Sermon for Time after Pentecost – Mark 10:17-31

Is it just me, or has Jesus been pretty harsh lately? Last week he condemned divorce as adultery. Before that he told us that if our hand or eye causes us to sin, chop it out, like some gory movie. I’d like to hear THAT children’s sermon! Did Pastor Kirk do one? Glad I didn’t have to! Today it sounds like Jesus is still putting the thumbscrews on everyone. Sell everything and give the money to the poor. Everyone’s favorite verse. Oh wait – isn’t Stewardship Sunday coming up? How appropriate! Or maybe not. Isn’t stewardship about wisely managing our resources for the benefit of others? Hard to do if you give everything away. What’s Jesus trying to accomplish here?

Well, let’s take a closer look at the story. Jesus is setting out on a journey. Some guy catches up, kneels before Jesus, and asks what he has to do to inherit eternal life. Now, we don’t know much about this guy. We don’t know his name or where he’s from. The only thing that the gospel tells us is that he had many possessions. He’s rich. He’s got excess. Plenty to spare. Nice work if you can get it, right?

Now, when we encounter rich folks in scripture, it’s like they’re always proud or greedy or dishonest. Deep down, don’t we think that way too? When we find out someone’s rich, don’t we get really curious how they made their money? It’s like we automatically smell a rat. So this rich guy asks Jesus what he has to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus gives him the laundry list of commandments. So you figure he says with pride – “oh, I’ve kept all those since I was a kid.” Kind of sounds like a Pharisee, right? But there’s one tiny detail that’s so easy to miss. How does this guy show up? He runs. That’s interesting. The gospel of Mark usually just uses words like come and go. But not here. He runs. Rich folks never run anywhere. They don’t have to. So it’s like he’s afraid he might miss Jesus. Jesus is already heading out of town, so he sees his window closing. Well, what does that sound like? Desperation? Fear? Some secret problem? Maybe the kind of problem that makes him drop to his knees in exhaustion because he’s not used to running. Maybe he breathlessly asks Jesus, “what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Does that sound like pride? No. He’s consumed. He’s desperate for some word of assurance from Jesus. This is a true come to Jesus moment.

But does Jesus give him assurance? Not really. Jesus just gives him a laundry list of commandments that he already knows. And Jesus knows that. So it’s a non-answer, because Jesus knows the poor rich guy is about to answer his own question. “Teacher, I’ve kept all these since my youth.” But if he’s so desperate, then deep-down what he really means is that I’ve followed all the rules and it didn’t make a difference. See, he doesn’t actually have a money problem. He’s got a God problem. He doesn’t believe in a God of mercy or generosity. He only believes in a God of law. Listen to his question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? It’s a broken question. How do you earn an inheritance? You can’t. Inheritance means gift. If you earn it, then it’s not an inheritance. It’s a wage. He says “inheritance” only because it’s just the word he was always taught about God. He doesn’t really believe that God gives away anything for free. So he comes to Jesus, the king of forgiveness, but he doesn’t want forgiveness. He only wants another law to follow, because none of the others have given him even a shred of the peace that he’s desperate for.

And what Jesus says next is one of the hardest verses of Mark to understand. So the gospel prepares us for it. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. He’s the only person that the gospel of Mark singles out as being loved by Jesus. No one else. Just him. And we need to know how much Jesus loves him, because Jesus gives him exactly what he wants. One more law. But a truly impossible law. “Sell everything you have and give the money to the poor.” He’s shocked. All he can do is walk away in grief and emptiness. But how is that even remotely love? Because Jesus reveals the law for what it is. No law will ever give him or us any peace. The law can’t save – it can only accuse. It can only point out our failure. It hits us every time we encounter people begging at the offramps from 65 and 465. God commands us to care for the poor. But we don’t know if they’ll buy food or drugs. They may not actually be homeless. Experts urge – don’t give handouts but only to agencies that know what they’re doing. We know how it feels when we look forward and pretend they’re not there and don’t give. Or we do give and get the nagging thought that we don’t know if we’re helping or hurting. Maybe we can’t help without enabling. Yet God’s commandment remains clear and unyielding. So deep-down we know Jesus meant it. Sell everything we have and give it all to the poor, because that’s finally what separates us from each other. We’re trapped.

There’s a saying that keeps popping up in my Facebook lately. Let go of the thing that’s killing you, even though it kills you to let it go. It sounds noble, but it’s deadly. You die either way. But you know who knows a thing or two about death? Jesus does. Remember how he was setting out on a journey? Thank God we know exactly where he’s going. He’s going to the cross, for our sake. Because Jesus knows we’re trapped, and he loves us too much to let that be the last word for you or for me. He suffers and dies our death, so that in three days he might rise from the grave. He binds our brokenness to his own body so that he might bind his resurrection to us, and raise us with him. Not that we asked him to. We’re too busy killing ourselves but he’s not going to wait for us to turn around. He doesn’t have time for that. He just up and does it to us anyway. And not just once, but each and every time you hear his unconditional word – I forgive you. Unearned. Undeserved. Always freely given. It’s our true inheritance by Jesus’ undying love for us.

Thank God for that, because disciples mess up. God’s law may be clear, but when the rubber meets the road we’re not sure. We live in a broken world full of unintended consequences despite our determination. It’s like how once upon a time, monastic orders kept the price of their goods below other sellers because they thought profit was a sin, which naturally destroyed everyone else’s business, because everyone loves a bargain. Or it’s like the pious wealthy Christians of the early church who wanted to launder their gains by making huge donations to the church. Net result: an insanely wealthy church with all the attendant problems. I had a pastor friend in Chicago who talked about this big Italian guy in his congregation who used to always supply expensive food for congregational dinners. My friend would ask where it came from. The guy would say “eh fell off a truck.” My friend was so suspicious. I think he needed to stop watching The Sopranos. We give to the poor even though we may be enabling something, because we cling to the hope that it helps. Sometimes we’re afraid to be generous, but we trust in the God of abundance who always supplies our true needs, and everything comes from God. Maybe subconsciously we don’t totally trust God and really just serve to try and earn our salvation, no matter how many sermons tell us otherwise. We’re all murky like that. But at the end of the day, our gracious God knows how to get stuff done with all of it, a little or a lot. And the Spirit will be there to brace us with faith.

Great for us, but what about the poor rich guy? He walked away grieving and just vanishes. What happened to him? Mark doesn’t say. But Mark also loves open endings. He ends with the women running away froom the empty tomb terrified, and we don’t know if they told anyoone. So, maybe the guy just got more tight-fisted. Maybe he gave up trying to keep the law since Jesus made it impossible. But what if he was in the crowd at the foot of the cross? What if he was the young man dressed in white who met the women at the empty tomb and proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection? What if our real hope is that we trust the God of open endings, like Mark does? Because God is still speaking. Thanks be to God.