Companions In the Tension

(Mark 10.17-31)

A reflection by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ, Sammamish, Washington

The Third Sunday after Epiphany: January 24, 2010

I am sitting in my Christian ethics class the first semester of divinity school. Our first paper is due in a week. The professor is a nun who from time to time wears a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. She says, “I know some professors here give extensions on papers to everyone who asks. I don’t. Unless there’s an extreme emergency, all papers are due next Thursday. There will be no extensions.”

A student raises his hand and asks, “What do you mean when you say there won’t be any extensions?” He looks totally sincere. Professor Farley looks right at him and says, “When I say there will be no extensions, I mean there will be no extensions.”

At the time, I know I couldn’t believe anyone would ask a question like that. Professor Farley couldn’t have been any clearer. But over time I’ve come to understand what he was doing. When someone tells us something that doesn’t fit with how we think the world works, or how it’s supposed to work, then we resist. We can’t believe the person means what it sounds like they’re saying. So we try to figure out a way to convince ourselves they mean something else. I know I do that with the Bible. There are things the Bible is quite clear about. And I know there are times when I can get myself to believe, It just sounds like Jesus is saying that. But what he really means is … and then I’m off! On some marvelous flight of fancy that has no basis in reality.

This morning’s Gospel reading from Mark is a story that doesn’t fit with most Christians’ view of how the world is supposed to work. I don’t think there’s any story about Jesus that Christians have worked harder to convince themselves Jesus can’t possibly mean what he says. As you listen to the first half of this story, listen for a word from God.

As Jesus went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”

Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and your mother.”

He said, “Teacher, I have – from my youth! – kept them all!”

Jesus looked at him hard in the eye – and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you have and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.”

The most creative attempt to show Jesus can’t possibly mean what he says was made over 600 years ago. Some Bible scholars said that somewhere in Palestine there used to be a gate called The Eye of the Needle. The arch of this gate was so low that camels couldn’t walk through it up-right. They actually had to get down on their knees and crawl through it … (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Press, 1988, p. 275). But they could make it through the eye of the needle …. These Bible scholars wanted to believe they could follow Jesus and hold on to all the wealth they had. They didn’t want to believe their wealth – or the wealth of those who were paying their salaries – could prevent them from receiving eternal life and entering the kingdom of God.

So they convinced themselves such a gate existed. They convinced themselves a camel actually could go through the eye of a needle. Because if a camel can’t do that, and the rich can’t enter God’s kingdom … then we and all the people we love who have wealth are lost. And Jesus can’t be saying that.

I’ll return shortly to this tension between wanting to follow Jesus and trying to change what he says because it feels impossible to live like he asks us to.

But first, we need a definition. The rich man asks Jesus, What must I do to get eternal life? And Jesus responds by talking about the kingdom of God. For first-century Jews, eternal life and the kingdom of God refer to the same thing. They have nothing to do with heaven, or with life after death. For Jews in the first century, “eternal life” and “God’s kingdom” describe a time and place on this earth. We have eternal life and the kingdom of God is here when and where the world looks like God wants it to look. When and where all of creation is healed and whole. Twenty-five hundred years ago, a prophet named Isaiah painted a picture of “eternal life” and the kingdom of God:

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,

or an old person who does not live out a lifetime …

They shall build homes and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit; …

they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain

(Is. 65.19-25, New Revised Standard Version).

Any place and any time people are trying to make the world look like this is eternal life and the kingdom of God. So this rich man is asking Jesus, “What do I have to do to get a skybox seat in that world?”

After the rich man tries to convince Jesus he’s kept all God’s commandments since he was in Pampers, Jesus look[s] at him hard in the eye – and love[s] him (10.21)! And then Jesus says what Bible scholars have spent centuries trying to tell us he doesn’t mean. “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you have and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me” (10.21).

Jesus looks at this man with love … And the rich man can’t look back at him. We don’t even know if he sees the love Jesus has for him. All we know is that he knows he can’t do what Jesus asks. He can’t live without all the wealth he’s holding on to. So he walks away with a heavy heart. To look for eternal life somewhere else. Or to give up on the search all together.

What makes this story so sad is that he came so close to finding what he was looking for. Jesus, where can I get eternal life? The second half of this morning’s story tells us eternal life was looking at him with love. Eternal life was right in front of him. But because Jesus was offering him eternal life in a way that didn’t fit with how he thought the world worked, he couldn’t receive the gift Jesus offered. Instead, he turned his back and walked away.

Listen for a Word from God.

Jesus said, “I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye that for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.” That set the disciples back on their heels. “Then who has any chance at all?” they asked.

Jesus was blunt: “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.” Peter tried another angle: “We left everything and followed you.”

Jesus said, “Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land – whatever – because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll get all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land – but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first” (Mark 10.17-31, The Message Remix © 2003 by Eugene Peterson).

What this passage says is that following Jesus is living eternal life. Following Jesus is living in the kingdom of God. Because Jesus was healing this broken creation and making it whole again. He went from town to town. Looking into the eyes of the people who’d been taught they didn’t matter and didn’t count. And who had come to believe that. And when these unloved ones looked back into the eyes of Jesus … they saw the love of God. A love that was for them. And healing started to happen. And creation started to become whole. It’s exactly what Isaiah had written about. Eternal life … the kingdom of God … had come to earth. And everyone following Jesus was a part of it.

Including the disciples. Who dropped their fishing nets and left their boat when Jesus called them. They had done what the rich man thought was impossible. They let go of all their wealth to follow Jesus.

Jesus looks at you and me. He looks hard at us with those eyes that say, “I love you.” And what does he ask of us?

Maybe I’m being like the people who invented the gate named The Eye of the Needle when I say this. But in this story, I don’t hear Jesus saying to every single person, If you want to follow me, you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. There are people who depend on us for all kinds of support that require money. Are we just to leave them without that support? Is Jesus saying we should drop all our commitments and responsibilities?

I don’t think so.

But … what I believe he is saying is that eternal life and the kingdom of God are absolutely impossible without a pretty radical redistribution of wealth (idea from Ched Myers, pp. 275-6). Eternal life is no weeping because no more infants die after just a few days and none of the rest of us dies before we’ve lived out a lifetime. If that is eternal life, then eternal life is where and when every life on this planet has what they need to survive. And no one has too much. Every week, when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread …. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” this is what we are saying. Eternal life is everyone having enough … daily bread and a roof over our heads and people who love them and let them love them back. The kingdom of God cannot come when so many have so much … and so many do not have enough.

I know I live in that tension. And I do not like it. Part of me is committed to give everything I have to follow Jesus. And a part of me holds tightly to what I have. And I don’t know what to do.

For me, Jesus is life. He is life lived passionately. He is love, forgiveness, and joy. He is life that sees violence as evil and says we can do better than that. He is life that sees converting the enemy as worth giving his life for. He is life that rejoices and weeps … dances and dreams. He is life that stops what it’s doing long enough and often enough … to notice what is right in front of it. And see all that God has given. Right here and now. He is life that knows it cannot truly be alive until there enough bread, enough shelter, enough healing, and enough love for every life in this broken and beautiful creation.

Then there’s that part of me that doesn’t want to let go of large parts of wealth. Or doesn’t have a clue what my life would look like after this redistribution of wealth Jesus clearly calls us to. And so I don’t. Which means every time I pray, and read the Bible, and come to church, that tension only increases.

Maybe your social circles are different’ than mine. Maybe your circles of friends are different. Maybe you have friends with whom you talk about the tensions we feel between your religious faith and your wealth. Maybe you have companions with whom you talk about what it’s like to have too much wealth … or not to have enough. What it’s like to want to place your faith in God … when we know we put a lot more faith and trust in stocks and bonds and mutual funds.

This congregation has done its own distribution of wealth in some pretty astounding ways. We sent boxes and boxes of supplies to schoolchildren in Iraq. We have collected 2500 pounds of food for the Issaquah food bank. We have fed children in the Reach for the Sky July program. Because so many people here want to cook for, serve, and eat with our homeless sisters and brothers in Tent City, we added a second night to provide food for them. And with the number of you who want to serve, we could probably cover at least two more nights. Last week, we collected $1499 for Haiti. Last week I was talking to a pastor friend who serves a church that has nine times more people in worship than we do. They collected $1100 for Haiti. The Spirit of Christ is so alive in this place that we consistently give far beyond what anyone could expect. We know wealth is not distributed evenly in this world and in this community. And when we’re asked to bring some eternal life into being, we consistently step up. And say, “Here we are.”

And … I’d like to invite us to take another step. I’d like to invite us to become a community where we can companions for each other in the tensions. I don’t know if that will ever happen here. But I hope we can be companions in the tensions that exist between having too much or too little wealth … and following the Jesus who says, You can’t pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” you can’t talk about eternal life, unless you are willing to redistribute the wealth you have. Amen.