On Sunday our Lay Worship Leader gave the homily, based on the story of the rich young man, who came before Jesus and asked how he could inherit eternal life...The answer Jesus gave both shocked and grieved the young man.
Many of the Gospel readings from Mark this season have been about how people encountered Jesus and have also invited us to think about how we might have reacted – or how we do react – in the same situation. When we are challenged to “take up our cross” how do we answer? When we asked, “who is Jesus to you?” what do we reply? When we meet people from a different culture, a different faith, how do we speak to them?
And this Gospel reading is no different: we have the story of the wealthy young man, and we hear of his encounter with Jesus. But there is the unspoken challenge to us in this: how are we like the young man? What is our reaction when God asks us to relinquish something we hold dear?
In November we traditionally focus on stewardship, thinking about what we can give to God in terms of our time, our talents and our treasure. And often this reading is used as an example – it’s not enough to come to church, to do all the church-y things that are expected of us, we have to give our wealth to God too, because after all, having money is a bad thing. It is, as we are reminded, easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Give Christ Church all your dosh and you will be saved.
Well…not exactly.
Because this story is – and isn’t – about wealth and possessions. It is about anything that is more important to us than God, and also, by association, more important to us than other people. It is about anything that gets in the way of our realisation and understanding that we are utterly dependent on God’s love, and utterly entwined with the lives of others and with this created world. This means not only our possessions, but our attitudes, our prejudices, and our long-held values.
For our young man, in the society in which he lived, this was his wealth; the wealth that gave him comfort, and stature, and respect. The wealth that meant he could go where he liked and be welcomed by all the “right” people. He had kept the commandments; he was seen as a fine upstanding member of society. If he lost this wealth, what would it mean for him? It would mean he was viewed by others in a totally different way – he would no longer have their respect; he would no longer be welcomed into their homes. For this young man his wealth was his identity. Without it he would be nothing in the eyes of the world. And for him, that was more important than what he would be in the eyes of God.
He was faced with a choice: to hold onto his possessions, and the illusion of security and identity that they gave him, or to relinquish all of this and to be truly free, to realise his utter dependence on God.
You may know the story of traditional hunters in various countries in Africa. To catch a monkey, the hunters put some delicious peanuts at the bottom of a narrow-necked jar. Scenting the nuts, the monkeys put their paw into the jar and grab their treasure. Then the hunters can calmly collect the jars and the monkeys – because the monkeys refuse to relinquish their grip on the nuts, they cannot withdraw their paws from the jars, meaning that they are easily captured by the hunters. They would rather cling onto material treasures than keep their freedom, and quite possibly their lives.
The young man would rather hold onto his wealth, and the stature that this gave him in the eyes of the world, than find freedom and life following Jesus.
What would you rather hold onto? What is keeping you from a life that is fully committed to following Christ? I don’t pretend to know about any of your relationships with God; I can only speak about my own, and I know that while I have said “Yes” to Christ, and I am trying – some days more successfully than others – to live and love in the way God calls me to, there are so many things that I cannot let go of, that fundamentally affect my relationship with others, and with God.
In the reading from Hebrews, we heard the words “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow” God does not make things easy. Jesus, the word, did not make things easy. When the young man came before him, Jesus did not congratulate him on all the good things he did; instead, he made a demand that cleaved the young man’s soul in two. “You lack one thing”, he said; “go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor”
The young man was shocked, he grieved, he turned away, not willing to relinquish the thing that, to him, gave him stature. It wasn’t his relationship with God that was important to the young man, but his relationship with the world.
And this is the question that God asks us each day: what are you hanging onto that comes between you and your Master? We can still follow Christ and be dragging things behind us that we will not let go of, and these are things that are spoiling our relationship with God. We can still be a part of the Kingdom and the work of the Kingdom, while carrying prejudice or the love of stature on our back – but, boy, isn’t it difficult? Wouldn’t it be better to let it go?
But God knows, isn’t letting go also difficult? I have a film running in my head, of how I first came to God, kneeling at the foot of the cross, and leaving all that I was and all my burdens and fears there. I rejoiced, I stood, feeling my life was just beginning, in the light and love of God. I stepped away from that place, and then turned back, hesitated, and said “I’ll just take this with me”, picking up the sack of, let’s say “Fear of rejection”. And then “well, perhaps this little belief that some people don’t deserve love” …and before I know it, I have piled most of the things that hindered my relationship with God back onto my back and I’m struggling again. I know I am loved; I know I am dependant on God…but I still can’t let go of those things. Perhaps the monkey is like that: he realises that it would be so much better to let go of those peanuts, that he is losing freedom by holding them tight in his paw,, but he can’t quite bring himself to do so. The treasure of peanuts now is too alluring.
Happily, for us, we are not monkeys in the grip of a hunter who wishes us harm. Instead, we are held in the arms of a loving God who wishes only life and love and freedom for us. That is a detail think I have often missed in the story of the rich young man – it says “Jesus, looking at him, loved him “. Jesus wasn’t trying to trick the young man, or to make a show of him, or to say, “God won’t love you until you give up your wealth”. Jesus wasn’t even saying that being rich was wrong. He was saying “for you, young man standing before me and earnestly seeking the way to follow God, your wealth and love of stature, is getting in the way of a true relationship with God. You need to relinquish this”. But he was saying it with love.
What is Jesus saying, with love, to you?
What is Jesus saying you lack? What is standing in the way of your true relationship with God? What is making it difficult for you to learn to trust God for all your needs?
If we are truly serious about our journey with Christ, we need to reflect on this most days. It may not always be the same thing that gets in the way: one day we have struggles because we just cannot forgive someone for their actions towards us, another day our walk with Christ is hampered by the fact we really, really want that pair of trousers that are incredibly cheap, even though we have six pairs of trousers already, and we don’t want to think about who has been forced to stitch these in a sweatshop for a pittance…
And I’m sorry to say that for me, I , like the rich young man, will turn away from God and buy those trousers, closing my eyes to the suffering of others, or say something cutting to the person who hurt me.
It doesn’t break my relationship with God, but it does cause God to grieve; it causes a slight fissure, that I need to mend through true repentance, and through understanding what harm I have caused to my relationship with others, with the world, and with God.
God knows it is difficult. But God loves us through it all: as the writer of Hebrews says: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And as Jesus says, For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.
Riches and possessions, attitudes and prejudices, may give us an illusion of security, of stature, of self-reliance, but we are called on – every day – to admit that we do not need these things to live in fullness of life; to admit that in relinquishing these things we will learn to trust God in everything.
In the light of God’s love, we are given mercy and grace to try and to fail, and to try again. We are given mercy and grace to relinquish those things that keep us from a right relationship, and then to snatch them up again, and then to relinquish them once more… For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible. One day we will be able to place it all at God’s feet – and leave it there.
This is where I want to say “So be it. Amen”
But I can’t. I feel so sad for the young man. His heart was broken as he turned away from Jesus, for he truly knew himself and understood that he could not do what Jesus was asking of him. Do you think he was able to do it in the end? Do you think that his longing to be a part of the Kingdom overcame his desire for wealth and status? Did God’s light finally find the cracks and shine into his soul? We may never know.
But Suzanne Guthrie, author, spiritual guide, and Visiting Professor of Women in Ministry at an Episcopal school for Divinity writes:
Without a name, the rich young man becomes everyone. You. Me.
The encounter with Jesus begins the story - being loved, being known, and then walking sadly away. Jesus lets him go. Perhaps Jesus loved and knew him well enough to know this man's journey would perfect itself in the absence of Jesus, ever trying to make up for his loss with a life of holiness. Sometimes a loss, a mistake, a bad decision, sometimes even tragedy, shatters you so much that grace can seep through the brokenness. Sometimes for you and for me, the brokenness becomes the holiness, perfected in the empty space between imperfection and desire
This is God’s love: recognising, as Jesus did, that there was such a desire on the young man’s part to have a right relationship with God, but that he fell short of being able to completely relinquish himself. When we come to God and admit that we know our relationship isn’t right, and we want to make it better then God understands. And when, unable to help ourselves, we take back whatever we have just relinquished, God understands. And loves us in our imperfections and our contrariness. Sometimes for you and for me, the brokenness becomes the holiness, perfected in the empty space between imperfection and desire
So be it. Amen”
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