The Rich Man
The Rich Man
Mark 10:17-22
So, is Christianity about going to heaven when this life is done or is Christianity about how to live in this lifetime? If you’ve listened to me at all over the years, you know that I’m convinced that Jesus came to teach us how to live a meaningful, purpose filled, worthwhile life. He spent a lot of time talking about the Kingdom of God, which sometimes gets translated as the Kingdom of Heaven. However, that Kingdom is among us whenever we live faithfully and not something that we enter through the pearly gates when our lives on earth are done. Jesus wanted to show us how to live differently, right here and right now.
Of course, I understand that there are a lot of Christians who would disagree with me. For them, the whole point is to get to heaven rather than to go to hell. If you do the right thing enough times over time then you get “rewarded” with a really excellent “retirement” plan. You can even kind of keep score for yourself. The list of “do’s and don’ts” is out there. Take the quiz! See how you do!
As you know, I do believe that when this life ends, there is something more. I believe that the God who loves us in this life loves us well beyond this life. In fact, I think that knowledge is one of the things that sets us free to focus on the here and now. If we are loved unconditionally by God then there is no need to spend our lives doing things to get God to love us. (Wouldn’t that just make us the super needy child who keeps doing things and then saying, “Mommy…Daddy…watch!” We’re supposed to grow past such things, right?) God’s gift of love sets us free to live a life that is not about me and my needs and my wants. Instead our lives can be grounded in the prayer, “God, help me to be helpful!”
This morning, we have briefly met the rich man in our text. Let’s look a bit more closely and see what he’s about. In Matthew’s version of the story, he a rich young man. Here he is just a rich man. However, there are a set of other features of this man that are meant to provoke a response in us that we need to make sure that we hear. First, the man makes quite an entry. He approaches Jesus directly, kneels in front of him and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.”
Maybe the best way to think of this moment is to think of the lot at a car dealership. Everything that happens on that lot is transactional—by definition. You are there to browse cars in the service of clarifying what you want to own. The sales person is there to influence your choice. Because that sales person has something to gain from you, he or she are very likely to “schmooze” you: “What brings a handsome young man like you to our lot?” or “You know, you seem like the kind of person who would drive one of our cars!” If the cars are interesting to you, you may have your own strategy: “Hey buddy…I’d love to drive one of your cars but boy I would really have to get the right price and, honestly, I would have to get it in the next few minutes because I’ve got to go…” (I will say that I did have a salesperson tell me one time that the car that I was looking at was really for someone younger than me. Apparently, he just didn’t want to sell a car that day!)
The truth is that everyone knows the “game” at the car lot. I want your car. You want my money. Maybe we play the game hard and there’s lots of drama or maybe we just keep things sane and have a rational process. However, it is a game and the name of the game is “Let’s Make a Deal.” At which point, the salesperson asks if he can go talk to his manager and get me the best possible price because, honestly, he really likes me and wants to get me a deal!
Here’s the thing: don’t try playing “Let’s Make a Deal” with Jesus. This is what the rich man does. He sees Jesus and starts schmoozing him. No rich man would bow down before a homeless, traveling healer. The only reason that a rich man would ever do so is if the homeless guy had something that he wanted. From this unlikely spot, the rich man addresses Jesus as, “Good Teacher.” Again, whenever anyone is after something that you have, they will signal this desire with some term of endearment: “Hey, Buddy!” “Bro!” “I don’t know you name yet but I can tell that you are one smart man!” The schmoozer tries to cozy up but Jesus isn’t having it. Jesus corrects him and points out that only God is good—which is a problem because the rich man is convinced that he, himself, is, in fact, pretty spectacular!
How might someone signal that something other than a purely transactional moment is taking place? I’ve had sales people who have listened to my situation and led me to a car that was a better fit for me that would actually make them less money. That gets my attention! Yes, I want a car and that is going to cost me money. Yes, you’re making a living selling cars and I should contribute to that. Maybe, though, this time doesn’t just have to be about me not only trying to “win” but making sure that you “lose.”
The rich man is having none of that. He’s upfront about what he wants: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” If you think about an inheritance, you’re going to get the point here. What is an inheritance? It is something that I am owed. The man isn’t asking how to be a better, more faithful person. No, he’s basically saying that he’s pretty sure that he’s “this close” to God having no choice but to reward him for all eternity! “Jesus, what am I missing here?”
That last sentence is mine but I think it is spot on for the text. If the rich man really thought he had it so totally together, he wouldn’t be checking in with Jesus. Instead, what I think Jesus sees from the start about this man is that even though this man is rich and undoubtedly powerful, such things are not enough. He can see that the man knows that he’s missing something. He knows that something is not quite right. After all, the person who really feels good about themselves is rarely the person who feels the need to tell everyone just how good they feel about themselves, right?
To the world, the rich man probably seemed like he had it all together. He probably wore a nice robe, had a nice home, drove the right camel. In his world, all of those trappings of wealth would not only have been envied but they would have been considered evidence of God’s approval. People were convinced that if you were a good person, God would reward you with all the finer things in life. Poor people were poor because they deserved to be poor. Sick people were sick because they deserved to be sick. Prosperous people were walking around with the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” stamped on their foreheads by God.
Jesus seems to humor the man’s request: “Okay…you want know how to inherit eternal life. You know the commandments right?” Jesus starts ticking off the commandments…but we really need to notice the ones Jesus chooses. Out of the Ten Commandments, Jesus mentions six. Listen to the six he chooses: “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” Do you see what Jesus has done? The man asked about eternal life. Jesus has given him the “here and now,” commandments— the rules for living in community with one another. The man wanted to know how to schmooze God. Jesus pointed him to how we love one another.
In that moment, the man proves himself to be just as blind or deaf as any other person whom Jesus healed. He is blind to his own flaws. He is deaf to the truth that Jesus has laid in front of him. He can’t hear it! Instead, the man says to Jesus, “You know what? I’ve done all those things since I was young.” “I’ve ticked all the boxes. I’ve covered all the bases. I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve never stolen anything. I’m spotless. I’m good.” How embarrassing would it be to “wake up” and realize that I just spent time telling Jesus how awesome I am?
Here’s the thing…Jesus doesn’t reject the man. He doesn’t shame him. He doesn’t publicly put him in his place. Mark tells us that Jesus loves the man. Why would Jesus love him? Well, the most glaringly missing thing about the man, aside from how insecure he is, is that he has no idea that this life is not about ticking boxes or covering bases. The job is to become a loving person. The whole law, Jesus says elsewhere, can be summarized in the great commandment: You shall love…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. As Paul would later write, if you do not have love, you are nothing. So Jesus loves the man because sometimes that’s the only hope for healing—to love the person who hasn’t yet figured out how to be a loving person, themselves.
Then, Jesus tells the man the truth, lovingly. In a move that makes me remember my few months studying Aikido, where instead of attacking someone back, you just help them go in the direction that they are already going, Jesus basically says to the man, “If you’re really committed to being perfect, if that’s the direction that you want to continue to go, here’s what you should do: sell everything that you have and give the money to the poor.” Jesus recognizes that the man is not there to learn how to be a faithful person or even to discover that he is already loved. Those lessons might be healing but the man can’t hear them—not yet. Instead, what he has to learn first is that the path he is on is a dead end. The man’s focus in life is himself and his own wants and his own needs. That focus has to change.
Jesus poses the question and we can hear the man break. Mark tells us that the man is grieving because he had many possessions. Another translation says that the man was “holding on tight and not about to let go.” The truth is that our possessions can, in fact, possess us. He was never going to be perfect. He’s a human being. He’s already loved, nevertheless. He can’t take that in, though, not until he sees that he really needs to rethink and reorder just about everything.
There’s a story about how monkeys get caught. You have a jar with a narrow lid. You put the fruit that monkeys love inside. The monkey comes along, puts its hand in the jar and grabs the food and the monkey is trapped. It can’t get its hand back out…not without letting go of the fruit. The monkey? He’s never going to let go.
Are we going to waste our chance to live a loving, faithful life because someone convinced us that what matters most is what happens after this life? Are we going to spend our time trying to prove that we are owed love—from God and the people around us—rather than discovering that despite our brokenness we are loved already? Can we let go of the one thing we think we’ve got going for us—that piece of fruit in the jar—and trust that there is a very different way of being in this world?