It’s the only example in the Gospels, in fact in the entire canon of Christian Scriptures, of anyone refusing to follow Jesus.   It was such an important story in the development of the Gospels about Jesus in the 1^st Century that it is found in each of the three synoptic[1] gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke.  We have Mark’s version of the story before us this morning.

It’s a great story, actually.  A very wealthy man comes up to Jesus, calls him Good Teacher, which Jesus immediately deflects (as Jesus always seems to do) away from himself toward God … God alone.  The wealthy man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit life, the kind of life that is forever, abundant life, beautiful life, peaceful life, life that is full of freedom, life that is … rich and wealthy.

Jesus answers from the Torah.  “You know the commandments, you know the drill.  Do these things.”

The wealthy man answers that he’s kept the commandments faithful since he was a youth.

And then Jesus looks at him and tells him not what he must do, but what he should do … “You are lacking one thing, you are over-possessed, and your possessions are over-possessing you … tell you what, sell them, give the earnings to the poor, and then live my life.”

Or, as the New Revised Standard Version translates the text in Greek:

21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “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.” 

Now every time we read this story, hear this story, I think we overlook one little phrase in that verse.  And here it is: Jesus, looking at him, loved him …

William Willimon, Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church tells a story about this phrase.

He says,

“One night, in a college dormitory Bible study I presented this same story of Jesus and the rich man  …  I then asked the gathered students, ‘What do you make of this story?’

‘Had Jesus ever met this man before?’ asked one of the students.

‘Why do you ask?’ [said Willimon]

‘Because Jesus seems to have lots of faith in him.  He demands something risky, radical of him.  I wonder if Jesus knew this man had a gift for risky, radical response.  In my experience, a professor only demands the best from students that the professor thinks are the smartest, best students.  I wonder what there was about this man that made Jesus have so much faith he could really be a disciple.’

[Willimon admits that he hadn’t thought about that.][2]

 

We always see the wealthy man as a kind of bad-guy and Jesus as the always-good-guy.  But when we hear the story that way, we do end up missing a lot of the meaning.

Jesus loved him … that’s the key.  Jesus asks something that comes from love itself, not from guilt and shame and fear and threat.

We know all about that in the church, don’t we?  We stand up and ask, “Would you help in this way?  Could you serve in this other way?  Would you be on this task force, this committee?”

What we’re asking, of course, is for people to work … to share of the wealth of experience and labour and just general doing things.  But we in the church somehow always drift into a kind of non-Jesus-like whining about it all. 

We put out the request, no one responds, or very few respond and then we begin to gossip … no one will help, I have to do it all, what’s wrong with so-and-so?

Well what’s wrong is that we’ve forgotten how to ask in the Jesus-way.

In the Jesus-way, the asking would be not what one must do, but what we should all be doing as we are able.  And the asking would be from love, always from love.  And it would be honest … we would say something like this:

I don’t want you to volunteer, I want you to work … because the work is what we need in the church, and without the work, nothing much happens.  And I love you regardless.

That might just make things better.

You notice in the story, we are not told that Jesus immediately hates the wealthy man because he turned Jesus down.  That would be so unlike Jesus, wouldn’t it?  Jesus still loves the wealthy man, even when he turns away.

And, Jesus does what he always does, he tells a story … this time it’s another exaggeration … burdened with over-possessing … it’s like a fat camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle … can’t work. 

And by the way, the phrase entering the kingdom of heaven is not for Jesus about some future Palace of Paradise, it is about entering the reign of God that lives in the present moment … the reign where people follow the commandment to love God, by loving their neighbor … the difference between what Must I Do, and What Should I Do?

There is a bondage that comes when what we have in life keeps us from loving, and there is a freedom that comes when we live in such a manner that what we have is shared with others, as we ourselves share ourselves with others … the goods come along with us as well … that is freedom.

We’re a little congregation, but mighty and powerful and strong in so many ways.  The love and compassion and caring and welcoming that takes place in this community of faith is something that is a gift … it is our way of loving God as we love each other and the neighbor we do not yet know.

We come to the table each week, not out of fear and shame and guilt, but out of pure grace … we dine upon the gifts of God, that are for the people of God, and when we move back from the table our hands are outstretched and touch the hands of those around us … in love, always in love.

Differences fall away here, arguments cease, alienations do not matter, over-possessing is turned around, and we who know that we are unforgiving and unforgivable, who know that we are sinners by what we have done and what we have left undone, who know that we are not what we are called to be, receive in this time together with God, God’s pure, unadulterated love and absolution, the washing away of what is wrong so that we may always turn to doing what is right.

It is what we call the Good News, the Gospel, and to this Good News we are led this morning.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

God of all who are cast down, you call us to seek good and to meet oppression with justice. Teach us to find salvation in the emptying of ourselves for the sake of those in need, so that goodness may prevail and your kingdom come in Jesus Christ. And let us say, Amen.

 

+ Deo Gratia. Amen.
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III, Pastor

 

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