Delmar Chilton, pastor and fellow Tar Heel, tells of a revival meeting he attended at a small rural church. He went in order to support a member of his Lutheran congregation’s youth group who had been asked to sing a solo during the revival service.
He recalls, “The preacher was a traveling evangelist and he put on quite an exhibition; shouting and hollering and stomping his feet and breaking into song and denouncing sins, some of which I had never heard of. It was quite a show; both his theatrics and the crowd’s reactions. One little boy in particular caught my eye.
“While his grandmother tried to pay attention, he kicked the pew, he laid down, he slid off the pew into the floor, he drew in the back of the hymnal with that stubby little pencil you can usually find in the pew rack, he loudly chewed gum and he sucked on a mint, he played with Grandma’s car keys, and he asked if it was time to go, oh, about every two minutes.
“Finally, as the Preacher launched into a fire-breathing altar call, with the congregation standing, every head bowed, every eye closed, I saw the little boy stand on tip-toe in the pew and whisper loudly into Grandma’s ear, ‘Are you sure this is the only way to get to heaven?’” [John Fairless and Delmar Chilton, The Lectionary Lab Commentary: With Stories and Sermons for Year B, p. 326]
That’s precisely what the man in today’s Gospel reading is thinking after he speaks with Jesus. But unlike the little boy, the man is not fidgety and he certainly wants to be exactly where he is. Indeed, as the reading begins, the man comes running up to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s a sincere question. The man doesn’t come as Jesus’ enemies do, plotting to entrap him with their questions. Instead, he runs up eagerly, trying to catch Jesus before he gets away. And he comes reverently; he respectfully kneels before Jesus.
Jesus responds to the question by rattling off a list of well-known commandments: don’t murder; don’t commit adultery; don’t steal; don’t give false testimony; don’t defraud others; honor your father and mother. The man replies that he has kept all these commandments since his youth. And maybe he has. Jesus doesn’t dispute his claim. Instead, we are told, Jesus looks at the man with love—he sees something in him, a sincerity, a real effort to do what is pleasing to God. And so, Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing, instructing him to sell all he has and give the proceeds to the poor and to set out on the way, following Jesus.
It seems that Jesus has perceived precisely this man’s spiritual problem. He is viewing the world and himself through the lenes of wealth. William Placher notes that Jesus “substitutes ‘You shall not defraud’ for ‘You shall not covet.’” [Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, p. 144-145] In Jesus’ time and culture, wealth was seen as a blessing, a sign of God’s favor. This fact explains the disciples’ shock and perplexity—if a man so obviously blessed by God is in danger of eternal life, who can possibly enter God’s kingdom?!?! However, the perceived blessing of wealth came with responsibility: the rich were expected to be generous toward the poor, the widows, and the orphans, those most vulnerable members of society whom the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, speaking for God, repeatedly insist God’s people must care for. [Ibid., 145]
Thus, Jesus’ inclusion of the command not to defraud seems to point toward the man’s ethical and spiritual problem. He sees himself as a good person to whom God has shown favor even as he overlooks others and their needs and fails to help them. He is focused on himself and his own possessions, needs and wants instead of looking beyond himself and recognizing the value of other people. He has done well by avoiding the negative actions of stealing, killing, and lying and cheating and he has loved his kin. But he has neglected one essential thing: the positive love of his neighbors, expressed in loving, compassionate actions like feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for the sick, welcoming the outcast, and comforting the downtrodden. He may not have technically defrauded anyone in the legal sense, but by failing to show compassion and do justice, he has defrauded his vulnerable, struggling neighbors of the help they need.
This man has done what is necessary to be respectable. He’s a good person by society’s standards: he stays out of trouble and is a good son. But God wants more than respectability. God wants us to bear the fruits of love, fruits like compassion and mercy. The man’s wealth is a great tool that can help him bear such fruit. It is a means of acting out this love of his neighbor, but, paradoxically, it is also something that can throw up a wall that keeps him from seeing and loving both his neighbors and God.
So we see that money and possessions are not inherently bad, but they can get us into serious trouble. As Delmar Chilton observes, “Being rich is not evil. It’s just excessively dangerous to your spiritual health.” (lectionarylab.com, sermon for Oct. 14, 2012) I’m reminded of Mother Teresa’s observation, that Americans face a more difficult spiritual situation than the poor she worked with in Calcutta because our wealth and materialism creates a barrier of self-sufficiency which separates us from God. [Taken from a sermon preached Feb. 15, 2004. Source unknown.] St. Augustine agreed which such analyses. Commenting on Jesus’ words to the disciples, he said, “It is hard to be saved if we have riches; and impossible if we love them; and scarcely can we have them, but we shall love them inordinately.” (Mark, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, p. 137) This is the heart of sin in Augustine’s understanding: inordinate, disordered love; in this case, loving things—money and possessions—more than people, and worse yet, more than God. And it is so very easy to love money and possessions, to become attached to them. Materialism and avarice are constant temptations for humans in any time and place, but perhaps even more so for us, who live in an extremely materialistic society which tells us incessantly that money and things will bring us happiness and fulfillment. But why might the man in our Gospel reading believe such things and feel such a strong attachment to his wealth? Two different, but related reasons spring to mind.
The first possibility is that wealth is a symbol of his own worth. Perhaps he was a person who has always been successful. He measures himself by his accomplishments, and he has an impressive list of accomplishments. He’s respected in the business world. He’s a leader in his community. People look up to him, come to him for advice, come to him seeking his help because he has resources and influence. He can get things done. If he lived in Seven Hills in the 21st century, we would hail him as an All-American success story. He’s living the dream.
So, he’s full of self-confidence. He believes himself to be self-sufficient. He trusts in himself, in his own abilities, in his own resources. He needs no help—he’s a self-made man. He got here all on his own and he knows how to stay on top. It’s as if he’s saying, “It’s alright, Jesus. Just point me in the right direction. I don’t need any further help. I’ve got this.” This would explain why he pridefully asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
But there’s a second possibility. Maybe this man has not always been a success. Maybe he had known poverty. Maybe there had been some really hard, really lean times in his past—and he never wants to go back again. Like Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind,” he has sworn that he will never be poor again. Like those folks who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and for the rest of their lives stuffed money into their mattresses for safe keeping, he has carefully built up and preserved his resources so he will never again know such hard times. By being careful, by being prudent, by shrewdly saving and managing his wealth, he’s found a level of security and he desperately wants to maintain it. And so, with more than a touch of fear in his heart and mind, he asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What must I do to make absolutely sure I have it and can hold on to it?
So, it may be pride or it may be fear that causes this man’s face to fall when he hears Jesus’ answer. But either way, the underlying problem is the same: he lacks faith in God; he does not really trust God. Whatever small amount of faith he may have, whatever modicum of trust, it is too little for the task of following Jesus, it is too little to enable him to take up his cross. He looks into the mirror of his wealth and he sees only himself, either in the light of his pride or of his fear, and thus does not see God, who alone is good and gracious and faithful, a present help in time of trouble and the giver of all good gifts. He does not see God who can do all things, even turning the gaze of the selfish away from themselves and causing them to see others. For God, all things are possible, so that even the most selfish among us, the most fearful, the most prideful can be transformed by God’s grace, thereby saving them from the destructive, disordered love of self that has cut them off from God and neighbor.
What does it look like to trust God? Two verses before our reading, Jesus tells us: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” [Mark 10.15] Children are powerless and dependent. They know when they need help and are not afraid to ask. And they have a deep and abiding trust in the adults in their lives. They trust in the goodness, the love and the care of their parents, grandparents, teachers and others.
I recall a story I once heard a story that illustrated such trust. A pastor arrived at church one morning to find a gentleman waiting to see her. He asked if he could speak with her for a moment. The way he asked the question made her sure that the man was going to ask for some sort of financial assistance. Knowing that there were no funds available to assist anyone, and dreading having to tell him so, she agreed to hear him out. He began to explain his situation: out of work for several months, a sick wife, their meager savings exhausted. Finally, after a lengthy narration of his family’s hard times, he came to the reason for his visit to the church: his wife needed a prescription refilled and they were out of money. Could the church help?
Apologetically, she told him that the church had no funds to help him, but she did know of an organization in town that specialized in helping with situations just like his. At this news, the man’s face brightened. So, the pastor gave him the address of the organization and the name of the person he needed to speak to. The man thanked her. As he left, he said, “I know God is going to take care of us. Seen us through some pretty rough times and some pretty good times in the past. God will see us through this too.” Though his world was coming apart, the man still trusted in God’s love. He had no wealth to cause him to pridefully trust in his self-sufficiency. But neither did his troubles cause him to focus fearfully upon himself. Instead, he had the faith of a child in loving parent and looked with open eyes on God’s goodness. The last in terms of wealth, status and success, this man was the first in faith.
“No one is good but God alone,” says Jesus. And because God is good, God is worthy of our trust—worthy of our trust as individuals and worthy of our trust as a congregation. So let us not put our faith in our wealth or possessions or our own accomplishments. Let us not walk in the way of self-concern, self-trust and self-interest. Let us not give in to fear and anxiety. Instead, let us turn our full attention to God’s goodness. For all things are possible for God. In faith, let us open our hearts to God, that God might open our hands to our neighbors and lead our feet in the way of Jesus Christ, the way of love which leads to life abundant and eternal.