Preaching Paths 13 October 2024 Proper 23

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

In today’s Gospel reading, Mark 10:17-31, Jesus is met on his way to Jerusalem by a man eager to “inherit eternal life.” Addressing Jesus as “good Teacher,” he respectfully asks for instruction. Jesus replies, first, with a question: “Why do you call me ‘good?’ God alone is good.” Jesus quotes the fifth through ninth commandments, which pertain to human relationships, adding, “Do not defraud anyone.” The man assures Jesus that he has kept all of these since his youth. Jesus, looking intently at the man, loves him—a detail unique to Mark—and then provides the instruction he needs: “You lack one thing: go, sell what you have, and come and follow me.” The man is shocked; grieving, he turns away, “for he had many possessions” (v 22). Jesus’ disciples, too, are dismayed when Jesus stresses three times that wealth is a nearly insurmountable obstacle to entering God’s kingdom.

Why such shock? Many Jews believed that wealth was God’s reward for faithful law-keeping (see, for example, Deut 15:4; 18:11-18; 28:11-12; and Ps 37:4; 84:11; 112:1-3). That Jesus would contravene this hallowed principle would be shocking indeed! Yet Jesus makes clear that the law-keeping man before him is “lacking one thing.” That “one thing” can be found in some of the same OT contexts just cited. Dt 15:7-8 adjures the prosperous to be “open-handed” and generous to anyone in need. Ps 112:9 declares “righteous” those who lend freely and “have given to the poor.” God entrusts the righteous with wealth, not to reward them, but as a divine trust, so that the poor shall have enough.

Most commentators take v 22 to mean that the man, clinging to his wealth and all it means to him, flatly refuses to follow Jesus. The text does not say this. Yes, this man turns away now, stunned and grieving; but is this necessarily the end of his story? Jesus has not told him to abandon his possessions on the spot and fall in line behind Jesus. Jesus tells him to sell his goods, distribute the proceeds to the poor—and then follow. As Jesus continues his journey toward utter self-relinquishment, perhaps this man begins his own journey toward relinquishment. With God, is it not possible (v 27) that he will at last relinquish the prerogatives prosperity confers: the respect of others; the misplaced sense of worth one derives from material evidence of one’s success; freedom from anxiety over future scarcity? Might he recall what God said to Abraham: “I will bless you … and you shall be a blessing”?

Jesus declares that it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for the wealthy to enter God’s kingdom—except for the power and grace of God. This is not to say that we who have more than we need—some of us, far more than any person or family needs–should simply lie down next to the sewing needles like helplessly overburdened camels and “let God do the rest.”

Looking upon us with love, Jesus instructs us to act: to divest, to give, and then follow him on a journey of self-relinquishment. For those steeped in rampant consumerism, nothing less than a “new heart” is required. If the African sense of selfhood is best expressed, “I am, because we are,” in consumption-driven Western cultures it is, “I am, because I can buy.” No one can buy the worth God alone confers. Maybe it is time to run and catch up with that sorrowing man, and with him, wrestle with the ramifications of Jesus’ instructions:  practical and theological, relational and spiritual. We shall have less, and love more.  We shall become companions of those who have little. And at last, by grace, we shall find our worth and our vocation: to give unstintingly, that others may fully live.