Rich people can be very foolish

This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to consider Mark 10:17-31. The English Standard Version supplies the passage with the title “The Rich Young Man.”

We frequently use two measures of wealth. First is annual income. Second is capital, or value of properties and cash.

Magazines like Forbes publish lists of wealthiest people. The wealthy are often in the news. I’ve written before about Jack Ma of Alibaba.

Jesus often spoke about money. By some accounts, one third of the parables Jesus told are about money. Why?

Because they involve rich folk and poor folk. Poor folk feature in parables about labourers and daily wages. Rich folk feature in parables about debt and rent collection.

In our passage, we don’t have a rich-poor parable. We have an encounter between Jesus and a rich young man or “ruler,” in some versions. Someone who owns a lot of property and receives a lot of income. Like some of the offspring of Robert Kuok or the Sultan of Johor or Mahathir.

The rich young man is an Israelite, a Jew. He comes to Jesus. Falls on his knees. Addresses him as “Good Teacher.” Puts a question to him. Asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Why would he come to Jesus, and do as he did?

Why did he call Jesus “Good”? Perhaps because he’d heard about the good things Jesus was doing, healing people, feeding people, not cheating. But it could also be flattery. The flattery people often use when they want to get a good bargain, a good deal, from someone.

Why did he call Jesus “Teacher”? Perhaps as a form of respect. But perhaps also because he’d heard that Jesus spent much time instructing people, including teachers, what God expected from them. And telling them God’s plans for them, contained in the term “Kingdom of God.”

The question the man put to Jesus is fascinating. This is the only time we hear someone explicitly saying he or she wants “eternal life.” [There are parallel accounts of the same meeting in Matthew and Luke.] What did “eternal life” mean to him? Why would a rich man care about eternal life?

We must look at eternal life from two angles. The first angle is time. It’s something which continues forever. The second angle is quality, the type of life. A life lived in Christ, in Jesus, in God, who is eternal. A life of peace, harmony, joy, absence of pain.

A life so unlike the daily lives of most people around the world. Lives which cannot be described without words like hate, sin, pain, and death.

But he’s a rich man. Does he suffer? Why’s eternal life of interest to him?

There are many biographies of rich people. All of them speak of suffering and longing for something better.

Consider Warren Buffett. One of the richest men in the world. But when his wife Susan endured oral cancer, Warren cried often, for hours. When Susan died, he was in such despair that he couldn’t attend her funeral.

Even more remarkable is that 30 years before Susan died, she chose to move far away and live separately, permanently, from him. It was a mutual agreement. Warren then lived in relationship with her friend, Astrid, whom he married two years after Susan died (Daily Mail).

Even super wealthy Warren Buffett often endured great torment.

We return now to the rich young man.

Jesus reminded him what every Jew continues to be taught today. Only God is good. Then Jesus drew the man’s attention to some of God’s commandments: “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honour your father and mother.”

The man answered “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”

Then we read the only record of Jesus “looking” at a man and “loving” him and giving him a conditional invitation to follow him. There’s no other report of an encounter in which Jesus inserted such a condition.

Jesus told the man, “Sell everything, give it to the poor, come follow me.”

The man’s face turned sad, dark. His shoulders sagged. He lost his energy. “He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

Which evangelist today would place such a burden on anyone? Suppose Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, two others among the super-rich in our world, said they wanted to follow Jesus. Would an evangelist say to them, “sure thing, but first you must sell everything and give it to the poor”?

Jesus saw into the heart of the rich man, just as he sees into the hearts of everyone. He saw that the rich man wanted to negotiate, to bargain, to “buy” or to work for eternal life. He called the man’s bluff.

After the man walked away, Jesus said a striking thing, something which has been quoted millions of times in the last 2,000 years,

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:25)

A camel was the largest animal they knew. The eye of a needle was the smallest opening they knew.

The response of the twelve apostles was immediate. Mark tells us,

And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”

The response of Jesus is also exceedingly astonishing.

Jesus told them that whatever they lost, “house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands,” they would get back 100-fold, together with persecution – which means the way of the cross: public shaming, pain, suffering and much more. They soon suffered all of that.

And they also got the other thing Jesus told them that day. They gained eternal life, both in terms of quality of life and time, life forever.

The rich young man worked hard at obeying the law. Yet, he wasn’t satisfied. Just like Martin Luther, who learned, then taught us that salvation is by grace through faith, not through works.

If our wealth binds us to works, as it bound the rich young man, we must give it away so that we can give ourselves to God.

We must be as dependent on God as our children are dependent on us. Not on our property, not on our income. Anything less is false discipleship.

Bible commentator Mary Healy puts it very well. She says,

“Jesus does not denounce wealth as evil in itself. In fact, it is remarkable how many of his sayings and parables indirectly affirm the values of ownership, business, trade, and investment. Rather, it is the attachment to wealth that is spiritually perilous (Matt 6:24; 1 Tim 6:10; Heb 13:5).”

Rich people can be very foolish. Many of us are rich. We need to hear often what the writer to the Hebrews told his readers,

… let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1b-2)

Do you have eternal life? Peace be with you.