This week, we hear an uncomfortable story from Mark 10 where Jesus tells a rich man to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Shocked, the man goes away grieving, “for he had many possessions.”
In this sermon, I wrestle with how we understand and follow this tough command from Jesus. A sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost on Mark 10:17-31. I can’t link to it, but I greatly appreciated a Facebook comment from Joseph O’Donnell as a framework for looking at this tough lesson.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
So, following last week’s reading with Jesus teaching about divorce, we continue today in Mark 10 with Jesus telling a man that to inherit eternal life, he needs to sell everything he has and give it all to the poor.
This seems like a good moment to invite you to come back next week for a wonderful, encouraging reading about the importance of gratitude. It’s a much…nicer, more comfortable reading!
I’m uncomfortable with this teaching, because, to be blunt, I don’t follow it. I like to think I’m a fairly generous person.
I hope I do good things with my money. But I have a lot of stuff. I have retirement accounts.
I don’t know how you take seriously anything anyone with an iPhone 13 says about this passage (but the quality of my online sermon videos has improved dramatically in the last couple weeks!).
Some people, probably fewer today than in the past, but some people insist the first part of this chapter with the teachings about divorce be taken literally.
And yet, over the nearly two thousand years since Jesus said these lines, other than some groups of monks and nuns who took vows of poverty, almost no one has followed this section literally, let alone insisted others follow it literally.
In fact, if you hear these words from Jesus and you come up to me after service and say, “Pastor, I’m so inspired by Jesus today. I’m going to sell everything I have and give away all my money.” I’m going to discourage you. Maybe you should spend some more time praying about it first. When you tell your family, they’re going to suggest you get your mental health checked out.
I don’t think it’s faithful to just ignore what Jesus says, so what do we do with this story? Let me share with you a few ways I wrestle with this.
Number One: Remember there are other places in the Bible where God is in favor of planning ahead, saving, working hard so you’ll be rewarded. There are plenty of verses like Proverbs 20:5 – “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” Scripture talks about the reward of working hard, and planning ahead, following the example of the ant who stores up food for winter. That’s much closer to the capitalism I’m comfortable with and benefit from.
Option number two: Maybe it’s not earning or having money and wealth that prevents you from entering God’s kingdom, but more how you use it. Maybe it’s ok to have lots of wealth, as long as you do good things with it. John Wesley famously told Christians to “Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.” After all, think how much more good you can do if you have a hundred thousand dollars to give away versus a hundred.
I actually really like this one, but of course, Jesus didn’t say anything to the man in this story about how he should use his money other than giving it all away, which would mean giving up control over it, giving up the benefits of having it.
Also, saying your eternal life depends on how you use your money sounds awfully close to earning salvation, buying your way into heaven, like whether you get into God’s kingdom is up to the choices you make rather than God’s grace. We know that won’t work out well.
So, option number three. Jesus himself gives us an out, right in this reading! “For humans this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” I like that one because it’s about relying on God’s grace, and as we’re talking about in confirmation this month, relying on God’s grace is kind of what we’re all about as Lutherans.
But still, it seems like a pretty big loophole, like it negates everything Jesus said about the dangers of wealth in the first place. But maybe Jesus’ point is that we should throw up our hands in defeat when we hear this command, because it proves we can’t be good enough to get into heaven; we need God’s grace.
Number four: I don’t think this is very plausible or helpful, but some interpreters have argued maybe this is one of those commands just for a particular person. Jesus just wants this particular rich guy to sell his things; it’s not a command for us. That’d be convenient, but a pretty big stretch, I think.
There’s also some speculation about how maybe the eye of the needle was a particular gate in the Jerusalem city wall that wasn’t quite large enough for a camel, but if it was a small camel with no baggage and you pushed really hard, maybe it could fit. That’s a pretty big stretch too.
Or, maybe all of those options and whatever else we could come up with are trying to soften what Jesus said, when Jesus actually meant what he said.
Maybe Jesus did actually intend for his followers to sell all our possessions and use the money to help the poor. I’d much rather find some excuse, some interpretation to get around it, but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe as I preach on this text, I don’t need to try to make following Jesus sound more appealing. Maybe this faith we’re baptizing Memphis and Eleanor into this weekend is supposed to be challenging.
Maybe I shouldn’t try to make us feel better about the fact that we’re all in at least the top 20% wealthiest people in the world. Perhaps that should cause tension.
But I’m going to try to resolve it anyway, and pray and trust that God will forgive me if I’m misleading you away from what Jesus intended. I hope I’m not.
So, notice a few things in this story that might be helpful.
First, notice the man’s wealth left him unfulfilled. He had many possessions, yet he came to Jesus looking for something he couldn’t buy. Plenty of people can testify that giving up stuff is spiritually freeing.
We spend an ungodly amount—and I choose the word ungodly intentionally—an ungodly amount of energy protecting and caring for the stuff we have. Letting even some of it go can be liberating.
Second, notice how Jesus reacts to the rich man. Verse 21: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Jesus loved him. Jesus didn’t give up on him. That’s important, and encouraging for us.
Notice—and I think this is really interesting—Jesus tells the guy, “You know the commandments” and he lists them—“don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, honor your parents”—those are from the Ten Commandments, but Jesus doesn’t mention the first group of commandments, the ones about worshiping and serving only God, not misusing God’s name, and honoring the Sabbath.
The first three commandments are all about our relationship with God, and Jesus doesn’t even mention those. Instead, their conversation revolves around the man’s goodness, but Jesus sets him up to fail by first establishing that only God is good.
We talked about this last week. On a scale of comparison from us to God, even the best of us fall impossibly short. None of us can make it to heaven on our own, no matter how good we are, because we are all sinful. We all break some of these commandments.
This rich man says he’s kept all the—I’m going to call them the earthly commandments, the ones about how we get along with other people, sometimes they’re called the second table of the law—he’s kept those commandments.
His problem is in the first set. His problem is in his relationship with God.
Wealth can provide all sorts of earthly benefits, safety, security, good medical treatment, free time, but it can’t give eternal life. He’s used his wealth to stay in control of his life, but to enter heaven, he needs to trust God.
He needs to recognize who he is in relationship to God. He needs to give up control, and for him, that means giving up his wealth. His problem isn’t any of those commands about how to treat his neighbors, but the one about keeping God as God. He’s made his wealth into an idol.
What is it for you? What gets in the way of trusting God? What is it for you that becomes an idol, that you trust instead of God?
Your job? The size of your retirement account? Education? Prestige? Your family? A need to be in control, in charge?
What might God be calling you to let go of? What does that step of faith look like for you?
Mark doesn’t tell us what happens to the rich guy after this. He went away, but is this the end of his story? I hope not. With God, all things are possible, and God doesn’t give up on any of us.
Amen