I think this is one of the most liberating passages in the
New Testament, and I probably wouldn’t say that if I
hadn’t spent many a sleepless night grappling with it
many moons ago. In the city where I went to seminary,
there was a community called Open Door. It was just
down the street. Like monastic communities that
preceded it, the folks who made this community their
home had taken a vow of poverty. They lived together
and simply. They shared their time, talent, and treasure.
They were a mix. Some previously lived on the streets.
Some previously lived in gated communities. Some, like
a couple of my seminary classmates, had committed
to living in the community for one year to explore the
possibility of going all in for the rest of their lives.
These people were my friends. And they challenged me.
Did congregations like the ones I sought to serve as
a pastor have it all wrong? Congregations with big
steeples and million-dollar endowments. Congregations
with a penchant for running “on time” and not taking up
too much of our time. Congregations with budgets that
tended mostly to property and personnel.
What does an authentic Christian life even look like? It
was a question that kept me up at night.
My friends who had taken a vow of poverty on account
of the life of Jesus and passages like the ones I just read
had found their answer. Had I found mine?
In today’s scripture we are introduced to a man whose
archetype we know well. This man is more or less
convinced that he is on the right path. He has done well
for himself. As a child he probably followed all of the
rules. He listened to his mama. He became his teacher’s
pet. He ate all of his leafy greens. He cleaned his room.
He went to college and majored in business. Perhaps he
even minored in theology. He probably made the Dean’s
List. He went on to get married and had 2.5 kids and
built and managed his wealth—effectively storing up all
of the stuff that provides for a healthy and a secure future
for himself and for his family. I know this guy! And this is
the guy that asks Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do
to inherit eternal life?”
His question betrays something, but what is it? It betrays
something because Gentle Jesus responds swiftly as if
to say, “Don’t flatter me.” What was it behind the man’s
question that irked Jesus so? Would we not have the
same question if an itinerant preacher with mass appeal
and a reputation for healing walked on by? Would
Jesus not expect such inquiries? Eternal life? That’s the
business that he’s in, right?
The next exchange suggests that Jesus is sort of
playing along with this. Perhaps the man is looking for
a little assurance or affirmation that he’s doing the right
thing. Perhaps a little of both. “Well, surely you know
the commandments,” Jesus says as he rattles them
off. And the man, as if on cue, responds readily and as
anticipated: “Yes, yes, teacher; I’ve kept all of these, all of
them, every single one, since my youth!”
And then the gauntlet is thrown. We all know it:
There’s still one more thing: Sell all that you own and
give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come, follow me.
Considered wealthy by today’s standards or not, I’m
guessing that not many of us in this room today are
willing to sell all that we own, even if it is for a good
cause. The imperative posed a huge problem for that
man, and it poses a problem for most of us gathered in
this sanctuary today.
Jesus, you made this the ticket to eternal life?
You all know the grace is coming because it always
does. It is new every morning. Pastor Madison assured
us of it before we even opened the good book to this
story today, and today we come to the end of a summer
sermon series on the promises of scripture.
But dare we linger here for a moment, as if this is where
the story ends:
Sell all that you own and give the money to the poor.
In the ancient world—where the vast majority of people
lost their land if they had any to begin with, absorbed
by large estates that manipulated their indebtedness
and forced them into indentured, lifelong servitude—this
would have been good news indeed.
The rich man’s sale of his possessions and the gift of
proceeds to the poor would have been nothing less
than redistribution of wealth and restorative justice
enacted. The imperative is serious. So serious, in fact,
that Jesus does leave it there. In this Luke version of the
story, we aren’t sure how long the man sticks around
after he hears this challenge. But in Matthew’s version,
he leaves upon receiving it. He leaves grieving. And
Jesus lets him go.
There’s a reason that Jesus makes such a radical
demand of this rich man, and of all of us. Could it be that
the restoration of relationships—even to people whose
names we do not know—is at the very center, the very
center, of the Gospel? Could it be that eternal life is less
of a destination for the individual and more of a process
for the collective, in which estranged relationships are
restored and the worst of our exploitation—the worst of
what we do to each other—ceases?
The rich man wanted to know about this place, this
time, called eternal life, but Jesus spent most of his time
talking about the Kingdom of God in the here and now, a
kingdom that was much different from the ones that ruled
the day, the kingdoms that this rich man, this rich ruler,
was probably quite content with. Why wouldn’t he be?
The challenge posed to the rich man is actually an
invitation if he can receive it. It’s an invitation to seek the
Kingdom of God first.
It was certainly good news for the poor. Was it good
news for him? Is it good news for us?
This story reminds me of a mission trip that I took to
rural Nicaragua many years ago. In our group, there
was a young woman named Leah. She hadn’t done
much traveling, and what she had experienced was
the rather glamorous variety. Southeast Nicaragua was
different, and like many who are seeing extreme poverty
up close for the first time, Leah’s spirit broke, along
with her composure. This was not a world that she was
comfortable with anymore.
One day we sat down for lunch—really a feast that
our incredible hosts had prepared for us—and the
town leaders shared with us the problems that their
community was experiencing and how we might be
able to come alongside them as siblings in Christ.
While we ate, clearly malnourished children kicked a
deflated soccer ball up and down the dirt road beside us,
occasionally looking over to see if we’d finished our meal.
We had become accustomed to them swooping in after
we were done to eat was left off of our plates.
Like many of us, Leah moved the food around on her
plate, and then the floodgates opened again. She put
down her fork. She let out a big exhale, and she made
a declaration to us: she was going to make some
big, and I mean big, life changes upon returning to
the States. She would begin by selling most of her
possessions and writing a big old check to CEPAD, the
umbrella organization that our Presbytery worked with
in Nicaragua. When our well-meaning group leader
suggested that she simply join the Presbytery’s global
outreach committee instead, Leah was indignant with
a 20-year-old’s indignation. She challenged us all to do
something that “actually mattered.”
Well, as you can most likely surmise, Leah didn’t end up
selling most of her possessions or making any apparent
radical changes. Once back in the comfort of her own
home, she was surprised and sobered by the difficulty
of her intentions and the decisiveness that she had
exercised so earnestly when confronted with the depths
of human pain.
What she did have, however, was a change of
conscience. In order for Leah to receive the divine
invitation, her world had to be shaken up, and she had to
cease being the center of it. Grief came first, as it does
when we lose something precious. In Leah’s case, it was
a sense of general justice, of okay-ness in the world, of
the security that comes with it, of integrity.
But when I met with her for coffee and a chat just a few
months later, she expressed that the disappointment that
she had in herself had begun to dissipate. What I heard
is that this ensuing relief enabled her to make some
changes that brought her ideals and her reality into a
closer dance. Changes in how she managed her time
and what she spent her money on, what she committed
herself to, what she read, how she prayed. The biggest,
smallest things.
Jesus knows that the rich man seeking the recipe for
eternal life is anxious. Like most of us, he is missing
an inherent sense of his goodness, his worth, his
security. He compensates in all of the ways we tightly
wound folks compensate. He follows the rules—or
at least he tries really hard. He plays the game. He
doesn’t question too much. And despite it all, he is still
excessively worried. Am I really enough? Am I doing all
of this the right way? Am I safe in this world? Am I saved
in the next?” His question to Jesus is not “How do I serve
God and my neighbors more faithfully?” But “What do
I need to do to secure my own salvation? To punch my
ticket to heaven?”
Jesus encounters this man with grace, but not with
cheap grace. Jesus knows that the man’s anxiety over all
of these things is inherently self-centered. In this man’s
telling, he follows all of the commandments, but the
indwelling, inbreaking Kingdom of God has clearly not
taken root. He has accumulated wealth at the expense
of the poor without any apparent knowledge that this
is unjust, and his faith in his ability to gain eternal life
by and for himself has left him unable to recognize the
presence of God when it is standing close enough for
him to touch. Jesus knows that in order for this man to
live in, to taste, the eternal life that he is seeking, he, like
Leah, needs to cease being the center of his world. He
has to break free of the worry that binds him to his own
self-interest. He has to let go of the notion that he alone
can merit his own present and his own future because if
he continues in that way, his world is wholly consumed
by concern for himself, and that—as it turns out—is
exactly the opposite of the eternal life that he is seeking.
Rich man, you cannot do this! It is so hard, in fact, that it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
Jesus says. It makes sense that the disciples were
incredulous. And that we are. And that the Church was.
In the fifth century, the Church was convinced that the
metaphor of the camel going through the eye of the
needle just needed to be tweaked to make it possible.
They suggested that the Greek words for ‘camel’ and
‘heavy cable’—the kind that’s used as a ship anchor—
must have gotten mixed up. (They were very similar
words, after all, in Greek.) The ancient translator must
have dozed off, accidentally writing ‘camel’ instead of
‘heavy cable.’ Of course, this explanation didn’t last for
long—well, you know why! Because no ship cable can
be threaded through the eye of a needle any more than
I camel can. The explanation may have been short-lived,
but the effort to make the rich man’s quest for eternal life
possible is telling. My gosh, there had to be a way to get
that camel through the eye of that needle, to get that rich
man into heaven. Putting salvation in God’s hands alone
was not sufficient.
Is it sufficient for us? I sure hope so.
Church, this is a liberating story. If, for a handful of
folks, the words of Jesus spark convicted souls, and
a radical reorientation to one’s material wealth, and a
redistribution of the earth’s bounty, then thanks be to
God. That is good news. That is gospel.
And if, for most of us here today, this challenging call is a
reminder that the imperative of God is serious, but so is
the grace, then thanks be to God. What is impossible for
us is possible for God. Thanks be to God.
God—and only God—can release us from the agony of
self-worship and a meritocracy that is bound to leave
us despairing like that rich man. Rich and poor and
everything in-between: when we recognize that it is
God’s love, God’s grace, God’s gracious will at work in us
and in our world, then it is God that retains the rightful
place at the center—the very center—of our lives. And
when God, and not “me, myself, and I,” is the center of
my life, I am finally and actually free to think about the
interests of others, the needs, the dreams of others. I am
free to serve others with a courage I didn’t even know
that I had. I am free to imagine and work for a world that
centers others. I might not sell all of my possessions, or
whatever equivalent that would be for somebody in my
tax bracket and station in life, but because my salvation
does not depend on it, I am untethered—I am free to
follow Jesus with obedience and with joy. I can begin to
live that seemingly impossible lifestyle that Jesus pleads
with us all to live, resting in the Truth that God can
handle the rest.
Imagine if we all did that? Imagine if the rich man in our
story did that? Maybe he did.
This story can be discomforting, and it can be confusing
because it holds two seemingly opposite things in
tension: the call for radical discipleship on the one
hand, and the revelation that it is impossible for most
of us to heed that call on the other. But illuminating and
connecting that tension is the revelation that for our
God, it is possible. God can. And God has. And God will
not let us go until everyone is fed, and all is restored,
and life abundant is everyone’s birthright. It is a Godgiven promise; it is a God-given gift. Most of all, it is an
invitation to be so moved by our gratitude for it that we
begin to do the impossible.
Thanks be to God. Amen.