Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-march-21-2024
Mark 10:17-27
The Rich Young Man
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard 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 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
I think one of the most important questions any person must ask themself is, “What is your god?”
I suppose lots of people think of a person’s god as what they worship. Atheists might say they don’t have a god. But I think you could make a case that just about everyone – atheists included – does in fact have a god. I say that because it seems to me that a person’s god is what they look to for salvation – something they trust in to save them. And that means that a person’s true god depends in part on what they think they need to be saved from.
An atheist might think they need to be saved from irrational superstition or religious fanaticism – so their god might be science or human reason. Another person might think they need to be saved from economic chaos – so they might embrace the “invisible hand” of the free market to save them. Or a person might think they need to be saved from social injustice – so the legal system becomes a kind of god to them. I think you could even say that some people feel a need to be saved from a boring and meaningless existence – so their sports team becomes their savior.
Both Jesus and the apostle Paul both described greed as a form of idolatry – as the sin of putting your trust in more and more wealth to save you. And when you think about a person’s god as where they put their trust for salvation, that idea of greed as idolatry starts to make a lot of sense, don’t you think? We probably all know people who seem to think that their money is going to save them – to save them from fear about the future, or from loss of control over their lives.
Some of those people have been through great poverty when they were younger – like people who lived through the Great Depression. Some emerged from that traumatic time and then got some money, then hung on tight to it, or tried to make more and more to save them from ever going through poverty again. Some of us had grandparents who went through that. It was sad, but understandable.
Other people are so obsessed with status and privilege that they trust in their money to save them from feeling like ordinary people. And still others find the world so frightening that they put their trust in money to give them the illusion of control in a world that seems out of control. Think of the ads on radio and TV that warn people to put their money into gold to escape “the coming chaos.”
Our text for today tells the story of a rich man faced with a decision about who – or what – his god really is. Jesus calls him to give up his money to gain a place in God’s kingdom. The man is heartbroken by the idea, but story doesn’t tell us whether or not the man was able to give away his wealth as Jesus told him he must. The church has traditionally said he wasn’t able to do it, so he missed out on the chance for eternal life. But the text doesn’t tell us for sure. But what is clear is that when the man was faced with the possibility of obtaining eternal life, the man’s wealth still had a powerful grip on his heart and his life.
It seems like a clear and easy choice: either worldly wealth and possessions that we’re bound to lose eventually, or new life in Jesus that no one can ever take away from us. But the world’s god can still get a good grip on us.
And Jesus says that liberation from that grip – or from the grip of any other of the world’s gods – isn’t something we can accomplish by ourselves. Only the true God is able to do that. Our part is to commit ourselves to the path of discipleship, living in imitation of Jesus and following his teachings, and to pray that God will set us free from our idolatrous attachments to the things of this world. Because it is with God, Jesus says, that all things are possible.
Let’s pray: Lord, you know how attached we can become to the things of this world. We allow your blessings to become ‘gods’ over us. Set us free from those attachments, and help us to trust more and more in you as the only source of our salvation. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
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