By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
October 13, 2024
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Mark 10:17–31 (ESV)
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 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.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” 28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
What must I do to inherit or obtain eternal life? This is a question that is often asked. It is both a recognition of our mortality, and a hope for something more beyond the veil of life. This is a question that people inside and outside the church ask, but sadly it is a question we often fail to answer adequately.
We often rush through this questions. While I was in Ukraine the organization we were with encouraged us to start conversations, get to a point in the conversation where we could semi organically introduce the four spiritual laws, and then encourage those we were having a conversation with to make some sort of decision. It might surprise you that I was not exactly the most enthusiastic about this approach. I am still not thrilled with that idea. Some would say that I do not have a sense of urgency or that I do not love the lost, that I do not care enough for their souls. Early in my ministry I was actually reprimanded by the Meeting because I did not have enough alter calls. I laughed when they said this, because everyone in that church had been a member of the church for longer than I had been alive. But I understand the sentiment.
There is this urgency within us. This question or desire to know what happens. We want to know but often we do not know how to ask the question that is lurching in the back of our minds. We do not have the words, or even the imagination. Because of this we attempt to explain it away or rationalize alternatives, but this does not fully ease the tension within. We still ask, “What must I do?”
I have sat with this question this week. I have thought about it and I have played back various conversations I have had in the past. And I have come to a conclusion that often we start at the wrong point. We ask the wrong questions and because we ask the improper questions the answers or the conclusions we obtain can often leave us with false assurance.
I want us to take a step back from this story for a bit. I want us to look at this man in a way we might not have before. I want us to look at the disciples differently as well. I want us to recognize ourselves in the story.
Jesus is about to embark on a journey. He was in Capernaum a couple of weeks ago, but in the paragraphs we between my message two weeks ago and today he had moved from that town into the land of Judea. And if we were to look one more verse deeper into the narrative we would find that he is traveling south toward Jerusalem. You probably do not need to know all that but for me I like to know what direction he was walking. I like to imagine who the people might be that he would encounter. He is not in the holy city. He is walking through the countryside going toward that city meaning the people surrounding him would be normal people. People we would encounter any or every day.
He is about to start this journey and a man ran up to him and fell to his knees before him.
I want us to consider this for a moment. I want you to imagine it, to think about what this position before someone signifies. I want you to think about it because I am guessing you probably have not thought about it before. We often hurry through scriptures. We like the exciting parts, the parts where people are healed or the parts where Jesus or a prophet expresses teachings that astonish the crowds, or we look for those verses we might be able to use to win an argument we have been engaged in with a coworker or neighbor. But I want us to slow down, and look at the scenery.
Jesus is getting his blankets packed up. He is putting on his shoes and about to put his satchel over his shoulders to begin his journey to the Holy City, and as he is doing this a random guy from the neighborhood comes running toward him and falls down at his feet. Why do we kneel? To kneel before someone is a sign or symbol of reverence and submission. Our culture does not kneel, but in cultures where hierarchies exist this is important. You do not kneel to just anyone. You kneel before those who are greater than you, you kneel before you master, the king or the emperor.
I think it is important to recognize this man’s position before Jesus. He is prostrating himself before Jesus. By his bodily position he is giving a form of acknowledgment of Jesus glory that even the disciples have not shown, even when they proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah in the city dedicated to the emperor and tetrarch. This man recognizes that there is something about Jesus that is greater than anything else he has been around and he cannot help but fall down before him.
He kneels before Jesus, and he begins to speak, “Good Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
This interaction is unique. There is so much more at play in these words than we realize, if we do not understand the context of the culture. This man is submitting to Jesus. He recognizes him as being the true authority. He is submitting, either he believes Jesus is the conqueror, the king or something even greater God himself. And yes this is definitely on the table of possibilities because of the context of the surrounding verses. He says as he has prostrated himself before Jesus, “Good Teacher.”
We do not fully see the significance of this because we have grown accustomed to the word good. We use it to describe food, behavior, our mood. Everything is good to us unless it is bad. We have this dualistic view of the world. And this is important. Because this is the context of the passage. Good in the Greek sense is dualistic. In the Hellenistic philosophies there is good and bad, that of the divine nature and that which is of the world. Today we see it as preference or indifference but in the first century this was significant. This man is prostrating himself before Jesus and he is calling him the Good Teacher.
This man in this one verse has shown us something about the essences of Jesus that we often do not see. He recognizes Jesus as greater than himself and he kneels before him, in reverence. And since they are in Judea we need to recognize that the Hebrew people do not bow to just anyone, they bow only in reverence to God. And by him uttering the words Good teacher, he is saying that Jesus bears the wisdom of God, that Jesus is the embodiment of the word or teachings of God. He is Torah.
Jesus acknowledges this by his response to this man’s words. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”
Again, we might miss the beauty of this as we rush through the passage. We might miss the interaction as we push forward to the part we find more significant. But Jesus in this is accepting praise as God. This man is coming before Jesus and recognizing him as the embodiment of God’s Holy Wisdom. He is the Good Teacher. Greater than Moses, the one they longed for since the dawn of time. He is submitting himself to the one that will redeem all things. And he asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
This question is greater than merely life after death, which we so often focus on today. Eternal or everlasting life speaks of more than heaven, it speaks of the restoration of all things. It speaks of the return of the Eden, where God will once again walk among mankind in full communion. This man is asking what he must do to take part in that restored life. For us though we often get lost in the translation. We see eternal life and over the centuries we have come to understand this as how do I get to heaven.
We ask improper questions and we receive inadequate answers. What is the gospel? What is the good news? What did Jesus say when he spoke of the Gospel? Often for us the answer to that question is how we get to heaven and avoid hell. That was not the Gospel that Jesus spoke of, the Gospel Jesus taught was that the kingdom of God was at hand. That the restored life is within our grasp, all around us. It is not something far off in the future but right here in front of us. Do we see it? Can we sense it?
We like this man recognize the source of our hope and we even acknowledge and submit ourselves to him, but do we understand? What must I do to inherit that life?
Jesus looks at this man and he continues to speak, “You know the commandments.” The man says, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” He knows religion, he lives a righteous life, this man is holy in the eyes of men. And Jesus looks at him, and he loves him.
This man was a good man by our definitions. He was moral, he was decent. He was nice. He was a good man. But good today is bland. Good has lost its power. Good is no longer divine instead it is adequate. If you were to ask anyone if there is a heaven would you get there? The answer would generally be, “sure I am a good person.” They are not religious, they may or may not even believe in a God, in our mind good is moral and the reality today is that religion no longer holds the keys to morality.
We see people walking away from traditional expressions of faith. We see deconstruction and many of us are afraid of the future because of this. But I want us to take a step back. Why is this happening? What could have been the cause?
We have taught morality. We have focused on keeping rules instead of teachings. Our religions and faith traditions are about having the right answers instead of life together. We are worried about getting to heaven instead of living within the kingdom here and now. “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” We cry out with everyone else in our society. I have not killed anyone, I am good. I have not stolen, I am good. I do not tell big lies so I am good. But like this man we are often left feeling as if something more must be done. Something is not quite right we are good, why don’t we have what we think we should? Why hasn’t the kingdom come? Where is God?
Jesus looked at him and loved him. He looks at us too and that same love is granted. And Jesus said, “You lack one thing: go, sell al that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
The man that had knelt before Jesus, the man that acknowledged that Jesus was the Good Teacher, the one that embodied the Wisdom of God, listened to those words and he walked away in sorrow. And this is where we are today.
Jesus said to the man, “you know the commandments. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, or defraud and honor your father and mother.” You know the commandments be a good person. But Jesus did not list all the commandments. He did not express all the teachings of the law. He neglected to mention the first few commandments.
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who take his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you , or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20)
I want us to consider the commandments, the teachings of God, that Jesus did not mention to this man. I want us to look at those lessons in light of our own life and the life of our culture.
What must I do this man said on bent knees before Jesus, and Jesus looked at him with love and said, “one thing you lack. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” It is at this point that most of us begin to pay attention to this story. We see that this man walked away in sorrow because he had great possessions.
We look at this man an we see that he was sad because he could not give up all that he had, his wealth, land, and money. We look and we see Jesus say, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” and we like the disciples are amazed at his words.
We jump ahead and look at the weird saying that Jesus makes, “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.” And we do not stop and think about the fullness of what Jesus is saying.
Jesus here is not teaching anything new. Even in exile there was a similar saying, but instead of a camel it was an elephant. We try to explain it away by saying maybe instead of camel Jesus meant a rope because it is similar in that language and it would be hard to put a rope through a needle too. Or we like the teachers of the middle ages say that it was not a literal eye of a needle but a small pedestrian door within the gate that a camel could only go through if it were on its knees and completely unloaded. We try to explain it away but we miss the point Jesus is making.
We focus on what we can do. I am a good person, I have not murdered, I have not committed adultery, I have not stolen anything I am a good moral person. What must I do? I, I, I do you see the problem? “All these I have kept from my youth.” The kingdom is not about I. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is he answered, “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is one, you shall love the lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength this is the first commandment, and the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The greatest of all teachings is that we should acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. We are not the most important thing but God and others are. It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom, not because they have wealth. We often get caught up on that aspect of the story. When Jesus teaches about wealth he does not mean what we mean when speaking of wealth. Yes, there are similarities but what was wealth in ancient times? Who had wealth?
Those that had wealth were the rulers. They were the kings, the emperors, the warlords that get power and maintain power by the strong arm bearing a sword. Jesus told us that the poor will always be with us. He is telling us that there will be those that exploit and those that will be exploited. There will be those that will rule and those that will be ruled. There will be those that have and those that will not have. This is the way of the world. And those that have, like having. They like the prestige, the love, the fame. They like that people will do things for them, they like that people want their attention. They like the respect. They bear the image of God in vain, they are not reflecting that of God, but they are putting themselves above God. It is pride.
The kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms of the world. The world is focused on I, but the kingdom of God is submission to God and to your neighbor.
We look at our world today and we wonder why people are leaving the church, why are people deconstructing, how can people that have no faith at all appear more moral than those within the church? I want to ask a simple question, are we seeking to love God with all that we have and our neighbor as ourselves or are we seeking something else? Are we willing to go, sell, give and follow or do we want power?
The disciples said, “See, we have left everything and followed you,” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children, or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
We do not do for our sake. We do not give for our sake. All we do is for the glory and honor of the one whose name and image we bear. That is where our focus is to be. Nations and power comes and goes. Influence rises and falls. But one thing remains, God and those around us. It is not about I or even us, but them. Will we love God and our neighbor or will we desire the kingdoms of this world.
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