Sermon: Mark 10:17-31

Sonia and I have both moved house a lot. Both previously to being married together, and since, we have moved home a lot of times. When you move a lot, you realise just how much “stuff” you have accumulated and you can get good at getting rid of things. I think I’m pretty ruthless with unnecessary stuff; trying not to let sentimentality drive the decision on whether a particular “thing” is something I need to take with me to the next house. I have a fairly straightforward principal that if I haven’t used that thing since the last move, then I ask myself “do I really need it?”

But then there’s the books. I have quite a few books. And I find it really hard to part with them. I’ve accumulated them over many years and I find it very difficult to think of getting rid of any of them. As an academic, books aren’t just for reading, they are for reference, and so I hang on to them because there may come a day when I need to refer to them. Maybe that’s just optimism, or idealism, or me trying to convince myself that I “really, really need those books.” Still, when we move to Brisbane, they’ll all be coming with me.

Our gospel reading today is a story about a young man who also has a lot of stuff. We’re told he “had many possessions.” Maybe he had a lot of books? Maybe it was other things. We’re not told but from that phrase, and the discussion between Jesus and the disciples afterwards, we’ve come to know him as a “rich man.” At the beginning of the story, this rich man runs up to Jesus and kneels before him. His actions are reminiscent of the younger brother in the story of the lost son (Luke 15). Interrupting Jesus in his journey by throwing himself into his path, he asks a desperate question – “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The question is interesting on so many levels. First, in Mark’s gospel the phrase “eternal life” only appears two times and they’re both in this passage. Much more commonly, Jesus speaks of the “kingdom of God.” A kingdom that he is bringing in through his life and ministry here and now. Not so much about another life we will experience after death. Second, is the word “inherit.” Eternal life is some “thing” that this rich man wishes to possess, perhaps like another book that will sit on a shelf alongside all of the others in his personal library. How do I get that one? 

Jesus responds to him in a typically rabbinic way by pointing him to the commandments. He lists some of the ten commandments, with one additional one thrown in the mix; “do no defraud.” How has he come to accumulate so many possessions in such a short lifetime? Has he built his mass of stuff off the backs of others? Did he rip others off? Did his wealth come through legitimate means? We don’t know, but he does profess to be an honest man.

“Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 

When you’re reading Scripture, I encourage you to take your time and imagine the scene. There are key moments that require us to picture the scene as it would have happened. This is one of those moments. Imagine this …

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”

Despite his many possessions and obvious wealth, here is this man, kneeling before Jesus, begging for the thing that is missing from his life. And Jesus looks at him and loves him. I wonder if he realized the gift that was being offered to him in that moment. The gift of divine love direct from the person of Jesus, standing there before him.

In his love, Jesus points out to this man of many possessions the nature of the need that remains. Again, the language here is important.

“You lack one thing.”

“What is that thing? Tell me now so I can go and buy it? Where can I inherit this object? Do you take Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal?”

But the thing he lacks is not something he can just buy off Amazon. In fact, the thing that stands before him is not a “thing” at all. It’s a “them.” The poor. In the many times I’ve heard sermons on this passage, and indeed amongst all the commentaries I’ve seen on this passage, the poor are barely mentioned. Yet, a genuine, gift-oriented, encounter with them is the very thing that this possession-laden man is missing. 

He needs them. 

What’s the point here? Well, the problem with possessions is that they drown out the cries of the poor. Proverbs 21:13 is worth quoting here; “If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard.” This man’s possessions had closed off his ear to the cry of the poor. How do we know? Well, by thee simple fact that his many possessions and the poor exist at the same time! If he was truly following the commandments he would know to love his neighbour, his poor neighbour, as himself. And, yet he doesn’t.

One of the greatest scandals of our time is the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. And, the church is meant to be a place where something different to this is lived out, and yet this message is needed just as much inside the church as it is outside. 

This man walked away shocked and grieving, we read, “for he had many possessions.” I suspect, he also faced the dilemma, if he decided to take up the challenge, of actually finding the poor to begin with. Going and giving the money to the poor requires going and seeking them out. Yet, wealthy people don’t live amongst the poor. And herein lies the problem. The thing this man was lacking was relationship with people, and in particular people who rely on other people for their very existence. The poor. His possessions had become a fortress of solitude that provided him with the means to be able to live on his own; independent of other people. Not having to rely on anyone else for survival. Here, Jesus confronts him with the thing that he is lacking. Kingdom-based relationships.

The kingdom of God calls upon us to see that the existence of poverty in our world as a problem that can be addressed through community. Ironically, giving away his possessions would be a means towards the interpersonal relationships that he so desperately needed. 

At the end of our reading, when Peter reminds Jesus of all that the disciples have given up to follow Jesus, Jesus reminds Peter of the benefits they have received. No one who gives up relationships to follow Jesus will be without kingdom based relationships. For they will receive a hundredfold, in this age—“houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields… with persecutions… and in the age to come eternal life.” 

That promise of “persecutions” just gets dropped in there, doesn’t it? What do we make of that?

Again, the context is key. It’s not a promise of persecutions that you face on your own. It’s the promise of persecutions in the context of the kingdom relationships that come with following Jesus. You don’t face them alone. We face them together. 

So, let us respond to the call of Jesus, and the call of the poor in our midst and in our community. Let us go, sell what we have, give the money to the poor, and we will have treasure in heaven. 

Come… let’s follow Jesus together.