What Must I Do?

A man, described as young and rich here, and a ruler in the parallel story in Luke 18, kneels before Jesus, calls him Good Teacher, and asks the question of the ages, “What must I do to inherit perpetual life?”  We might ask the question this way in our time, “What must I do to live forever?”  That’s THE ultimate  question—how do I beat death?  So maybe we might want to listen carefully to what Jesus has to say in response.

To set the context in Mark, Jesus has been answering some tough questions the past few weeks.  But what is interesting is that as people ask Jesus one question, Jesus shifts the worldview, answering another question.  When the Pharisees asked about divorce last week, Jesus shifted the context and answered them about marriage.  Today, this young man asks Jesus about inheriting eternal life, and Jesus answers about a way to live this life right now, here, today.  Interesting.  And instructive, don’t you think?  So let’s listen in on this amazing conversation.

Will you pray with me?  “Dear One who knows the answers to the questions we don’t even know how to ask yet, thank you for listening to our seeking and growing.  Thank you for walking with us.  And thank you for this community of faith that gathers here to seek you earnestly.  Amen.”

Oh, how many ways have each of us heard of trying to explain this passage away?  Rich people everywhere—and in biblical terms we ARE rich people—rich people have always tried to soften this passage just a bit.  I have heard of small gates in the wall of the city of Jerusalem being called the Eye of the Needle, so that you could get a camel through on its knees if you worked very hard at it.  I have heard people say this passage is literal, or its a metaphor, but I want to ask you to suspend what you think you know about this passage for just a moment and listen to this conversation between Jesus and this young man kneeling before him seeking eternal life.  This young man comes with a question out of personal self-interest—What must I do to get to heaven—and Jesus turns it into an answer about what it means to live in community on this earth together.  Watch and listen.

Jesus’ first response to this question of eternal life is that only God is good.  Jesus says, “Don’t call me good—only God is good.”  What clue does this give us about Jesus’ frame of reference?  This man asks about what he can do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus talks about God.  This man asks about his own salvation, and Jesus immediately responds, this is not about you, fella, it is about God.  God is the good one.  We can do nothing to earn an inheritance from our Good God.  God is the one who grants the inheritance of life everlasting.  Jesus immediately reminds us this is not about what we do as people, but about what God is doing for us!  Eternal life is about God, it is about God’s gift.  Eternal life is not about us!

How is that for a perspective-changing answer?  And we haven’t really even gotten to Jesus’ answer yet.  But we now know that Jesus is responding from a totally different worldview from this man or his culture.  Jesus is talking from a perspective that changes everything, both then and now. 

And now watch what Jesus does.  Jesus says, well, you know the commandments, and then Jesus lists Commandments 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, and then adds a prohibition of fraud from Deuteronomy 24.  The addition of fraud is interesting here, and gives us an amazing insight into the business world of the first century, which must have been full of fraud for Jesus to add it here.  But this man was, apparently, an honest business-person.  He tells Jesus that he has followed all of these rules and led an exemplary life, and Jesus does not challenge him.  So listen to what the man said, “Jesus, I have followed all of the rules of our religion, but I still lack eternal life.  What’s wrong, Jesus?  Why has religion failed me?”

Now watch what Jesus does.  He uses this man’s own success at following the rules to show us that religious rule-following does not save us.  Jesus does not attack religion, but moves toward what is needed to save this young man.  Jesus says, “Even with your good life, you lack one thing.”
So, what is this one thing lacking for, in modern terms, salvation.  In our modern times, evangelical Christians would say the one thing this man needs to profess Jesus as his personal savior.  But Jesus does NOT say that.  When this man asks how to be saved, Jesus responds that this man lacks relationship to his community.  And to my hearing, the lack of community addresses the core of the man’s real issue with not “being saved.”  What this man really lacks, according to Jesus, is the true priority of his life aligned with God and his community.  How do we know this?  Listen:
Jesus says, “Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor and come and follow me.”  Now I know that most interpreters hear these words through the young man’s ears, but let’s stop a moment and hear them through Jesus’ ears.  This man has accumulated great wealth.  Jesus simply reminds him and us that the first commandment is always to love your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind, and the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus says to this man, your personal wealth shows me that your first priority in life is not loving God and your neighbor.  Reset your priorities, young man!  Share what you have.  Put God and your community first, Jesus says.  Then, you will inherit eternal life.  Change your ways and live your life focused on the two main commandments of life.  Share love and share stuff.  Share.  That’s it.  Live a life that demonstrates that you love God and neighbor, and the inheritance of eternal life will flow from your priority of love.  It is so simple.  So radical.

But also, impossibly hard.  Did you know that lower income people in America give away a greater percentage of their income to charity than rich people do?  The richer people become in America, the lower the percentage of their income they give away to others.  Why?  Well, you tell me.  Our culture worships money as a security blanket, thinking that money alone will save us from hunger, save us from being naked, save us from homelessness.  Of course, money does do all of these things, but Jesus here reminds us that money and wealth are also the biggest stumbling block to our spiritual growth and relationship with the living God.  If we only depend on money for security, we neglect God as our only rock and our only salvation.

I learned early in childhood that I handled my Halloween horde of candy differently than my brothers and sisters.  I was one of the careful slow eaters—you know—the kind of kid that still has a stash of candy on Thanksgiving.  My brothers and sister were all instant-gratification gorgers.  They ate their stash as quickly as they could.  Of course, my brothers and sisters all knew I carefully rationed out my candy, and they begged me for some.  In my childish stubbornness, I would say No.  And after a day or so, they would suddenly stop asking.  I always wondered why.  As it turns out, my mom always had a stash to share, and she would give my siblings candy until my stash was gone.  The year I figured this out, I also realized they got more candy this way—their Halloween haul and the candy they got from Mom.  And I realized my hording and refusal to share had worked against me.  I learned a valuable lesson in my Halloween candy escapade—when sharing, we actually can get more than when we horde.  The next year I shared—we all shared, and we all shared in the extra treats from Mom.  When we share, we all prosper and get along better.  But, is sharing candy different than sharing the abundance of our life’s work?  [pause]

Some interpret this story of this rich young ruler to mean that Jesus commands everyone to sell everything and give it to the poor.  That literal interpretation of this story is not the lesson we most need to hear.  I think the meaning of this story is deeper than that.  This story is about our priorities in life.  Jesus is asking us, “What is your first priority, your deepest love?  What is most important to you?  Is it God and neighbor, or money?”

Let’s look closely at the passage again, and the young man’s response to Jesus.  “He was shocked, and went away grieving, for he was rich.”  Actually, this is the first time in this passage we find out he is rich.  But I love the ambiguity of this unspoken response.  What did the man actually then do?  Many assume he left shocked and changed nothing, continuing to accumulate his wealth and ignoring Jesus’ call.  But could there be another possible response hidden here?  Did he go home, completely grieving that he had lived his life so far with all the wrong priorities, and after some soul-searching, perhaps then took Jesus’ advice to turn his life around?  What do you think?  Many assume he did nothing different, but I passionately want to believe this young ruler changed his life as he continued to seek, and it finally dawned on him what was most important.  People change.  Even I learned to share my candy, and through my life, much more.

Money.  It is the great imposter in this world.  Money gives people false security.  When we have money, we don’t really have to ask ourselves the question this young man asked Jesus.  It’s just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die.  Oops.  Money can’t stop that.  Money allows us to ignore the real questions in life for awhile.  But someday, poor health or loss of loved ones or some tragic event uncovers the plain fact that money does not buy health or happiness or spiritual maturity or an escape from death.  Money is not the final coin of the universe, love is.  We try to substitute money for courage, for morality, for goodness or for love, but we eventually discover it cannot buy an abundant spiritual life.  This young man was hiding behind his money and his good rule-following life, but he came to Jesus, asking the most basic question of all.  Jesus, I have followed all of the rules!  Is this all there is?

And Jesus says, “No, that is not all there is.  There is more to life than rule-following and accumulation of stuff.”  Instead, Jesus simply says, share what you have, here, now, today.  Live a gracious life of loving God and one another as you love yourself.  Share in community—this is the antidote to selfishness and the key to eternal life!  Don’t miss this teaching, folks.  Jesus tells this young man—and us!-- that sharing in community is the key to perpetual life—both the key to life in heaven this young man was asking about and the key to the Kingdom of Heaven that we find here among us on earth.  Jesus says the key to the Kingdom of heaven is to share love and share stuff.  There you have it.
And then, the disciples say to Jesus, “Wow, this is a hard teaching; then who can be saved?”  And Jesus goes right back where he started his answer to the young man.  You are right, Jesus says.  Only our good God can save us.  We get to heaven only by God’s gift of grace.  Humankind cannot earn its way into heaven.  A human trying to work into heaven is like trying to cram a camel through the eye of a needle.  Isn’t going to happen in this physical world.  But, all things are possible to God—even saving wretched camel-stuffers like us.  This makes no sense in our physical world, where money is King and wealth is worshipped.  But in God’s Realm, in God’s world, in that place where love and stuff is shared, all things are possible.

And then, Jesus laughs.  Everything this world values, everything this world holds as important is just trying to stuff camels through needle eyes.  Our world tries to gain happiness in exactly the wrong way.  Everything that is first and most important in this world is wrongheaded —it is up-side-down!  All of our worldly measures of wealth are last in God’s Realm.  The many who are wealthy and first in this world will be last in God’s Realm, and those that seem last and poor and humble and meek in this world will be first in God’s Kingdom among us.  Share! Jesus says.  Radically live your life with the love of God and love of neighbor as your top priorities, and watch how heaven appears at your doorstep.
“What must I do to inherit the Kingdom?” the young man implored Jesus.  Did you notice what the passage says next?  Jesus looked at him and loving him, gave him the keys to the Kingdom by saying, “Get your priorities straight, and heaven will come to you as your inheritance.”

So now, sisters and brothers, all that is left is for us to go and do likewise.  And Amen.