Today's Gospel is easy to misunderstand (October 11, 2009)
By Rev. Steve Bagnall

Today’s Gospel is easy to misunderstand. Jesus seems to teach that this man can get to heaven by his good works. But He’s not teaching that at all. St. Mark records this event in the middle of a string of Jesus’ teachings about how someone enters the kingdom of heaven. He’s already declared that the way to heaven is to follow the little children who believe in Him – that is via unquestioning faith. Next Jesus describes the suffering and death He will undergo to save us, and then explains to the apostles that the kingdom is about humility, not pride – it’s about receiving from God, not giving to Him.

So Christ is not telling the man that he can earn his way to heaven. Instead, Jesus is showing the man just how far short he falls of the perfection that would be required to enter the kingdom by our works. This man hasn’t really kept all the commandments from childhood – he seems honestly to think he has, to really believe it, but he has not. It’s like when you have a daughter and you tell her to clean her room. She thinks she’s done a good job, but when you check she’s missed half the mess. In the same way this man has done his best and he thinks he’s fulfilled God’s commands. But he’s wrong.

Throughout His years of preaching – and throughout Scripture – Jesus teaches that keeping the law is not about loopholes and technicalities. He tells us that murder includes hatred and adultery includes lust. Stealing includes greed. So while the man may not have physically ended the life of another human being, or picked someone’s pocket, he most certainly has not kept the commandments to God’s standards.

However, Jesus doesn’t just say, “No you haven’t.” You and I know that such a response just leads to an argument and we end up like four-year-olds – “Yes, I have.” “No, you haven’t.” Nothing gets solved and no one learns. So instead, Jesus puts the man to the test. If he’s kept the commandments then he’ll know that all his wealth really belongs to God anyway, and if God tells him to sell it all, he’ll do so without a second thought. But this man can’t bring himself to do that.

The command from Jesus exposes the sin of the man, it reveals how far short of perfection he really falls. When push comes to shove, the man doesn’t really own his wealth – His wealth owns him. Like an alcoholic, the man is addicted. Given the choice between his riches and eternal life with heavenly treasure, the man is unable to make the obvious choice. He goes away sad.

We don’t know what this man finally decided. We don’t know where his faith ended up – in Christ Jesus or in earthly wealth. But that’s probably best, because through the account of this event the Holy Spirit wants us to examine ourselves.

Now first, let me say that this text isn’t about money. At least, it might not be. What I mean is that Jesus isn’t declaring that every Christian must sell all his or her possessions and live a life of poverty. Rather He wants us all to be tested like the man in our text. If Jesus were talking to you, what would He ask you to give up? For this man it was money, but for you it may be something else. What earthly thing would you refuse to give up even if Jesus commanded you to? What’s your “non-negotiable?” What is it that, if Jesus told you to leave it behind, you would be left feeling sad and afraid?

If the Lord stood here and said, “I want you to leave your family and not return to them unless I tell you to,” would you do it? If He commanded you to leave your Friday night friends behind? Or your retirement savings? Could you do it? What if He called you to abandon your beloved sports team and not watch another game – or to give up drinking, or playing cards or visiting with friends?

Do you think you’d pass that test? I’d say you would fail, and so would I. How can I know? Because every week Christ stands here and calls us to give something up. Every week He commands us to humble ourselves, to flee from sexual immorality, to abandon our selfish greed, to place the needs of others above our own desires. Every week He calls us to do that and every week He calls us back and we kneel again and admit that we haven’t done it. We can’t seem to give it up. Like the man in our gospel – like an alcoholic or like some other addict -- we have given ourselves into the control of the things of this world. We don’t want to leave these things behind, and we couldn’t even if we did want to because we’ve allowed them to become our masters.

Like the man in our gospel, we’d have to go away sad.

But Christ calls us back. He shows us the way to be free from our sorrow, free from our addiction. The answer is in Jesus Himself. Look at Him, be absorbed into Christ, let Him consume your failures; let Him draw out your selfish addictions and your willful sin. There, on the cross, He has sold His all, His perfect life, His righteousness, His holiness, He sold it and gives it to those who are poor – poor in holiness, those who have no righteousness of their own, those whose life is burdened by sin – Jesus sold His all and gives it to you. That’s what this shedding of the blood is about. That’s why the last breath and why the willing death. They’re for you; to give life to you, to overcome your iniquities and free you from your addiction to sin.

Here Jesus stands, His forgiveness and life in His hands – in His Word – ready to give them to you. “Leave your sin behind,” He says. “Leave it there and come, take up your cross and follow Me.” You may keep your sin, if you want to. You may carry it home with you and leave this place in sorrow, but you don’t have to. “Come,” Christ calls, “Come and receive My forgiveness, receive My perfection. Come and receive My love and My reward. Leave your sin and come to Me and receive freedom. Come to Me and receive true rest.”

Now Jesus isn’t calling for you to give all your money away. He isn’t asking everyone to leave home, or to set aside other gifts he gives. But He is calling us to leave behind our addiction to them, to stop putting them before God, to receive them as earthly foretastes of the treasures of heaven that he has in store for those who follow Him in faith. He is calling us into His true freedom and light.  Amen.