Text: Mark 10:17-31
We will focus on stewardship in the month of November, leading up to our Stewardship Sunday. But I am struck that if we really pay attention to the gospels, we don’t need to set aside a particular day as Stewardship Sunday or a special month as Stewardship month. Reading straight through the gospels, about every other week is Stewardship Sunday--that is how often Jesus speaks of wealth!
In today’s lesson, a rich man runs to Jesus and kneels before him. He is popularly known as the Rich Young Ruler, but it is interesting that he is nowhere described in that way. Mark only reports that he has many possessions. Matthew says that he was a young man, and Luke says that “a certain ruler” came to Jesus. Add it all up, and you have a rich young ruler.
We are fond of labeling people. He is an old white guy, she is a Goth, he is a Geek, she is a Latina, they are nouveau riche. But this tendency to label people did not start in our day. In the first century, it was even more common to label and stereotype people than it is today. This is important to know, because in our story, this man is labeled. We read that he is a rich man. This is his label, his group. This is the most important thing to know about him.
This rich man kneels before Jesus. Right away, this is a red flag: this is not the posture a rich man would ordinarily take. Rich people do not kneel before poor people. Elites do not kneel before common folk, and Jesus was common folk. So this gesture took a lot for the rich man. He clearly thought a great deal of Jesus. He kneels down and addresses Jesus by saying, “Good Teacher, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The man seems very respectful of Jesus, but Jesus does not want the flattery. “Why do you call me good?” he asks. “No one is good but God.”
Then Jesus describes what the law asks. He lists the commandments having to do with personal relationships, and the rich man replies that he has kept the law since he was a youth.
So far, so good. The man is described as rich, but his behavior shows that he is also respectful and pious. He genuinely wants to do the right thing. And the scripture says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. Surprisingly, this is the only occasion in Mark where it says Jesus loved somebody. This man comes to Jesus, he is deeply interested in what Jesus has to offer, he has kept God’s law, and Jesus instinctively cares for this man.
This is almost too good to be true. If we were to describe someone we would like to have come and visit our church, this is the guy. A rich, religious, sincere, respectful person shows up seeking God. And did I mention he was rich?
But despite his model behavior and attention to the law, something is not right. This man realizes something is missing. Jesus can see that something is not quite right with this picture. There was something keeping this man from God, something standing in the way of his spiritual growth, something blocking his ability to receive God’s gift.
It was his wealth. Before he could receive God’s gift, he had to let go of what he was clinging to so tightly, and for him, it was his possessions. So Jesus tells him what he must do – not in anger, not in condescension, but in love, because he wants what is best for this man. He tells him he lacks one thing—to sell what he owned, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Simon and Andrew and James and John had left their nets and their careers as fishermen to follow Jesus; Levi had left his toll booth and his job as a tax collector to follow Jesus; this man is asked to leave behind his wealth and follow Jesus.
But the man was shocked by Jesus’ demands. And so were the disciples. There was a longstanding tradition that wealth was a sign of God’s favor. While the Old Testament warns about the danger of riches and the folly of trusting wealth, it also speaks of riches as a sign of God’s blessing. I Chronicles 29:12 says, “Riches and honor come from you.” Proverbs 22:4 states that “The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life.”
The prosperity gospel--the idea that God will bless you if you have enough faith--was not invented by modern-day televangelists. It has been around a long time. And in the first century, the rich were closer to God, at least in the sense of following the standards of ritual law.
If a person were wealthy, one could afford to closely follow the law. The poor had to work hard to just survive on a day-to-day basis and did not have the time or resources to follow purity laws or give alms. The poor might have to take a job tanning animal hides or working with the sick or burying the dead, all of which made a person unclean. The rich could much more easily follow the law. You might remember Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof singing “If I Were A Rich Man.” In that song, he basically says that if he were rich, he would have time to be holy:
If I were rich I’d have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray
And maybe have a seat by the eastern wall
And I’d discuss the holy books
With the learned men
Seven hours hour every day
That could be the sweetest thing of all.
So there was not only this tradition that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, there was also some truth to that idea that rich people were able to more closely follow the law and thus they were viewed as being closer to God. It was one of the perks of being rich.
So the disciples were as perplexed as anyone when Jesus asked this man to give away his riches. Why would anybody do that? Why consign yourself to being farther from God?
But Jesus not only asked that the man let go of his riches, he goes step further and confuses everybody by saying that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Did you catch that? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
This is where we really start to have trouble. Forget about the disciples having a hard time with Jesus’ words; we have a hard time with Jesus’ words. If anyone tells you the Bible means what it says and says what it means, that they don’t have to interpret the Bible but just read it and believe it and do it, direct them to this passage.
We try to get around this teaching of Jesus in all kinds of ways. It bothers us and has always bothered us. There are a few Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that have the word “rope” instead of “camel.” There is only one letter different in the Greek word for camel and the word for a hawser, or the rope used to anchor a ship. Apparently, the idea of a camel going through the eye of a needle was such a hard teaching that scribes who copied the Bible felt that what was intended there must have been “rope” and not “camel.”
And then there is the interpretation that this referred to a gate in the temple wall called the Needle Gate that was very narrow and which a camel could only with great difficulty pass through. The problem with this is that it was the ninth century before anyone came up with this explanation.
This interpretation would be roughly equal to a modern claim that Jesus did not mean a camel as in the animal, but a Camel cigarette. The point is, this is such a tough teaching that we want to look for loopholes.
Another way to find a loophole is to simply say that we are not rich. Stacey Simpson is now an American Baptist pastor in Michigan. When she was a child, she was reading the Bible in bed, and she came to this verse and just couldn’t believe it. So she ran to her parent’s bedroom and woke up her mother, who was asleep. She was very upset and told her mother that Jesus said rich people couldn’t go to heaven. Her mother said, “Don’t worry, honey, we’re not rich.” But still, it bothered this little girl.
A child reads this and takes Jesus at face value. And perhaps she knew better than her mother that they were rich. In our world, if you have a place to live with central heat and running water and electricity and two changes of clothes and no worries over where your meals are coming from, you are rich.
We may try to get out of this statement of Jesus by finding various loopholes, but I’m not sure it works.
What do we have to do to inherit eternal life? If we are wealthy, we have to do something like thread the eye of a needle with a camel. It wouldn’t have had to be a camel, Jesus could have said a rope and the result is the same. He could have said an unfiltered Camel cigarette or a canned ham, but the result is the same: you can’t do it.
At this point, let’s step back for a moment. Let’s go back to the commandments Jesus lists. He does not say you shall not covet, but instead he says, “You shall not defraud.” For a rich man, defrauding another might be a bigger temptation than coveting. Many of those who had accumulated wealth in the ancient world had done so at the expense of others—by exploiting and abusing and defrauding. As far as we can tell, this man had not done so. But perhaps his father had. Perhaps his family had become rich by exploiting the poor, and this man inherited his wealth.
Which is an interesting thought, because that is the way he wants to get eternal life: he wants to inherit it. What must I do to inherit eternal life? That is really an odd question, isn’t it?
Well, how do we inherit anything? What do we have to do in order to inherit? This is an odd question because inheritance is not about what we do; it is about to whom we are related.
We cannot do anything to gain eternal life. We are with the rich man, trying to get that camel through the eye of the needle, and it’s not working. Thankfully, Jesus says, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God, all things are possible.”
The story is told of the guy who dies and is standing before St. Peter at the pearly gates. St. Peter explains the point system: you tell us what you’ve done, we give you points for it, and if you make 10,000 points, you get in. The guy rubs his chin somewhat nervously, but only a little, because he's been really good, and he starts in on the list. “Well, I was a minister in the Baptist Church for fifty years and dedicated my working life to the church.” St. Peter perfunctorily says, “100 points.” Oohh, that’s not very many points, the poor guy thinks. He goes on: “I was married to the same woman for 55 years, and faithful the whole time. We raised four children—one is a teacher, one is a doctor, one is a pastor, and one is a missionary.” St. Peter says, ”100 points,” and adds it onto his page. Yikes, this is going to be really tough, the guy thinks. “I was a member of Rotary and volunteered countless hours helping my community.” 100 points. “I didn’t drink or smoke or swear or cheat or lie.” St. Peter adds another 50 points. “Oh, my,” the guy says, sweating profusely now. “If I get into heaven at all, it will be by the grace of God.” “Grace of God!” St. Peter shouts. “10,000 points---you’re IN!”
This is exactly the point Jesus is making. Eternal life is not about what we do, it is about what God does. In the end, it is pure grace.
Eternal life is God’s doing, it is pure grace, but there is a temptation to make God’s grace into a way out from having to listen to the truth Jesus spoke to the rich man. God’s grace can become another loophole.
Eternal life is God’s gift, but the one way we can miss out on a gift is by not accepting it. It is possible to hold so tightly onto something that we cannot open our hands to accept anything else.
The rich man was clinging so tightly to his possessions that he could not accept God’s gift. The same may be true of us. And the fact is, it is very difficult for us to seriously consider that our wealth might keep us from God.
Mark Twain once said that people holding four aces do not tend to call for re-deals. Considering what our wealth might do to us spiritually is not something we are anxious to do. Jesus told the rich man that he had to change. He was following the letter of the law but missing the point of the law, the heart of the law.
Jesus’ challenge to the man to sell his possessions, give to the poor and follow him was a way of exposing a flaw in the man’s keeping of the commandments. Jesus’ challenge exposed what was missing: a sense of compassion. The commandments are not a checklist of rules to be followed but characteristics of one living the eternal life God offers. Jesus describes what eternal life looks like: it is seen in compassionate action for the poor, in giving all one has in following Christ. Eternal life is not only a future with God; it is also living God’s kingdom here and now.
You may remember that Jesus did not simply ask the rich man to sell his possessions; it was sell your possessions and follow me. The problem was not simply his possessions; it was that his possessions kept him from following.
What are we holding onto tightly that keeps us from more closely following Jesus? Perhaps we are clinging to old ways of thinking and doing. Maybe we hold on tightly to our reputation, our power, our need for control. But like the man in this story, it may well be our possessions. I wonder - is our desire to accumulate money and stuff greater than our desire to see God’s reign of peace and justice and righteousness? Greater than our compassion for the poor? I wonder - what is it that keeps us from following?
What if we rewrote the story of the rich man? Maybe it would go like this:
“Sell my possessions? I have no possessions. I am just a steward. All I have belongs to God and is to be used to create a community where all God’s creatures can benefit from the goodness of creation.”
And Jesus said to him, “Wow! Welcome to the kingdom of God! That is a totally un-human way of thinking. That understanding is more difficult to come to then a camel going through the eye of a needle!” And the man said, “All things are possible with God!”(1)
May it be so. Amen.
(1) suggested in a conversation over the Internet--I lost track of whose contribution this was.
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