Lectionary Reflection — Proper 23 (28) (Year B)

Mark 10.17-31 (MSG; adapted):1

17 As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get the Life of the Age?”

18-19 Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.”

20 He said, “Teacher, I’ve kept them all from my youth!”

21 Jesus looked him hard in the eye — and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

22 The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

23-25 Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s Realm?” The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s Realm.”

26 That set the disciples back on their heels. “Then who has any chance at all?” they asked.

27 Jesus was blunt: “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. But every chance in the world if you let God do it.”

28 Peter tried another angle: “We left everything and followed you.”

29-31 Jesus said, “Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land — whatever — because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land — but also in troubles. And then the bonus of the Life of the Age! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first.”

Other readings: Amos 5.6-7, 10-15; Psalm 90.12-17; Hebrews 4.12-16

                 

I was speaking with a new reader recently and she asked why I focus primarily on the Gospel Lessons for my Lectionary Reflections. “I feel that most people,” I replied, “would rather spend their time reading the letters of Paul.”

She nodded.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said. “But, generally speaking, I think people come to the letters of Paul the wrong way round.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, some people look to Paul to determine what Jesus really meant. I don’t think Paul was doing that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Paul wasn’t fleshing out Jesus’ true meaning. He was going, ‘Look, if Jesus was right about all of this — if God’s Realm has really come and I believe it has — then what would that look like in our lives, in our communities, and in the world.’ In other words, Paul was looking for ways to implement the Reality of God’s Realm that Jesus inaugurated.”

“Okay …” she said. “But isn’t that same thing?”

“Not really. Instead of reading Paul for how things should always be — women should cover their heads and the like — we should read Paul to look for ways of implementing the Reality of God’s Realm in ways that Paul did. Not by implementing the same methods or outcomes, but by using the same guiding factor — the Reality of God’s Realm and Jesus’ Resurrection.”

“Remember,” I said, “Paul’s world was vastly different from our own. It does us no good to try and implement the standards and practices of the first century ancient Roman world in our 21st century post-modern world. As we know, in Paul’s world slavery was part of society; yet, we’ve abolished slavery. In Paul’s world most people viewed women as lower than men in almost every regard. Some even regarded women as a little better than slaves but not much. For the most part, though, women today are seen as equals. So, the attitude of some first century people that women shouldn’t teach men is not something we should be trying to emulate.”

“Oh,” she said, “I think I see what you mean.”

“That’s why I focus on the Gospels — to see how Jesus interacted with the people of his day. When we read the Gospels, we see that Jesus is constantly opposing, not only societal norms but also religious norms. We see him seeking out those who had been cast out of ‘dignified society’ and their local religious centers. We see him, not only acknowledging women and children, but celebrating them. We see him challenging the rich and religious elite while encouraging the poor and telling them that God’s Realm belongs to them.”

“When we look at Paul in this way,” I continued, “we see Paul doing the same things but in different ways. Through the Reality of Jesus and God’s Realm, Paul could state that there’s no difference between Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, female and male (Galatians 3.28). Because of the work of Christ the whole world has been rescued and people who follow The Way of Jesus should be about setting things right. And to see what The Way of Jesus looks like, there’s no better place to start than with the Gospels.”

It’s this exact thing that I want to focus on in today’s Gospel Lesson. For a lot of people, St Paul championed “salvation by faith alone” (e.g., Romans 3.28; 5.1; Ephesians 2.8-9). However, this doctrine flies in the face of our Lesson today. It’s a contradiction if we start with Paul and then try to reconcile the Gospels. Again, the best way forward would be to start with Jesus and, after we have a good foundation from the Gospels, then read Paul in light of Jesus.

When we read the Lesson today, we see that Jesus was very clear about how one gains the Life of the Age. When the man asked Jesus, “what must I do (what actions must I perform) to get the Life of the Age” (verse 17), Jesus didn’t correct him. He didn’t say, “What must you do? Why, you can’t do anything to get the Life of the Age! Don’t you know that it only comes by faith alone?” That’s what we’d expect Jesus to say if we start with Paul and work backwards to Jesus.

But how did Jesus respond?

Jesus tells the man to keep the Commandments.

Let that sink in.

Jesus told the man that the Life of the Age is obtained, not by faith alone but through keeping the Commandments.

When the man replied that he’d kept the Law since his youth, Jesus said he lacked one thing — just one!2 Jesus told him his “next steps” were to sell everything he had, give the money to the poor, and follow him.

In my line of work, “next steps” are important stages of any project. When the current stage has been completed, the question is always, “What are the next steps?” In other words, to meet the goal’s intended result, what are the things we must do next. That’s what Jesus told the man here. “You’ve completed this part,” Jesus said. “You’re almost there. Now, do these next steps — sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow me — and you’ll reach the end of the project.” But these next steps were too much for the man.

In the parallel passages to this story (Matthew 19.16ff; Luke 18.18ff), we discover that the man was a “young man” and a local “ruler” (this story is sometimes called “The rich young ruler”). The word translated “ruler” is the Greek word ἄρχων (archōn) and it means, “a preeminent ruler (chief); a commander with authority (influence) over people in a particular jurisdiction.”

This is rather telling. It seems that the young man believed the story that his wealth and position would easily allow him to gain the Life of the Age just as it’s allowed him to gain everything else he wanted in life. In other words, his identity was wrapped up in his family name, wealth, and position. Without those things, he didn’t see any value in himself.

In our Lesson, Jesus sees beyond those things to the man himself. The Lesson tells us that Jesus “looked him hard in the eye — and love him!” Jesus saw the Light of God buried beneath all the falseness in this young man and saw what he really needed to do to become his true self, his full self.

But the man turned away because he couldn’t see his life without his position, money, and influence. The man was like an addict who believed the lie that he was no longer person with an addiction, but that he had become the addiction. He couldn’t separate the two. Jesus showed him what he needed to do to leave the addiction and be his full self. The man just couldn’t see it.

For a lot of us, well, this is us. So much of our lives we’ve been told we’re one thing or another. When we’ve been conditioned to only see ourselves a certain way, it truly takes an act of God to show us who we truly are.3

In Luke 15, we have another story about a man and his sons. The story tells us that one of the sons demands his inheritance and runs off to another country. While the son’s away, he blows through all of his money, gets a job feeding pigs. When he finally comes to his senses, the son decides to go back home and become a servant in his father’s estate. He tells himself that he’s no longer his father’s son.

We all know this story. We’re told that while the son was still a long way off, the father spotted him and ran to his son. When he got to his son, he took him in his arms and started kissing him. The son told his father, “I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father wouldn’t hear of it. The father ordered his servants to dress his son in the finest clothes the family owned. He then told them to prepare a feast for his son had returned from the dead.

The point I’m making here is that the son believed his own story about himself. He’d convinced himself that he was no longer his father’s son. But his father had a different story — the young man would always be his son.

I think this is what Jesus was getting at in our Lesson today. Just like the “rich young ruler,” wealthy people can forget that they’re not their wealth and position. They’ve been telling themselves (and others have told them, too) one story, but Jesus tells them another story. A deeper story. A truer story. One that will lead them to their true selves.

And that’s one of the points of the Gospels — Jesus is the true storyteller. When we read the Gospels, we see that true story being told through Jesus’ actions and words. We see that true story confronting the alternate stories being told by society and in religious circles. And when that true story confronts the alternate story of the “rich young ruler,” the man finds the truth too challenging.

What about us? How often have we been challenged by the truer story we see in Jesus? What happens when we read the truer story of the Gospel over against the story we’ve been told Paul tells?4 Which stories do we tell ourselves and how do they line up with the truer story Jesus tells? Which one should we listen to? What would we be like if we believed the story Jesus told us instead of the false story we’ve been led to believe? May God grant us the courage and strength to take those “next steps” so that we, too, can walk in the Spirit and obtain the Life of the Ages.

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In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

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1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

2. Can you imagine? I know if that were me, Jesus would have said something like, “Well, you’re not doing a very good job at keeping the Commandments and there’s a lot more you could be doing!”

3. This is part of the reason I think the doctrine of “original sin” is such a horrible thing. Not only do I think it’s unbiblical, but it tells us a false story about who we are.

4. I don’t think “faith alone” is Paul’s story. It’s the story we’ve been told Paul is telling. But, as we see above, if that the right way to read Paul, then Paul clearly contradicted Jesus. We need to read Paul through Jesus eyes and not the other way round.