformation well after midlife. She ended up changing some of her social habits and even some of her friends. “God’s grace is free,” she was fond of saying, “but it can also be very expensive.” She wasn’t a man, and she wasn’t rich, but I think she got the message of this morning’s Gospel.
As Mark Twain once said, “It’s not what I don’t understand in the Bible that bothers me; it’s what I understand too well.”
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