Richard Davenport
October 20, 2024 – Proper 24
Mark 10:23-31
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been wandering around a bit and teaching in different towns. Today continues the dialogue he began last week with the rich young man who assured Jesus he had kept all of the commandments from his youth. Jesus has more to comment on the subject here.
In his discussion with the young man, Jesus doesn’t really dispute the man’s claim that he has kept all of the commandments. It’s pretty certain the man’s understanding of the commandments is more narrow, more “letter of the law,” than God intended. Either way, Jesus tells him to go sell all of his goods and follow him. Jesus makes the point that just doing the law isn’t actually going to save you. There’s always more to do. The bar is always just out of reach. In this particular case, keeping the commandments was no big deal, at least to his thinking. Giving up his possessions however, well, that’s another story. He would need to sort out where he sought safety and security. He needed to decide what he would trust to provide for him. At the moment, the answer seems to be money.
The Bible spends a fair bit of time talking about wealth and the problems that come to those who seek it. King Solomon’s reflections in the book of Ecclesiastes come as someone who is well acquainted with money and having lots of it. Then you have St. Paul’s often misquoted statement in 1 Timothy, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Just about anywhere you look in Scripture, there are people getting themselves into trouble over money.
That quote from St. Paul is important, when read correctly. It’s also important to take into account everything King Solomon says about it in Ecclesiastes. No one says money is inherently evil. After all, God gave Solomon his wealth. God gave great wealth to Job, to Abraham, and to many others in our history, to people God calls righteous and faithful. The money isn’t the problem. The problem is always in what you do with it.
In this case, Jesus responds to the problem of the rich young man who seems to think his wealth is what keeps him going. Just like Jesus story of the rich man who considers tearing down his barns to build bigger ones that will store his bumper crop, wealth and worldly goods isn’t what life is all about. They aren’t what keep you going. They aren’t what make you happy or bring you peace, security, or anything else. Your life could be required of you at any moment and nothing you have or own will buy you even one more minute of life.
Jesus singles out wealth here because the rich man and his response brought the issue to everyone’s attention, but it’s worth spelling out how wealth is not unique in this problem. The Pharisees end up in a similar situation, not so much because of wealth, but because of reputation. They trusted in their reputation as righteous men and their familial connection to Abraham to keep them safe, but neither of those things would protect them from anything.
We can, as Scripture often does, extend that to just about anything else you might think of. You take all of that time planning out a healthy diet, getting all of the exercise you need, getting regular checkups, screenings, and all of the rest. Those are all good things to do. Those are all good ways of being a good steward of the body God has given you. But, if you do all of that thinking it will save you, physically or spiritually, then you can look at the history of every other health nut who has ever lived. They all died. Some of them, perhaps many of them, died outside of the faith, thinking that being in harmony with their bodies or with nature or whatever, was going to bring them some kind of eternal reward.
A bunch of money, a great reputation, good health, family connections, a high powered job, good looks, some great accomplishment, all of them good things. They are all gifts God gives to people as he chooses. If you have any of these things, rejoice and give thanks because they are a sign of God’s love. But they can all becoming a trap and a temptation. Our own pride wants to make each of these things about us and how great we are, taking the credit for ourselves instead of giving it to the loving Creator who made them to be begin with. Just because Jesus talks about wealth here doesn’t make the others any less dangerous.
The rich young man was seeking another way. He didn’t want to give up the thing he thought would bring him comfort and security. He wanted another way, an easier way. We can empathize with that idea, because we’d very much like one too. I’ve heard the argument, people bringing up a gate in the walls of Jerusalem that was nicknamed “the eye of the needle,” because it was smaller. It’s said in order to get your camel in the gate it would have to hunker down a bit to get through.
Aside from the fact that nothing in the text suggests Jesus is referring to anything in Jerusalem or anywhere else, there is the theological statement that is made if that’s how he intends his message. If we are talking about a gate, one that’s difficult to get through but can be managed if you hunker down a bit, if you struggle a bit, if you take yourself down just a smidge, you can make it. You can get in the door. You can do it.
That’s what this ends up being about. The bar is set pretty high, it’s supposed to be. I get that. You don’t want just anyone getting in. You don’t want those people whose egos are too big, who are too full of themselves that they can’t humble themselves at least a little bit. No, we don’t need those sorts of people around. Better to filter them out right away. The rest of us though, those of us who are willing to put in at least a little effort, those of us who know we can’t just stride in all bold and brash. We have to be willing to show that we aren’t completely perfect.
Some people are like a sculptor looking at a fresh block of marble. He has the sculpture in mind, but he has to really work to get there. He takes his hammer and chisel and knocks off big chunks before he can get down to the real detail work. People like us, on the other hand, don’t need a lot. Chip a few bits off here and there and we’ll be pretty much perfect. So yeah, we have to stoop a bit, but that’s ok. We can still make it. Whatever the problems we have, whether we crave wealth or fame or pleasure or whatever, we cut the excess, just a little, we’ll be able to make it through.
Jesus isn’t referring to a gate. He means an actual needle and an actual camel. As much as we might want to find a way to get that camel through the eye of that needle, it will never fit. It’s impossible. That’s the point. You can’t do it. You will never make it work. Even following all of the commandments as the rich young man did doesn’t actually get him any closer to fitting and none of us are any better off than he was.
Jesus is intentionally trying to point out the impossibility of the situation. Even a well-meaning young man who works hard to earn eternal life is unable to do so. The bar cannot be lowered. The entrance cannot be made wider. It truly is easier to fit an entire camel through the eye of a sewing needle than for you to enter the kingdom of God.
For those, like the young man, who seemed to be determined to do this all on their own, this is depressing news. For those of us who realize that doing it on your own is impossible, there is good news. God is good at doing impossible things. God chooses to pay for the sins of mankind, something he has no obligation to do and no one could compel him to do, but he does anyway. God sees the need to become a man, to become mortal, something that doesn’t fit with God at all and is far beneath his glory and majesty, but he does anyway. God sees the need to die for our sins, which doesn’t even make sense given that God isn’t mortal, but he does anyway. God sees the need to rise from the dead, which isn’t something anyone else has managed to do on their own, but he does anyway. God sees that the only way for us to be reunited is by offering full and free forgiveness, which isn’t the way anything else in the world works, but he does anyway.
God does many things that don’t make sense, that shouldn’t be possible, that shouldn’t be connected to him in any way, but he does it all regardless. This is what God means when he says he loves you. It means he is willing to upend everything in order to have you back. It means you don’t need to fear the impossible, because you will never have to face it. It means there are no barriers, no divisions, nothing separating you that he cannot or will not overcome.
This is the story of salvation. What is impossible for man is something God comes down and does for him. No payment is necessary and there is none we could offer anyway. For it to happen at all, it must be God who does it and he does what is needed with joy. The young man began the conversation thinking he could earn it and so Jesus gave him the only way salvation can be earned: by being perfect. Had he come to his senses and realized this was impossible, he would then have been on the path to finding where righteousness and eternal life ARE possible: with God.
God does plenty of nice things for us. He does lots of things that show his love for us. He gives us a nice sunny day to brighten our spirits. He gives us a friend who calls us out of the blue just when we felt like we really needed to talk to someone. He has someone give us a hug to show we are appreciated. But none of these compare to what he does for us here. More than just giving us a nice day or a friend or a hug, he gives us eternity, an eternity of peace and joy, without fear or worry. He alone has the power to give this. He uses the one loophole to make it happen. The punishment must be given. Someone must die. It can’t be God, for God can’t die. It must be a human. But if we pay the penalty, we are lost. So God does die, by becoming human, by stepping down from his throne to become one of us, to live, to die, and then to rise again, bringing life and immortality to light. His love and his gift to us.