Who here likes to be organized? You all have probably figured out that I’m a pretty organized person. Actually, I’m a really organized person; when I was in seminary, and before that while in college and then teaching, I used to make a “To-Do” list for everything. I had lists for what work and household chores needed to be accomplished each week; I had checklists for the homework I needed to complete each day; just about anything you can think of, I had it on a list somewhere. I was so obsessive about those “To-Do” lists that if I happened to do something that wasn’t on a checklist, I would write it down even after I did it, just so I could check it off. It used to be that when I was asked to list my strengths, I would put organization at the top of the list. I don’t do that so much anymore, nor do I keep as many checklists, but I’m still pretty organized.
I imagine that many of you have the same sort of tendencies, though perhaps not quite as extreme as my own. We take checklists to the grocery store with us. We have “routines” that we like to follow every morning or every night, or perhaps at several times throughout the day. If we have a specific goal in mind to be accomplished, we like to have at least an idea of the steps necessary to reach that goal. Simply put, there are just some of us who like order! And I imagine that the young man we encounter in this morning’s gospel reading is just one such person.
Popular tradition has come to identify this man as “the rich young ruler,” though here in Mark’s gospel we are told nothing except that he is a man with considerable wealth. Luke refers to the man as a ruler, and Matthew calls him young; and thus he has come to be known as the “rich young ruler.” Whatever may be his status, though, I think it’s certainly fair to say that this is man who likes clear steps and a good plan. Demonstrating what seems to be a yet tenable faith, the man approaches Jesus, not with the confidence of salvation through Jesus, but with a question, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Rather than receiving the kingdom in complete dependence as a little child, the rich man wants to know what he can do to inherit eternal life. He is seeking a clear direction, a step-by-step guide to this “new life” he has heard Jesus speaking about. It’s how he operates, and he hasn’t realized yet that Jesus turns everything inside out, even or most basic routines.
Now what's interesting is that at first, Jesus kind of goes with the man. He says to the wealthy young ruler, “You know the commandments: Don’t commit murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t give false testimony. Don’t cheat. Honor your father and mother.” It’s a list! Even more, it’s a list the man has known by heart for as long as he can remember. And we can almost imagine the man’s growing excitement with the listing of each additional commandment. He has done these things. He has followed the commandments. He can check every box, he’s been doing all these things since he was a young boy! “I’m set!” he must be thinking, “I’ve earned my ticket to eternal life!” I imagine the man was grinning from ear-to-ear as he completed his mental checklist. But, as we all know, this isn’t the end of this story. For at what was probably the very moment the man was about to bound off happily, on to his next agenda item, Jesus looked at him, and loved him.
I imagine that look probably stopped that wealthy man dead in his tracks. It wouldn’t have been a bad look. Love is a wonderful thing, but you know when someone looks at you with one of those smiles and you immediately know that perhaps everything isn’t quite as wonderful as you imagined it. You begin to wonder, "What is it he knows that I don't?" Jesus looked at the man with love because he knew the man was earnest, but also because he must have felt a great deal of compassion because he knew he was about to rock this wealthy man’s world. “There’s just one more thing,” Jesus said.
“Just one more thing.” Has anybody ever said that to you? That phrase makes it sound like another item for a checklist. And sure enough, sometimes that one more thing can be quite simple—pick up the piece of trash and drop it in the bucket, grab a tub of ice cream on the way out of the store, brush your teeth. But sometimes, that statement is so loaded, isn’t it? A doctoral candidate that “lacks just one thing” still has to complete his dissertation. To a cancer patient, that “one more thing” might be another round of chemo treatments. No wonder Jesus looked at the man with compassion and loved him. He was about to call this young man to a whole new path in life, this “one more thing” was a big deal, and Jesus knew it!
You see, those commandments Jesus listed, well, those are commandments five through nine; the ones have to do with our relationship with fellow human beings. Jesus didn’t say anything about those first four commandments that deal with our relationship with God the Father. And here’s why, Jesus came to change the way we are in relationship with God. With this “just one more thing,” Jesus is about to put a fresh twist on those old commandments and on how that wealthy young man, and each of us, relates to God. Jesus’ basic demand is not for some logic-chopping extra observance, some tightening of definition here and exact meaning there. This is all about putting God first. It’s all about throwing idols and covetousness to the winds, giving up all those things—money, checklists, perhaps even family—everything that distracts us from following God in Christ Jesus fully and completely. And part of the whole deal is that it’s not just about the future, Jesus is doing a new thing now. Eternal life isn’t something to be gained for later benefit, it starts here, in this moment. And here’s what Jesus says about how it works.
“Go, sell everything you have, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Wow. This deal just got a lot more complicated, didn't it? It's kind of like trying to stuff a camel through the eye of a needle! Suddenly this is about a whole lot more than just honoring your father and mother and not worshipping golden calves. The "one more thing" requires a fundamental change in the way this rich young ruler is living his life. And it begins with faith. You see, up to this point, the man has only had faith in himself; faith in his ability to follow the rules and keep order in his life, faith in his financial security and the assurance of a prosperous life. But as all good Jewish people of his day knew, these things are not eternal life.
You see, what everyone knew in Jesus' day is that eternal life is God’s new age; when everything will be fresh, and free from corruption, decay, evil, bitterness, pain, fear, and death. And that’s just the beginning. There will be new possibilities and opportunities at every turn, new joys and delights. Heaven and earth will be joined together and God will live with God’s people. It is what people had been longing after for ages. There is no more intimate connection with God, love, and perfection than that! And it will come about when God finally rules the world with God’s saving power. And this is what Jesus is presently bringing to those who will trust him, who will set aside everything else, "come, and follow [him]." What the rich young ruler needs is what we all need. We all need to allow ourselves to be claimed by the love of God.
God wants us all to be complete, to live eternally with him, to be totally dedicated to his service, not to be half and half people, with one foot in the kingdom and the other in the world. But for this to be possible, we have to have faith in God and God alone. In order to be complete, we must be empty. And in order to be empty we must be willing to empty ourselves of all things which hinder or get in the way of our relationship with God. In order to have everything we must have nothing. In order to be fully signed up to God’s service, we must be signed off from everything else. In order to live the resurrected life, we must first die with Christ.
There is no getting around this one. The kingdom of God is unfolding, but joining Jesus in the kingdom is not easy and is often excruciatingly painful. This isn't just another item on the checklist, and taking a “first step” is often very difficult and sometimes painful. In fact, it could be so difficult, we might feel discouraged at first; hearing a call to serve God and literally parting with all we have to follow Jesus is a huge deal, and it requires a huge faith in the God who loves us far more than we could ever imagine. That's a way of life that could never be captured on a simple "To-Do" list.
We are told in our Gospel Lesson that the disciples were “shocked” by what they had seen and by what Jesus had said. Knowing the organized, regimented life of such high standing of people such as this rich young ruler they wondered if he cannot be saved, “Then who can be saved?” The lesson of the rich young ruler is that gaining eternal life comes only when God is Lord of our lives.
Based on Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler, God understands that we all have something in our lives that rules us. It’s no accident that the author of Mark notes that Jesus looked at the rich young ruler “carefully and loved him.” This is how Jesus looks at all of us. Jesus is clearly aware of the depth of our captivity to that which rules us. And He is aware that this depth makes our freedom difficult if not impossible. So, what are our “rulers”? What distracts our attention and gets us focused on the wrong things? What gets in our way of being Jesus’ disciples? What sends us away dismayed and saddened because we think we can’t live without them? Each of us must answer this question for ourselves. And then, as difficult as the road before us may seem, we must remember, ‘It’s impossible with human beings, but not with God. All things are possible for God."
Praise be to God. Amen.
