Loving God, you call us to put our trust in you and to rely on your grace and your strength, yet we manage to find so many other things in which to trust.  Renew us this day by the power of your Spirit, and teach us to welcome the gracious gift of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    I have an acquaintance in Alberta who is fond of using this particular gospel in arguments with people about the Bible.  She particularly likes referring to this passage when somebody is all worked up and ready to cast judgment upon others.  Her favourite comeback is, “You come back and talk to me after you’ve sold everything and given it to the poor.”  Actually, as comebacks go, it’s not bad.  If you’re going to insist on taking everything at face value, why not take this passage in the same way?  However, the question for us today is not how to win arguments with people about the Bible.  Rather, the question for us is, “What is God’s message for us today in this gospel?”

    Is God telling all of us to get rid of everything and give it all away?  Do we have to give away everything to the poor, leave our families behind and go live in the jungle somewhere as missionaries in order to inherit eternal life?  The short, and perhaps not particularly helpful answer would be: Yes and no.  For some of you, the answer might be “yes.”  For others, the answer will be “no.”  But let’s look into the gospel a little bit further and find out.

    Perhaps we could begin by asking what we really know about the man who comes and asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk. 10:17).  In the gospel of Mark, we are told the following: The man has many possessions.  He has kept all of the commandments from his youth.  And, he believes that he must do something in order to inherit eternal life.

    He is actually the perfect picture of a religious man.  He has kept all of the commandments. (How many of us can say that!?)  Although he is obviously wealthy, he has not gained his wealth by defrauding others.  Apparently, he is an honest man.  Anybody looking at him in Jesus’ day would be sure to say, “Here is a good man who has been blessed by God!  Surely God will reward him with eternal life.”

    However, then Jesus goes and blows all of their religious assumptions right out of the water.  First of all, Jesus points out that only God is good.  Do you see what he’s saying here?  If only God is good, then none of us are.  Even this man who has kept all of the commandments is not “good” in God’s eyes.  Secondly, Jesus has the audacity to suggest that this man should sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor.  To the man in question, these possessions were symbols of how he had been blessed by God.  He understood his possessions to be kind of like rewards for good behaviour.  Here God had blessed him with all of this “stuff” and Jesus is telling him to get rid of it all.

    You see, in order to follow Jesus and inherit eternal life, this particular man was going to have to get rid of some of his cherished religious assumptions.  First of all, he had to get rid of the assumption that he could actually do something in order to gain God’s favour – in order to inherit eternal life.  Actually, this man is far from alone in this assumption.  I hear people make statements all the time telling others how good they have been and why God should be rewarding them.  “I always went to church.  I always helped out other people.  Why should I be suffering like this now?”  It’s almost like children who maybe clean up their room without being asked because they want to get something from their parents.

    Maybe we have this idea stuck in there since childhood that if we do good things for God, then God will do good things for us.  It’s like this cherished illusion that we have of how things should work.  However, God rarely acts in the ways in which we think God should act!  God does not wait for us to be good before giving us love and affection.  In fact, we learn from the Scriptures that “while we still were sinners” God loved us and saved us (Rom. 5:8).  God always acts first.  God always loves us first.  Anything we do is in response to God’s love and by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

    And so, this is the first thing that the man who comes to Jesus needs to learn: There isn’t anything that he can do that will give him eternal life.  After all, can you really do something to get an inheritance from somebody?  Eternal life is something that God gives and not something that we earn.

    Of course, the second assumption which this man needs to get rid of has to do with his possessions.  Obviously, his possessions are more important to him than either following Jesus or inheriting eternal life.  He has no concept of being able to be free of possessions and yet blessed by God.  He also has no concept of what it means to rely on God for all that is needed, for he is used to providing everything for himself.

    In fact, this is probably the one thing that makes it more difficult for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.  They are used to relying on themselves.  They don’t have to depend on anybody else.  As such, they have a very hard time relying on God for the gift of salvation and eternal life.

    Yet, notice that it is not only the wealthy who will have a hard time.  The word in the gospel is for everybody: “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” (Mk. 10:24-25).  This is one of those texts where it’s interesting to see how people have tried to add to it or change it over the years in order to try and make it more “possible” to enter the kingdom of God.  

    Some changed one letter in the Greek word for “camel” in order to make it “rope” instead.  Surely you could get at least part of the rope into the eye of a needle!?  Others decided that it really referred to a “Needle’s Eye” gate in Jerusalem where an unloaded camel could just barely crawl through.  However, this seems to be merely speculation and actually undermines Jesus’ whole point.  What Jesus is saying is that it is impossible for everyone – even for the wealthy and for those who keep the commandments.  And then Jesus looks around in the midst of all of the perplexity and astonishment and says, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (Mk. 10:27).

    God is the one who acts to save us, but how hard it is for us to accept God’s gracious gift of salvation!  We think that we want eternal life, but we are attached to so many different things that can get in the way: our money, our possessions, our cherished assumptions and ideas, our families, our houses.  None of these are bad things in and of themselves, but if they prevent us from following Jesus, they need to be left behind.  This is the challenge of the gospel to each and every one of us.

    And so, what is God’s message for us today in this gospel?  Some of us may indeed need to sell everything, give it to the poor, leave our families behind and go off into the jungle somewhere to be missionaries.  If that’s the only way that we will be able to learn to rely on God’s grace and salvation, then we need to do it!  Eternal life is at stake!

    Of course, others among us might be able to learn to rely on God’s grace and salvation right where we are right now.  However, we need to stand ready to clear out all of those things of a human nature which are going to get in the way.  And sometimes, God even clears those things out for us, although usually we don’t like it much at the time.  However, in the end we discover that God’s grace is, indeed, sufficient for us, for God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).  Amen.

Lectionary 28(B)                                Mark 10:17-31
October 14, 2012
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2012 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved