Mark 10: 17-31
Karl Barth was a
Swiss theologian and arguably the most prominent and influential Protestant
theologian of the 20th century. His magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, is a massive work, comprising 13 volumes, some
8,000 pages, and over 6 million words. It is the longest work of systematic
theology ever written, at least in the Christian tradition. Toward the end of
his life, someone asked him a provocative question. Since he had devoted his
life to pondering the human condition and the mysteries of the Christian faith,
this person asked Karl Barth what was the most profound thought he had ever
had. Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
The love of
Christ for all people is the foundation of our faith. We count on it. And Jesus
reveals his love in everything he does: in his healing of the sick and his
feeding of the hungry, in his embrace of the outcasts and his acts of
compassion towards all who are in need. But while the whole narrative shines
with the love of Christ, only once in Mark’s entire Gospel does the evangelist
go out of his way to explicitly tell us that Jesus loved someone, and that is
in the passage we heard today, the story of a rich man who is seeking something
he can’t quite find. Mark tells us that Jesus,
looking at him, loved him.
This is one of
those Gospel passages that we quickly try to explain away or defend ourselves
from. Let’s just admit that right off the bat. We may think, for example, that
this is just about wealthy people, and since we can all think of people who
have more money than we do, then it applies to them, not to us. Or we might
think, “This is a story about that particular man. Jesus commands him to sell
his possessions and give his money away to the poor, but he doesn’t command me
to do that.” Or like Peter, we might think about what we have already given up
for God, like our pledge to the church, and feel like we should get some credit
for that. We play these mental games because this passage seems threatening and
scary, and somehow we have to tame it and make it manageable.
Rather than
avoiding the tension in this passage, however, I’m going to ask you to sit with
it for a few minutes. Like that rich man, all of us here want abundant and
eternal life, want to be close to God. Presumably that’s why we’re here right
now. And all of us here are probably very attached to our money, our
possessions, our careers, our lifestyles, our social status, and a host of
other things that are easy to be attached to when you live in the wealthiest
nation in the history of the world. The tension comes when we feel in our guts
and know deep down in our hearts that some of the stuff we are attached to
really does get in the way of living a full life in communion with God. So feel
that tension for a moment and remember the Gospel: Jesus, looking at him loved him. That “looking at him” detail is
crucial. Jesus never just glances at anyone. When he sees you, he sees
you: he peers into the depths of your soul and observes everything. He saw that
that man was conflicted and struggling. And he loved him, just the way he was.
And he sees how conflicted we can be, and he loves us, just the way we are.
Therein lies our salvation and the practical lesson of this Gospel.
And that lesson
isn’t “Don’t be attached to anything.” Of course we get attached. We just had a
wedding: we want Lizzie and Zach to be deeply attached to each other for the
rest of their lives. We are attached to the people we love; we’re committed to
work that is meaningful and fulfilling; we’re engaged with the church; we need
homes to live in and food to eat and resources to share. Jesus himself is
deeply attached to his friends and disciples, and he enjoys dinner parties and
wedding banquets. He doesn’t preach deprivation. But he does point us right to
those places where we are overly attached, those places where our attachments
actually get in the way of leading a full and Spirit-filled life.
So I would phrase
the practical lesson of the Gospel this way: we should not avoid the places of
tension in our lives, the places where we are overly attached. That is where
our growing edge will be. In the story, Jesus does not condemn the man: he
loves him. And the point is not that this guy won’t go to heaven when he dies.
The point is that he is not experiencing heaven now. The free and abundant life
Jesus wants everyone to have is eluding him, which is why he comes to Jesus to
begin with. He follows all the rules, but that’s not enough. His over
attachment to his possessions has impeded the flow of God’s love and God’s
Spirit in his life, and Jesus pinpoints the problem and offers him a way
forward, a way into fuller and better life.
The heart of this
Gospel, then, is not judgment, but invitation. We don’t need to be afraid to
look at those areas where we are too attached to our money, our possessions, or
any other feature of our earthly life. Jesus doesn’t condemn us: he loves us.
And he wants us to experience the best life we can now. Years ago, when I first
started tithing, giving ten percent of my income to the church, it was for me a
real movement away from fear and towards trust. Over the years, that adds up to
thousands of dollars I could have spent on my family or my security or
whatever. But it’s been so liberating: I’ve seen over and over again that I always
have enough, and more than enough. God always provides what I need. And that
kind of freedom can happen in many ways. I know a guy, a church-going man of
faith, who used to have an extensive and expensive collection of single malt
Scotch. He would often have tasting parties—it was a big deal to him. And then
one day he gave it all away. When asked why, he said, “I realized that I was
thinking about Scotch all the time, that it dominated my life. And I didn’t
want to live that way. So I got rid of it, and I’m so glad I did.”
Where is that
point of tension in your life? Where are you overly attached, clinging to
something out of fear or obsession or just plain habit? Jesus sees you in that
very place, and loves you. And he is inviting you to let go and move forward
into a fuller, freer, and better life. I urge you to pay attention, heed the
invitation, and take him up on his
offer.
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