Pastor Ray's installation service was almost a year ago today although we made no mention of it in our service today
A man asks "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
An age-old question Pastor Ray preached on which was in today's Gospel. Naturally there is a part of how Jesus answers that receives the primary focus - namely, "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." With this focus today's follower then asks, like the disciples, "Must I sell what I own and give the money to the poor or was this answer directed to this one man?"
The natural tendency is to try to distance ourselves from what Jesus asks of the man. Yet the Gospel makes this hard. He appears to be a person that any church worth its salt would want to attract. Matthew says he was young (Matthew 19:20) and Luke that he was a ruler (Luke 18:18). He appears humble (he kneels before Jesus), moral (by his own measure he has kept the commandments since his youth) and spiritual (given the man has asked this question about eternal life).
However, where there is a will not to follow a command Jesus gave, there is a justification. There are many reasons that so few follow what Jesus said here about selling everything and giving it to the poor. Some are satisfying, others are not. Pastor Ray explored many in his sermon.
Pastor Ray also brought up that the story of the eye of a needle refers to a small gate in Jerusalem where a fully-loaded camel could not enter but the camel would fit if all the camel's carried baggage was removed. He declared that such a gateway into Jerusalem has never been discovered or proven.
There is more to examine in this Gospel than what Jesus sees the man "lacks". The first words from Jesus in response are surprising and worth considering "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 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.' The implication appears to be that everyone has already been given God's answer that should be living within our hearts. Instead sin haunts our hearts. A heart problem makes the man ask this question. It is a problem we all have.
To capture the spirit of what this implies I asked myself "How would you have done it? How would you have answered this young man given all our cultural values which are firmly locked up in our conceptions of wealth, our prerogatives, and our identity?' There is something gentle, not preachy, about the way Jesus talks to, answers and loves this man. I would be hard pressed to express this any more thoughtfully.
I am still in grief today and what personally stood out for me was the word inherit. This is different than many translations of Matthew, for example, where the question is "What must I do to receive or obtain eternal life?".
For an inheritance to be secured someone must die. Today's Christian knows who will eventually die (so those who believe will not perish but have eternal life).
However, Jesus might be also suggesting a different answer to the what the man's question actually implies. Is what is being asked the same thing as what younger son, in the Prodigal Son parable, asked his father to do.
When the son requested his father for his share of the estate he asked his father to essentially drop dead, or at least act like it. The difference here would only be in the distribution of that estate, to distribute to the poor rather than a father to his two sons. Unsurprisingly the young man goes away grieving, knowing that he cannot choose this way of life.
His leaving proves what Jesus, in the next few verses will teach the disciples "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." This is another substantial answer to the "What must I do?" part of the question. There is nothing humankind can do by their own effort because God's grace makes eternal life possible.
The fact the young man goes away grieving suggests there is more to this story than the young man simply leaving. From his question the young man sounds unsatisfied with following the deep, abiding faith he professes to have in the commandments that Jesus lists. By asking why the young man called him good Jesus may be giving the young man a different way to consider the significance of scripture.
Could Jesus have been proposing that this young man break away from an old, calcified faith and assumptions about the ways he must follow scripture? Did Jesus give the young man a freedom from following the sacred texts that guided his life but did not fulfill his spirit? Perhaps, without these texts as a central means to buttress his sense of being good within himself, the young man may have realized that the culture that he lives within, rules, and had been given riches by, was draining him spiritually. That knowledge may have allowed his breaking away form his old understanding of the world.
With a new sense of what is valuable in life, the young man could have gone on to give to the poor his accumulated wealth or not. The difference would be that, instead of doing this by what he was commanded to do, his new faith and a different conception of life and wealth could establish a new relationship with the disenfranchised. This new conception could take a lifetime to follow and fulfill. Still, after all, he was a young man and this may be become his lifetime's work rather than one moment of spontaneous action.
Ultimately what happened to this young man is not recorded. I think this might have been the beginning of a new path he followed. I imagine him later blessing his memories of his encounter with Jesus and blessing the response to his question that expressed Jesus' love.
Jesus remains constantly ready to spread the good word through those who believe, transform with the word and ready to help in the faith that we have inherited eternal life..
A man asks "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
An age-old question Pastor Ray preached on which was in today's Gospel. Naturally there is a part of how Jesus answers that receives the primary focus - namely, "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." With this focus today's follower then asks, like the disciples, "Must I sell what I own and give the money to the poor or was this answer directed to this one man?"
The natural tendency is to try to distance ourselves from what Jesus asks of the man. Yet the Gospel makes this hard. He appears to be a person that any church worth its salt would want to attract. Matthew says he was young (Matthew 19:20) and Luke that he was a ruler (Luke 18:18). He appears humble (he kneels before Jesus), moral (by his own measure he has kept the commandments since his youth) and spiritual (given the man has asked this question about eternal life).
However, where there is a will not to follow a command Jesus gave, there is a justification. There are many reasons that so few follow what Jesus said here about selling everything and giving it to the poor. Some are satisfying, others are not. Pastor Ray explored many in his sermon.
- Jesus could sense that this particular individual had too much faith in wealth and addressed this weakness in him.
- The man was not following the first commandment "You shall have no other God before me".
- Jesus exposed to the man that a piety he claimed to have followed from his youth was a sham.
- Being rich is relative. This allows a Christian to protest being considered personally rich.
Pastor Ray also brought up that the story of the eye of a needle refers to a small gate in Jerusalem where a fully-loaded camel could not enter but the camel would fit if all the camel's carried baggage was removed. He declared that such a gateway into Jerusalem has never been discovered or proven.
There is more to examine in this Gospel than what Jesus sees the man "lacks". The first words from Jesus in response are surprising and worth considering "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 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.' The implication appears to be that everyone has already been given God's answer that should be living within our hearts. Instead sin haunts our hearts. A heart problem makes the man ask this question. It is a problem we all have.
To capture the spirit of what this implies I asked myself "How would you have done it? How would you have answered this young man given all our cultural values which are firmly locked up in our conceptions of wealth, our prerogatives, and our identity?' There is something gentle, not preachy, about the way Jesus talks to, answers and loves this man. I would be hard pressed to express this any more thoughtfully.
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| Photo by Ron Houser |
For an inheritance to be secured someone must die. Today's Christian knows who will eventually die (so those who believe will not perish but have eternal life).
However, Jesus might be also suggesting a different answer to the what the man's question actually implies. Is what is being asked the same thing as what younger son, in the Prodigal Son parable, asked his father to do.
When the son requested his father for his share of the estate he asked his father to essentially drop dead, or at least act like it. The difference here would only be in the distribution of that estate, to distribute to the poor rather than a father to his two sons. Unsurprisingly the young man goes away grieving, knowing that he cannot choose this way of life.
His leaving proves what Jesus, in the next few verses will teach the disciples "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." This is another substantial answer to the "What must I do?" part of the question. There is nothing humankind can do by their own effort because God's grace makes eternal life possible.
The fact the young man goes away grieving suggests there is more to this story than the young man simply leaving. From his question the young man sounds unsatisfied with following the deep, abiding faith he professes to have in the commandments that Jesus lists. By asking why the young man called him good Jesus may be giving the young man a different way to consider the significance of scripture.
Could Jesus have been proposing that this young man break away from an old, calcified faith and assumptions about the ways he must follow scripture? Did Jesus give the young man a freedom from following the sacred texts that guided his life but did not fulfill his spirit? Perhaps, without these texts as a central means to buttress his sense of being good within himself, the young man may have realized that the culture that he lives within, rules, and had been given riches by, was draining him spiritually. That knowledge may have allowed his breaking away form his old understanding of the world.
With a new sense of what is valuable in life, the young man could have gone on to give to the poor his accumulated wealth or not. The difference would be that, instead of doing this by what he was commanded to do, his new faith and a different conception of life and wealth could establish a new relationship with the disenfranchised. This new conception could take a lifetime to follow and fulfill. Still, after all, he was a young man and this may be become his lifetime's work rather than one moment of spontaneous action.
Ultimately what happened to this young man is not recorded. I think this might have been the beginning of a new path he followed. I imagine him later blessing his memories of his encounter with Jesus and blessing the response to his question that expressed Jesus' love.
Jesus remains constantly ready to spread the good word through those who believe, transform with the word and ready to help in the faith that we have inherited eternal life..
OS - How would you have done it?
ReplyDeleteI have always felt accused by this passage--I live in the richest nation on earth--our poor are often rich by comparison to the rest of the world. Yet, I feel that our ATTACHMENT to the things we have is put into play here. How do we share? How do we give? How much can we part with--it has to be more than whatever is comfortable. Our things MUST NOT have a hold on our minds and hearts. Following is often hard, but it can also be freeing to be released from the hold that our possessions have on us. That will free our hearts, minds and time to be able to be in relationship with God in a new wah.
ReplyDeleteI always felt accused by this passage as well. Sharing, giving and desiring what we don't have are all in play here. Freeing our hearts, minds and time to be in relationship with God in a new way and in a *new* relationship with each other is at the center of this to my mind as well.
DeleteStarting with the observation we live in America, the richest nation on earth, brings up another point. I have never felt that God would make geography a key to eternal life. Given that most people follow their local religious culture it made no sense to me that Hindu, Muslim, Christian or any other flavor of religion beliefs would be an important factor to God in salvation. It is equally hard for me to accept that a person's material circumstance would be an important factor.
As I looked at the passage this week I understood Jesus gave this man a way to help him free his heart, mind and time from being bound by his life's circumstances or inherited beliefs about God. Also that these words are not just a command to be immediately or mechanically carried out or eternal life will be impossible. This is an invitation to live in a transformed way.
To make "mortals" feel accused and have them believe what is asked is impossible appears to be the intent here. This moves us away from believing there are certain steps to achieve and, once accomplished, eternal life is the reward for humankind's efforts.
DeleteInstead this points away from mortal efforts and toward God alone as the provider of eternal life.