Mark 10:17-31
Introduction:
Do you remember the first time you heard this scripture?
How old were you? I remember hearing this scripture for the first time. I was
probably eight or nine years old. I remember thinking that the whole thing was
weird. You see, I didn’t grow up economically privileged. We were perhaps
privileged in other ways, but money wasn’t one of those privileges. Taco Bell
was the outing that my mother and I would take sometimes. It was always a treat and I’d always order
the same thing – a bean burrito. Anyway, my mother would take me clothes
shopping once a year. There used to be a clothing store on the West Coast
called Mervyns. It’s gone now, replaced by Kohls, but that was the store of my
childhood. My mother had a budget and I’d get to pick out a new pair of shoes
along with several sets of new clothes. This was my yearly ritual and like most
kids I noticed that we didn’t shop at Macy’s, or Zoomies, or any of the stores
that the wealthier kids shopped at.
When you’re a child you don’t necessarily realize how
privileged you may actually be to shop at a place like Kohls every year. Most
of the time when you go to school there’s always someone, or maybe many people,
who have better things. They might be wearing the right brands, the right pump
up kicks (the shoes with the pump in them), or in High School that new car
their parents bought them. It’s easy to get wrapped up in what you don’t have
and what other people might have.
So when I heard this scripture for the first time as a
child it was strange. It seemed so counter-intuitive. That’s probably not a
word I would have used at that age, but that’s what I felt. In my mind, I
wondered how Jesus could both love this rich man and ask him to sell what he
had and give it to the poor? Wouldn’t those things make him happy? Wasn’t he
sad when he left? To my young mind, Jesus seemed like such a Debby Downer!
One of the most popular songs of 2011 was called, “Pumped
Up Kicks” by Foster the People. The
indie-pop song is admittedly a little hipster, but it spent eight consecutive
weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart
in the US. It even received a Grammy Award Nomination. So why am I mentioning
this? Because this song spoke to a generation and surprisingly it reflects this
scripture in a weird way. The song’s lyrics describe the homicidal thoughts of
a troubled youth, but ironically pairs this with an incredibly upbeat tune. So
upbeat that it’s almost like a jingle. So as you hear the lyrics:
Robert’s got a
quick hand
He’ll look around
the room
He won’t tell you
his plan
He’s got a rolled
cigarette
Hanging out his
mouth
He’s a cowboy kid
Yeah he found a
six-shooter gun
In his dad’s
closet, in the box of fun things
I don’t even know
what
But he’s coming
for you, yeah he’s coming for you
[And Then Chorus Kicks In]
All the other kids
with the pumped up kicks
You better run,
better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids
with the pumped up kicks
You better run,
better run, faster than my bullet
And the song goes on. But
as you listen to the song on the first few takes the genius escapes you. The
jingle-like tune overwhelms your senses. The peppy rhythm gets you nodding your
head and missing the obvious. Unsurprisingly, Mark Foster, the front man for
the band, wrote the song while he was working as a commercial jingle writer!
What a bit of irony that is! The man who used music to
manipulate people into buying products wrote a song that tricks its listeners
into ignoring the obvious. It soothes the ears and convinces you to ignore what’s
really being said. Sometimes art is the act of exposing that which does not
wish to be revealed and concealing that which is all too open. In this act of
transition a message can be spoke. Mark Foster, the man who convinced people to
buy things through music, made a generation sing along to the tune of greed,
the tune of consumerism, the tune of the jaded reject. Perhaps a bit like
today’s scripture, Mark Foster looked his audience in the eye and held up the
mirror so that all of the Dorian Grays of the world could see their own
reflections. Like some rip off of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, you can imagine ghoulish figures
dancing to their own dirge.
The
Basic Message:
We can learn a number of things from today’s passage of
scripture. But the most basic of these is probably the lesson that we can’t buy
our salvation. Neither our possessions or our works will save us. Only God can
save us. If there’s one message, you get from today’s sermon I hope it’s that.
I hope you get more too! But this is lesson is important.
Interpretations:
When I was growing up I heard a number of different
approaches to this passage. You see, difficult scriptures usually get a lot of
different kinds of approaches. Some scriptures are just plain uncomfortable and
this is one of them. So if you look at history Christians have tried to do all
sorts of things with this passage.
One approach that I actually heard quite a bit growing up
is the idea that the “eye of the needle” was actually a gate in the city of
Jerusalem. You see when night would come the main gates would be closed, but
the eye of the needle would be open, but it was very small for defensive
purposes. So a camel would come through they would have to unload it in order
to pass the camel through. Likewise, many have said that the text is like that.
In order to pass into heaven, we must unload the things that hold back our
souls. Unfortunately, this story is pseudo-history. There’s no evidence that
such a gate existed in the time of Jesus. The Eye of the Needle was actually
built in the Medieval period.
Another common approach, that I once heard preached on a
college campus, is to take the passage allegorically. Or in other words, to
take it as a call to leave aside whatever it is that’s holding us back from
following God. I think this is a nice and very helpful message, but there’s a
part of me that feels like something is still being missed.
Another approach, more specifically, Luther’s approach to
this story was to remind the listener that grace cannot be gained by works. The
rich man, in this version, cannot get over the mountain that is the law and
find the grace that God so freely offers. This is a helpful message for sure
and there is definitely truth to it. Yet, I still feel like this approach fails
to do justice to the story.
I think there’s something to that reaction I had as a
child. I think that there is actually something quite basic mixed in with all
the literary drama that’s going on in this story. I think we are supposed to
react like the disciples, we’re supposed to react like I did as a child. That
reactions actually gets the story! It doesn’t explain it away, it hears it and
goes, “Oh wow. That’s crazy man!”
I think that the best approach to this scripture is a
mixture between taking it as it is and explaining some things like the
aphorism. Earlier I said that the “eye of the needle” wasn’t a gate. Instead,
it’s an observation that contains a general truth -a phrase that expresses some
truth. In fact, there are a number of instances in Jewish literature where the
phrase is used. In other words, it’s a way to say that something is impossible!
Unless of course God is at work, in which case all things are possible. This is
exactly the way we find it in this passage and this is the way it appears in
other Jewish literature. This text is supposed to be hard! But there’s good
news hidden in here so hang on with me for a little while longer and we’ll dig
a little deeper.
Abundant
Life:
We’ve talked quite a bit this morning about some of the feelings
we’ve all faced at some point or another. Feelings is jealousy, want,
deprivation, etc. These are all things that this passage addresses because his
scripture delves into something that all of those things relate to – the
abundant life.
I imagine that most of you might remember a song recorded
in 1964. It’s a little number that goes by the name, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” How
many of you remember that song? _______ The topic of the abundant life is kind
of like that. Some things in life are more important than money. For a couple
of the Beatles at least that was
love.
Did you know that a Princeton University study determined
in 2010 that there was an annual household income point at which the amount of
money you make no longer bears significance on how happy you will be? Believe
it or not it’s $75,000 nationally.[1] Once a family gets to a
certain level of comfort, more money just comes with its own headaches. It no
longer bears any positive impact on a person’s emotional wellbeing. It will
frame your life differently and help you evaluate it differently, but it’s
statistically not likely to make you more emotionally healthy.
In
recent studies conducted by psychologists and social scientists, evidence has
shown that great wealth often reduces generous actions and feelings of
compassion toward others. In fact, those with fewer resources are less likely
to act selfishly, more willing to share and more likely to help others in need.
As riches grow, empathy for others seems to decline.[2]
Researchers have suggested that the reason why this may be the case is that
wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others.
If we are seemingly self-sufficient and do not have to rely on other people for
support, then we may care less about their well-being and have less empathy for
their needs and concerns.
Self
and Community:
This is where I
think there is a message that we’ve been missing in this scripture! If you
remember, a number of commandments were referred to. In fact, Jesus only mentioned
commandments of a certain variety. You see, when God gave the people of Israel
the 10 Commandments and the Law this served two purposes – to connect the
people to God and each other. You see there were two tablets of commandments.
The first contained the commandments regarding divine-human relations. The
second contained human to human relations. Jesus only mentions the later here!
Why, when the rich man is so clearly asking about his place regarding the first
set – his eternal security?
You see, Jesus asked him if he had done right by his
community, by his fellow humans. And he did so trickily. He asked if the rich
man had kept the law. The rich man responded that he had, but then Jesus says,
“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.”
Oh, man! Jesus set the bait and hooked him. He walked right into it. The point
is that although the rich man had kept the letter of the law, his relationship
with God was lacking because he had failed in some way to keep the spirit of
the law. More specifically, he had failed to keep the spirit of the Second
Tablet – what we would refer to as the thing we summarize by saying, “Love thy
neighbor as thyself.”
Jesus called the rich man into discipleship, into the path
of a follower. The rich man had to realize that the kingdom of God is intricately bound up with others,
especially the last and least. Sharing one’s lot with the last of all if a mark
of eternal, abundant life. Most of us will assume that the rich man is lost. He
walks away dejected. Yet, Christ says that all things are possible with God and
in fact I have one bit of hope for you. First, the passage says that Jesus
loved him. This is important on so many levels, but it’s also important for my
next point. This story follows a particular pattern.
You see the gospels like many books
have certain ways in which they are written. Each author has their own quirky
little style. For Mark, this story follows the pattern of a healing story!
Isn’t that strange? There’s no immediately apparent healing. And yet, maybe
there is. When someone comes to Christ for healing, in this case a healing of
the heart, he tells them to repent and go. Most of the time they just walk
away. That’s exactly what happened in this story. So while we don’t necessarily
hear the final word on whether the rich man had his heart healed, Christ says “for
God all things are possible” a message meant for the apostles certainly, but
also for us! The power of this story is the fact that Christ is offering to
heal our hearts of selfishness. He offers us a place in the Kingdom of God –
the body of Christ.
Closing Poem: The
Gift to Sing
by James Waldon Johnson
Sometimes
the mist overhangs my path,
And
beckoning clouds about me cling;
But,
oh, I have a magic way
To
turn the gloom to cheerful day –
I
softly sing.
And
if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed
by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With
glad defiance in my throat,
I
pierce the darkness with a note,
And
sing, and sing.
I
brood not over the broken past,
Nor
the dread whatever time may bring;
No
nights are dark, no days are long,
While
in my heart there swells a song,
And
I can sing.
No comments:
Post a Comment