I: Remember
The third of our ultimate questions sounds almost like a throwaway. Like a sarcastic castoff. “What do I still lack?”
The young man had already asked the most sweeping question possible, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” As you may remember if you were here two Sundays ago, that question is laden with wrong assumptions, such as the assumption that he could just do something to gain this prize, such as the assumption that he could grasp and claim something like eternal life as his own, such as the pervasive self-centeredness of it ... I, I, I. That question was laden with wrong-headed assumptions, but, yet, it was pointed toward eternal life. It was pointed toward something ultimate. It was a sweeping and important question.
And, as we saw on this past Sunday, Jesus took it seriously but also treated it with suspicion. Jesus took it seriously, He proposed an answer to it. But He also treated it with suspicion. He tested the question for the argumentative spirit; He sniffed out what trap was hiding in it; and most of all He probed, with His own question, to make sure that the young man in front of Him was listening to his own heart, reading his own mind. Jesus wanted no hand-me-down opinions or second-hand theology. He wanted a personal and direct commitment to the truth. And so Jesus answered the question seriously, treating it with the right degree of suspicion, “Why do you ask me about what is good? If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments.”
Keep the commandments. So when the young man pressed Jesus further, “Which ones?”, the Lord provided the obvious answer, reciting many of the Ten Commandments and speaking of loving one’s neighbor. That brings us to tonight’s ultimate question, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus, you have told me nothing new, you have offered no fresh perspective, you have pointed me in no new direction. Keep the commandments? Been there, done that! Must be something else. “What do I still lack?”
For one thing, the young man still lacked memory. Historical memory. He lacked recall of what was behind the commandments the Lord had pointed out. If he had possessed the perspective of history, the history of his own people, he would have understood the answer.
“What must I do?” “Keep the commandments” “Which ones?” “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal.” These words were given to Moses after God had brought the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, out through the waters of the Red Sea, into the wilderness of Sinai. These words were given by God through Moses to a people described as stubborn, stiff-necked, hot-headed. A difficult, rebellious, cantankerous people. In other words, people like us. People like the very young man who now stood in front of Jesus.
And so if our young questioner had had in mind that history, the history of his people, he would have had in mind his own personal history. He would have recalled that it is unlikely, no, impossible, to keep the commandments. He would have understood that his feet had often strayed, his hands had often touched things which were not his, his heart had often flirted with lust and envy, covetousness and hatred. “Keep the commandments”. “I have kept all these.” I don’t think so. I don’t think so.
“What do I still lack?” Sir, you lack a sense of history, or you would have remembered to whom these commandments were given. Sir, you lack knowledge of yourself, or you would know that what you claim is too much, that you have not in fact kept them all. Sir, you lack memory of even your own life.
Sir, most of all what you lack is the knowledge that you cannot on your own and by yourself do what you think you want to do. You lack the awareness that a man named Paul would come to in only a few years, the memory that “Nothing good dwells in within me ... I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” What do we still lack? We lack the heartcry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Remember. Remember what we have never been able to do for ourselves.
II: Watch
“If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” “You shall not .. and also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?”
This young man lacked not only a sense of history; he not only did not remember to whom the commandments were given and why. He also lacked self-awareness. He lacked a knowledge of his own heart. He lacked any real sense of his own motives. And he had not learned to watch where God was at work.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Who of us, if we really stop to think about it, can glibly claim that we have fulfilled this expectation? Who of us is ready to say that we have loved our neighbors in any profound way? Who of us stops to watch for God at work in the people around us?
Who of us has not seen someone in need, and then manufactured a long list of reasons, perfectly logical reasons, why we will not help? Logical, maybe, but not necessarily loving. And not watching where God was at work.
Who of us has not jumped to the most negative conclusion when we have heard some tidbit of gossip about a friend? We might have chosen to question the truth of that negative message, but we enjoyed believing the worst. Fun, maybe, but not loving. And not watching what God might be doing in the life and soul of that friend. We had a chance to participate in turning that friend around, but we preferred to watch him fall. Not loving, not watching God’s work.
Who of us has not turned a deaf ear to that appeal to help: a leadership position in the church, a volunteer ministry, a community service, something that might be redemptive out in these streets? Who of us has not claimed that we didn’t have time for that? And when we did, what was that about? Was that self-centeredness, trying to protect our own privacy, enhance our own leisure? Worse, was that false modesty, so that we really wanted them to ask us a second or a third time, to plead with us, “Oh, nobody else could do this job, you are the only one!!”. Was it something like that? Whatever it was, when we turned a deaf ear to that appeal to help somebody, it was not love. Nor was it being attentive to God’s work. For wherever we are called to be, God has already gone there ahead of us, to prepare the way. We ignore that at our peril. We ignore that and we harm others and deprive ourselves of the blessings God wants to give.
What do I still lack? Oh, let me not talk any more about some anonymous young man! I can only speak for me! I can only say that nothing is more challenging to me than this command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Because I do know my own heart, perhaps just a shade better than he knew his. And I know, all too well, that “Nothing good dwells in within me ... I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” What do I still lack? What do we still lack? We lack the heartcry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” We lack some way to watch for God at work in others. We lack somebody who can make us love when we do not want to love?
Watch. Watch and pray. Remember and watch. God is about to do something decisive for the cause of love. Watch, for God is about to work His work.
III: See
The young man said, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
And we too go away grieving, for we too have many possessions. Or if we do not go away grieving, we go away trying to soften Jesus’ word. He just could not have meant what it sounds like, could He? Or if we do not go away grieving, or go away trying to soften this word, we just go away. We just walk away. Walk away from the answers, we even walk away from the question. We just quit looking for truth, quit asking about eternal life. We settle for so much less than what God really wants to give us. We do not see where He will lead us.
We pray for health, but do not want to pay the price of practicing good health habits, and so receive so much less than what God wants us to have. We have not seen the gift of health for all it is.
We ask for meaningful work, but do not let ourselves even imagine the kinds of tasks God might put in our way. We limit ourselves to the tried and true, the ordinary, and so we receive so much less than what God wants to give us. We have not seen what the sum total of our lives could be, so much more than this drab day-to-day getting and spending we settle for.
We cry out for friends, we ask for love, connectedness, but we do not respond to the needs of others around us, we do not learn that he who would have friends must be friendly, we do not perceive that they who would be embraced must first reach out to embrace. And so we never truly know what God wants us to have. We think we have not seen love.
“What do I still lack? Jesus told him that the problem was not what he lacked, but what he had; not that his bank account was short, but that it was too full; not that his life was missing something, but that it was cluttered with too much. And in the too much there was no room for the one thing needful, for the one thing above all, for the pearl of great price. There was no room in such a life for the love that God offers those who will take the risk of being loving.
They came to an upper room, and there they sat for the evening meal. But first Jesus took a towel, and, girding himself, set out to wash the feet of each one of his disciples. As I have done for you, so you also ought to do for one another. For a servant is not above his lord, nor a disciple above his master. All they lacked was a model of service; all they lacked was someone to show them what love really looked like. We think we have not seen love.
They came to a garden close by, there to watch and pray. Jesus went off a short way and began to pray, intensely, with agony, so that his sweat was like great drops of blood falling from his brow. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” All they lacked, all we lacked, was knowledge of someone who would love like that. This kind of love they had never seen.
They would come, the next day, to a green hill outside a city wall, where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners would be slain. They would come, the next day, to a place, wild and high, flung against the darkening eastern sky, a place to which all the roads of human history would run, a place towering o’er the wrecks of time. They would come to a place and stare in horror at the spectacle of the best of men done in by the worst of punishments, for crimes he had never committed. They would come, and I’d like to think the young questioner would come, there to discover who this Jesus is. To find out what He can do. To see this wondrous love in action.
They would come and you and I too come, to remember, to watch and to see. To see that though “Nothing good dwells in within me ... [though] I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” To see who will rescue us from this body of death: even Jesus Christ, who for us and for our salvation, was made man, crucified, dead and buried. To see that in Him and by Him and through Him are all things done, all questions asked, all hearts won, all lives redeemed. Behold and see, behold and see, no greater love has anyone than this, that He lay down His life for His friends.
Even us. Even brash questioners. Even young men who think they‘ve done it all properly. Even older folks who know they haven’t done it right at all. Even you. Even me.
What do I still lack? Nothing. Nothing. For Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. What do I still lack? Nothing, for more than all in Him we find. No other refuge do we need. No other help do we know. No other. Nothing lacking. Only give me Jesus.
