I.N.I.
a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, VA on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, also known as 14 October 2012, and based on the Gospel for the Day: St. Mark 10:17-22
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Dear Friends in Christ,
There are lots of reasons for going to college. One of them is so that --- after graduation -- the student can get a better-paying job than he or she would have gotten without the college degree. And that usually happens. Statistics tell us that most people with college degrees earn higher salaries than most people without them, though naturally there are exceptions.
There are, of course, other reasons to go to college. A very important one is to spend some time asking the big questions in life; and, we hope, thinking about answers to those questions. These are questions like "Why are we here?" "What is the good life?" "What is truth?" "What is beauty?" "In light of all this, how should we live?" Christian liberal arts colleges like our Concordia Colleges and Universities are among the places that try to emphasize this process.
The man in today's Gospel and sermon text certainly could have benefited from going through an experience like that. Let's try to get a picture of him and what he asks. We'll look at
I. The Big Question
II. Wrong Answers to the Big Question, and
III The Christ Answer to the Big Question
First of all, this man ran up to Jesus and knelt before Him to ask his question. In translating this into the present day, I see him in a nice sweat suit, designer running shoes, swept back hair, and just the barest evidence of sweat of his face. He seems to have been an all around good guy. He certainly has a pile of money invested or available to him. He seems to have been a successful young man, maybe like a Silicon Valley start-up executive or Wall Street investment banker we read about in today's news.
He asks Jesus the Big Question. We can learn a lot simply be examining the question
He doesn't ask -- as others did -- to be healed. He doesn't ask that a relative or servant be healed. He doesn't ask Jesus to settle a dispute he is involved in. He doesn't ask Jesus one of those 'trick questions' about the Jewish Law.
This man asks our Lord the most important, most serious, question anyone can ask. He asks Jesus how to receive eternal life. He asks how to inherit it.
In one way or another, everyone asks this question at some time during their life. These days a lot of people don't pose the question using religious language. Our society is too secularized for that. These people will ask it by the way they look for meaning in life, by the things they consider important to themselves, by the things they try to achieve.
People over the years with great minds have asked this question about eternal life. Some have created huge amounts of written work as their legacy. Some have taught and thought at the world's universities. Well-known philosophers and scientists have looked through the whole breadth of the universe for an answer to this question. And they have come up empty because the question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of human thought alone.
The rich and the cultured have asked the Big Question about eternal life, too. Some have surrounded themselves with impressively large castles and mansions. They have filled their world with beautiful objects of art, with jewelry, with music, and thousands of other comforts of life. They have sought in vain among these things for any lasting meaning, or any clear answers to the key to eternal life. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of things made by human hands.
The poor and disadvantaged have also asked the Big Question about eternal life. In their pain, in their suffering, in their hunger and cold and loneliness, society's outcasts have wondered about eternal life. The seeds of hope in their hearts lead them to wonder about a better life in the future. They have wondered whether there is indeed anything beyond the empty bleakness of their present lives. But they have not found their own way above the rim of their cup of suffering. The question about eternal life is not one that can be answered on the basis of reflections on the sad state of one's own affairs.
The young man in today's text perhaps spoke more from the position of one who was rich and cultured, than from the vantage point of having a great mind or of being poor and disadvantaged. At the same time, he had pondered this question, he had thought about it. And there is a certain poverty in his conversation with Jesus.
The first thing to notice about this man's wrong answers is that he makes a dangerous assumption about the present state of his righteousness, He knows the proper form of address for Jesus. He answers promptly that he has kept all the commandments from the time of his youth. He figures he has it all sewn up and just needs a pat on the head form Jesus to send him on into the pearly gates. The man in the text confidently assumes he has all the right answers.
The next step, he figures, is to meet a new challenge that he wants Jesus to set before him. The form of his question points this out. "What must I do ...?" he asks. He assumes that there is another level of piety, another level of holiness, another level of perfection that he can reach, if only he does enough. The psychologists today might diagnose him as a compulsive over-achiever.
There is always inadequacy when one aims at answering this Big Question about eternal life under one's own steam. Like the young man, we can't fit all the pieces together on our own. When he asks Jesus what he must do, Jesus reminds him of the commandments. He says "You know the commandments." And then lists them. Let me read the list again, and you see if you notice anything odd about it:
"Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother."
Notice anything? There are a few things that pop out to me. First, Jesus only lists 6 commandments, not 10. Second, He doesn't list them in the order that we know them from Exodus or Deuteronomy. Third, he drops in a commandment that isn't in the list we memorized in confirmation class or Sunday School ("Do not defraud"). And fourth, all the ones Jesus lists are from the second table of the Law, the ones dealing not with our relation with God, but with our relations with people.
I believe that one thing Jesus is telling us with this list of commandments is that no matter what you do with God's Law, there's always something else. You can shorten the list. You can rearrange it. You can turn it upside down. But there's always something else you have to do or say or avoid, in order to keep the Law completely. If you want to reach eternal life through the path of the Law, you'll fall short. There's always something else.
Jesus holds up a second option for his questioner when the man proudly answers that he's kept all the Law from the time of his youth. Jesus holds up the real doing of God's will. It was earlier expressed by the prophet Micah who asked "...what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8); and by Amos in today's Old Testament lesson when he said to "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate..." (Amos 5:15). Jesus wants the man to sell all that he owns and give the money to the poor. Such a radical act of generosity would certainly qualify as an act in tune with God's will. It would be a good work that evidenced the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the young man's life. But the man was disheartened and went away sorrowful because he had many possessions (or, as another translation puts it "great possessions" which sounds like someone today who "has great stuff!").
The implication is that the man was grieved over the loss of the physical comfort his possessions afforded him. He was sad about the prospect of losing all his stuff. The implication is that the man thought he had already done everything required of him by God. Unfortunately, what he had done was to store up for himself treasures on earth "where moth and rust destroy" (Matthew 6:19); he had not stored up treasures in Heaven.
And by leaving right away, this man unfortunately misses what Jesus says next. He misses the path that Jesus lays out for him to jog on. Listen to what Jesus tells his disciples in next week's Gospel: "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." (Mark 10:27) It's impossible for us to reach up and grab the fruit of eternal life for ourselves. There isn't anything we can do to inherit it. Eternal life itself is not impossible; it's just that there is no one on earth who can achieve it by himself or herself.
The only place for us to go for eternal life is to Jesus; this much the man in our text had right. Jesus alone has the rich storehouse from which we can receive eternal life. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His blessings are lasting and His treasures are forever. His perfect obedience to God's Law cannot be matched. Jesus alone is the all-sufficient source of forgiveness and eternal life.
There is no salvation in riches. Although the Bible makes it clear that Abraham lived as a wealthy man; it also makes clear that he was saved by his faith. Job was a rich man; but he was saved through faith. Today's Old Testament lesson (Amos 5:6-7, 10-15) describes the sorry state of rich people who oppress the poor, rich people who do not exercise justice. The great size of your bank account has nothing to do with the richness of your relationship with God.
Salvation, redemption, eternal life ... the only source for these things is the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone can forgive our sins. He alone can bring us the peace and assurance that we seek.
Looking for lasting contentment in money, in education, in power, in prestige, in your work, in your family, or in anything else is a fruitless search. The young man in our text found that out the hard way. We thank God that His Son offers each of us the real key to contentment and eternal life. We thank God that it is ours simply by believing as a gift of His grace.
AMEN
And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.