Mark 10:17-31
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
With this honest, searching question, a man comes to Jesus, certain that there must be something else he should be doing, taking care of, or accomplishing in order to satisfy the deep yearning he feels inside that something isn’t quite right and complete in his life. Despite faithfully following the commandments, despite being a ‘good’ religious person, the man still feels empty.
Now, this rich man wasn’t trying to trap Jesus; he’s not like the Pharisees who were always wanting to entangle Jesus in an adversarial debate. The man simply is seeking a solution that would satisfy his inner hunger and heal the dis-ease of his soul.
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Sound familiar? Perhaps we might not have phrased the question in such a way or even thought about asking it of Jesus; but have there not been times when we sought to give voice to the inarticulate longing we felt deep within? Have we not, at one point or another in our lives, felt a profound yearning that there had to be something more, something deeper that would fill our inner emptiness? But what? And how could we achieve that?
We try to live a ‘good’ life; we strive for faithfulness in religious and spiritual practice even as we are pulled and pressured by too many other directions, responsibilities and priorities. Yet, still the hunger won’t go away. And so we wonder, “Is there something more we should be doing;” as if the emptiness could possibly be filled by working harder or smarter or by more accumulation, more success. Believing that, I think, is inherent to human nature, but also peculiarly part of the American cultural inheritance of needing to be self-made men and women.
When the man approached Jesus with his heartfelt question, did you note how the gospel described Jesus’ response? “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.” This is the only time in Mark’s gospel where Jesus loves someone! Jesus sees the man as he truly is; he understands him in a way the man is not capable of seeing himself; and in his love for him, Jesus offers to free the man from everything that keeps him enslaved. Jesus extends an invitation to him to be released from all that keeps him from filling that deep emptiness. Jesus meets the man exactly at his point of strength – the man’s virtue, his dutifulness and acquired wealth, and then challenges him to let it all go and be called into an uncertain future – a future which is no longer defined by possessions or striving but instead defined by a totally unencumbered relationship with God.
It’s not that Jesus had anything against wealth in and of itself. Wealth allowed one to take care of religious responsibilities and to care for others in need. This man’s wealth, however, gave the man a false sense of his independence. It made him believe he neither needed anyone else; nor was he required to be in relationship with anyone else.
Jesus also knew the man’s wealth was likely gained at the expense of others; and to be the kind of steward that God charges us to be, means to use all we have to best care for those God has given us as companions along the way. Jesus wasn’t asking the man to sell all his wealth and become a beggar as much as he was challenging him back into solidarity with his neighbors for their sake as well as for his own. Apropos of that, one colleague of mine has suggested that if we were to use the man’s query, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life,” in relationship to the upcoming election, the question we need to ask ourselves is not, “Am I better off than 4 years ago?”; but rather, “Is my neighbor better off than 4 years ago?”1
When Jesus, in love, invited the man to sell all he owned and give the money to the poor and then to come and follow him, there was one significant reason he asked that, beyond the call to let go of wealth and all else that keeps us enslaved and unable to fill our hunger. We find that reason in Jesus’ conversation with his disciples. When they asked him about who could find God’s favor if it wasn’t possible through wealth, Jesus told them, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.
The man who was searching for an answer to his inner hunger truly believed that his peace, his abundant life could only be accomplished through doing something with his own efforts, when – in actuality- peace, abundant life was a treasure already secured for him as a gift of God’s outpoured grace! All the man had to do, in effect, was to receive the gift. All he had to accomplish was to let go of all his effort and striving and pride of place and reliance on his own achievement, and live into a relationship with the divine, a relationship that can never be satisfied with things or with doing more, but deepened only through trust and reliance on God alone.
The man just could not do that one thing, however, even though he knew the truth of what Jesus was asking. And so, he walked away grieving. The cost was too great; even though, in actuality, it was free. Did you know this is the only time in all four gospels where there is an invitation to follow and it is refused? Where the call to discipleship is declined?
Again, I ask, does it sound familiar? In our own yearning and hunger, in our own sense of emptiness and our desire for God’s blessing, do we believe that such can only come from what we do, instead of what God works within us, transforming us? Is our tight hold on the need to measure up and achieve that which keeps us from embracing the very treasure which is ours already? What so encumbers us that we would rather have it than God? Have we ties to something so intense and enslaving that it gets in the way of our relationship with others and in the way of whole-hearted discipleship, so that we, too, can only walk away grieving and still empty?
The good news this morning is that just as Jesus met the man and loved him, seeing him as he truly was and inviting him to fullness of life; so, too, Jesus meets each one of us exactly wherever we are on our journey of faith. Jesus meets us, knows us at our deepest level, and loves us even more deeply. And then, Jesus invites us to come, follow him – with these words:
“The one thing you lack is whatever you need to let go of.
The one thing is to go beyond your fear. Whatever you are afraid to let go of
is what stands between you and coming to God with open arms and empty hands.
Take off that bulky coat of fear and allow yourself to come to a place
where what you treasure is paltry to what you receive.
Thread the needle. Let go of everything, now, in this moment.
and in the perfect poverty of prayer
walk away from it all to God.
Where you will receive, Beloved, you will receive.”2
Amen.
Rev. Diane Harvey
1. David Lose, Working Preacher.org 10/7/12
2. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light 10/12/12