Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol, UCC
August 2, 2009
Mark 10:17-22
Most of us know this story as the story of the rich young ruler, although Mark is the only one who suggests he is rich, Matthew is the only one who says he is young, and Luke is the only one who calls him a ruler. But whoever he was, rich, young, a ruler or all of the above, he shows up in the three gospels. For some reason he did not make the cut in John. But I confess that as a preacher and a Christian and a resident of still mostly affluent Sonoma County, there are times when I wish he wouldn’t have made the cut in any of them. Because of him and his encounter with Jesus, we have what has to be one of the hardest, most difficult, most challenging teachings in the entire Bible; one that can strike fear into the hearts of Christians everywhere: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
“Sell everything you have and follow me…” Great! Just we wanted to hear. Pretty much ruins the afternoon trip to the mall. Jesus spoke these words in answer to the man’s question about eternal life. Why couldn’t he have just kept his rich, young ruler mouth shut? Now what are we going to do? For like that young man, there is no denying that most of us have many possessions. Oh, we may not consider ourselves rich, especially in these less than certain economic times. I certainly don’t think of myself as rich. But, compared with the vast majority of humanity now living, or who have ever lived, we are indeed pretty rich – warm homes, plenty to eat, plenty to wear and we have a lot of things. There isn’t much doubt where we are in this story. What is Jesus saying to us?
I am reminded of the story of a young girl who, in a very distressed state of mind, asked her pastor if she could speak with him. She said, “I think my boyfriend should pay for one/half of my birth control pills, but I don’t know him well enough to talk about money.” Ah yes, in our culture, certainly in the culture of the church, it seems easier to talk about anything - divorce, even sex - than it is to talk about money. But Jesus doesn’t seem to share that hesitation. In fact, along with the Kingdom of God, money was right up there as one of his favorite topics for teaching and conversation.
And one of the major mistakes we preachers make in dealing with this all too familiar text is speaking about it as if it were not about money…not about us and money. Says Barbara Brown Taylor, “As far as Jesus is concerned, money is like nuclear power. It may be able to do a lot of good in the world, but only within strongly built and carefully regulated corridors. Most of us do not know how to handle it. We get contaminated by its power, and we contaminate others by wielding it carelessly ourselves – by wanting it too desperately or using it too manipulatively or believing in it too fiercely or defending it too cruelly. Every now and then someone manages to use it well, but the odds of that are about as good as they are of pressing a camel through a microchip. The story of the rich young ruler is a story about money.”
It would seem that according to Jesus it is just plain hard to get into the Kingdom of God carrying all of our stuff, holding on to so many things. (Of course, even as I say that, I wonder if fishing equipment is exempt!) And so Jesus invites the young man to strip down, to let go of those things to which he so tightly clings, and to come and follow him. But the young man refuses. This is the only time in the Gospels when an invitation to discipleship, an invitation issued directly by Jesus, is turned down. As one preacher says, “The young man simply could not let go of his things long enough to grab hold of what Jesus was offering him.” Make no mistake about it, this is a story about money, about how money and possessions can get possession of us.
But it isn’t only about money. I believe there is something else going on here. Do you recall the old camp song, “Whose side are you leaning on?” “Leaning on the Lord’s Side” (sing with the congregation)
“Whose side are you leaning on?” That just might be the deeper issue in this text. Brian McLaren, author and theologian, reminds us what it took to be wealthy in first century Palestine. The way to get ahead was to hook your wagon to the others who were getting ahead. And that meant you had to work with the Romans, play by their rules, play the system. To make it in the first century meant that you accepted the world of imperial normalcy, imperial wisdom: a wisdom, that supported a system where the few dominated the many through violence and the threat of violence, and used their power and wealth to shape the social system for their own self-interest, leaving vast majority of people desperately poor or enslaved. Our rich young ruler clearly had used it to his advantage. Does this mean he was evil, a bad man? No, it just means that he played by the rules that everyone understood and accepted.
And then Jesus shows up with a new normalcy. “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor….Then come, follow me.” Is it about money? You’re darn right it’s about money. But it is also an invitation. Jesus is inviting the young man essentially to switch sides. Leave the wisdom of the world behind, he says, and invest yourself in me. Whose side are you going to lean on? I want you to change the way you do business. Jesus is inviting him into a different kind of economic recovery, daring to suggest that there is a better way to live. You can switch sides, you don’t have to play just for yourself and your gain, there is another way to go, an alternative wisdom, a new normalcy. It is an invitation to personal transformation, to center our lives in God rather than to continue to live under the domination of the empires of this world. It is the path to liberation, to freedom, to new life, not only for the poor but also for the rich. But it requires a decision. We have to decide if this word of Jesus is a gracious promise or a burdensome command that is just too costly.
“When Joe was born,” the young mother confided, “we thought it was a piece of incredible bad luck. It seemed so unfair. Our first child, born with a severe disability. Sad to say, Tom and I considered putting baby Joe up for adoption, or just placing him in an institution. I asked my mother what she thought I ought to do. She told me right up front, ‘I know you. You are not going to happy if you don’t accept this child as a gift from God. Do what you need to do to be a good mother. God has given you lots of gifts and resources. God means for you to use them for this baby.’
“What my mother said wasn’t easy to hear. It wasn’t what I thought I wanted to hear. But it was what I needed to hear. She was right. Joe has changed our lives. He has been a gift. I thought he was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Turned out, he has been the best thing in my life.”
Sometimes what we need to hear is not necessarily what we want to hear. As Harry Truman once said, “I never give ‘em hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” Jesus has a way of stripping away all the meaningless stuff to which we cling, of drawing us through the eye of that needle toward the way that leads to true life. And it doesn’t have anything to do with materialism or consumerism. The good life is the life given away.” But we already know that…don’t we?
Whose side are you leaning on?
Says Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Kingdom of God is God’s consummate gift. The catch is, you have got to be free to receive the gift. You cannot be otherwise engaged. You cannot be too tied up to respond. You cannot accept God’s gift if you have no spare hands to take it with. You cannot make room if all your rooms are already full. You cannot follow if you are not free to go. That is why the rich young ruler went away sorrowful. If you ask me, he understood all at once that he was not free. His wealth was supposed to make him free, but kneeling in front of Jesus he understood that it was not so.”
What would it take for us to be free? What would it take for us, the good people of Sebastopol and Sonoma County, to hear this biblical story, not as some kind of onerous command but rather as a gracious invitation? Could there be someone here today who hears this story, not as bad news, but as good news? Could there be someone who hears Jesus say, “Come on, you can do it. You are destined for more than your present arrangements. You can break free of the power of empire. You can let go, be free, and follow me.”
Yes, I know, there is the mortgage and children and aging parents and doctor bills and the bad economy and a future to plan for. I know. It’s the same for me. Just this past week I sat at the table late at night, unable to sleep, checkbook in one hand and four large unexpected bills in the other. There are days when threading that camel through the needle seems easier than following Jesus. Who really can be saved? Who is brave enough to break free of empire and follow? Funny how the question hasn’t changed much in over 2000 years. But neither has the answer. Don’t give up or give in. And don’t use the word, “impossible” as long as we continue to come here and worship a God in whom all things really are possible.