Pentecost XXI (Proper 23 B) [Mark 10:17-31] (14-Oct-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today in our reading, we have a young man, a ruler, who comes up to Jesus to ask him a question. We read: And as Jesus 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?”

This is a very interesting question. In the bible, we know that everything can be divided up into two main teachings—the Law and the Gospel. We often talk about this in the Lutheran Church, and the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a very important distinction. The Law teaches us what we should and shouldn’t do, and it also shows us that we don’t do what we should and we do do what we shouldn’t. The Law teaches us that God punishes wrong and rewards right, but we are all doing wrong all the time. However, the Gospel teaches people who realise their sin that they are saved, not because they have earned it, but because of what Jesus has done for them. The Gospel teaches us what Jesus has done for us, and gives to us his wonderful promises.

When the thief on the cross was about to die, and was receiving the normal punishment that the Romans would give to people who had committed crimes like he had committed, he asked Jesus to remember him. And Jesus spoke to him a wonderful promise of the Gospel: Today, you will be with me in Paradise. There is nothing that this man can do anymore to inherit eternal life. There is nothing that he could ever have done. Even if he weren’t a criminal, all of his righteous deeds would still have been filthy rags. Even if he weren’t on a cross, he would still be worthy of death. Even if he had never hurt a fly, it still would have been true what it says in Genesis: Every intention of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually.

And yet, it is precisely for a man like him that Jesus speaks a wonderful word of the Gospel. Today, you will be with me in Paradise. Jesus receives him completely and totally freely, without any merit or worthiness in this man whatsoever. The thief did nothing, but Jesus did everything. Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the way, the truth and the life.

And so, what a strange question it is that this rich young man asks of Jesus: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

In the Book of Acts, we read about another event, where someone asks a very similar question. Paul and Silas are in prison, and they are singing hymns, and at midnight there is an earthquake, and the prison doors are opened, and the chains of the prisoners become undone. Now in those days, in ancient Roman times, if a prison guard was on duty and the prisoners escaped, he would have been killed. And so, when he sees the prison doors opened, he thinks to kill himself, but Paul and Silas stop him. Then the jailer says to Paul and Silas: Sirs, what must I do to be saved? This is almost the same question that the young ruler asks Jesus in our reading today: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? But what do Paul and Silas say to the jailer? They say: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your whole household. And then the man and his family were baptised. So in this situation, the man is told: You don’t have to do anything—just believe in Jesus. Jesus has done everything for you—there is nothing that you need to do. And so the man believes and is baptised—all the blessings of Jesus are given to him in baptism and he believes in him. The man and his family are saved completely freely, by grace, without any works, without needing to do anything, except to receive Jesus and his gifts.

Now, in our reading today, the man asks almost the same question, but Jesus responds to him in a completely different way. The man says: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and your mother. So here’s a question: why is it that when the jailer asks this question, the apostles offer him salvation for free, but when this man asks Jesus this question, Jesus starts reciting the Ten Commandments and telling him a list of rules?

This has to do with the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. And one of the ways in which Law and Gospel are distinct is which people either the Law or the Gospel should be spoken to. You see, not everyone should hear the preaching of the Gospel, and not everyone should hear the preaching of the Law. If a person is troubled and worried about their sins and is anxious about their salvation or about going to hell or being bothered by the devil, then we shouldn’t speak the law to them at all. These people already feel God’s judgment upon them, they are already bitten by the knowledge of their sin, they are already crushed by the law. And so they need to hear the Gospel—that Jesus has died for them, that he has risen from the dead, that he forgives them, that he promises them eternal life, that he is their Good Shepherd that will never let them be snatched out of his hand.

But on the other hand, if a person is not worried or troubled by anything, and they think that everything’s fine, that they haven’t done anything wrong, that they’re quite happy living as they are, that they don’t care much for changing their life for the better, that they don’t give a brass razoo what the bible says, then the Gospel shouldn’t be spoken to them. Instead, they need to hear the Law. They need to be told to wake up from their sleep, to be called to repent, to change their life, to abandon their evil ways. You can’t preach forgiveness of sins to someone who doesn’t acknowledge their sin. If they don’t recognise their sin, they can’t hear the Gospel – it’s no use to them. So instead, they need to be shown their sin, and have it exposed to them.

It’s a bit like going to the doctor. Two people can have the same symptoms—but if one person recognises their symptoms, they’ll go to the doctor to receive a treatment. But if someone lives in denial, and pretends like they haven’t got any symptoms, they won’t go to the doctor, and so they can’t get the help they need. It’s the same thing with the Law and the Gospel. People who know their sin will gladly receiver the message of forgiveness through Jesus. But people who don’t know their sin won’t care at all. And so, as Christians, it takes a lot of experience when we talk with people to work out what we should say to people. Is this person someone who needs comfort, or do they need a wake-up call?

And so, in the Book of Acts, we see a jailer, who realises that he has just had his life saved. And he was stopped just short of killing himself, and he realised just what a fool he was. And so, for him, all Paul and Silas needed to say to him was the Gospel: Believe in the Lord Jesus.

But in our reading from Mark, Jesus deals with this rich man differently. This man has the appearance of being someone important, someone respectable. He comes to Jesus and says: Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Jesus wants to say to him: Listen, do you think that I’m just one of many good teachers? There are plenty of people who think that Jesus is a good teacher. They line him up with Buddha and the Dalai Lama and Confucius, or they line him up next to Mystic Meg, or Mystic Energy this or that, or the Angel Gabriel or the Angel Michael, or they line him up next to Pope John Paul or Mother Teresa, or even Martin Luther himself. No—Jesus is not just one of many good teachers. He says: No one is good except God alone. Jesus is not denying that he is a good teacher, by the way. He knows that he is a good teacher, but he is also humble and refuses to give the glory to himself. So he points back to God the Father. But we also know from other passages that Jesus is true God, just as Thomas said after the resurrection: My Lord and my God! Jesus and his Father are in perfect unity. Jesus said to Philip: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. And so also, whoever learns from Jesus as their teacher, learns from God the Father as their teacher. Jesus points the man to a higher reality: if you want a good teacher, then learn from God himself, not from people. And since I and the Father are one, since I am equal with God the Father, since I have equality with God, then you know that when I teach you, I am not teaching you some earthly teaching that you can just sample from anywhere, but I am teaching you directly out of heaven itself, from the other side of the grave, from eternity—I am shining pure light from heaven which makes everything on this earth, and every earthly teacher, complete and total darkness by comparison. So he says: Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Then Jesus says to him: You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour your father and mother. Jesus preaches to this man the law. He recognises in this man a person who is not ready to hear the Gospel, who doesn’t really need Jesus. So he points him to the Law. And the man, like many a person who is self-righteous and doesn’t need Jesus, says: Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. There is no-one so far away from Jesus and his grace and his forgiveness who thinks that he has done everything that needs to be done. There is no-one so close to hell than a person who thinks he is perfect and sinless. As St John says in his first letter: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Jesus has tremendous compassion on this man, though. We read: 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.” When Jesus cuts this man’s heart with the law, he doesn’t do it because he hates him, but because he loves him. It says: Jesus, looking at him, loved him. But it’s as if Jesus says: OK. Let’s be serious now. Let me tell you what your problem is. Let me show you your false god. He says: 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. And we read: Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Jesus doesn’t tell everyone to sell everything and give to the poor—just to this man. Jesus exposes that this man has a false god. He only wants Jesus as long as he can keep all his shiny things. And Jesus says: No—I won’t compete. I want you, and I want you completely. I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. I will not share you with some silly money, with your knick-knacks, with your great possessions.

And so, then we read: Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 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! 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.”

Money is not the problem here. It’s our human heart that is the problem. People often misquote the bible and say that money is the root of all evil. That’s not what the bible says. It says: The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is a gift of God. If you have money, thank God for it. People often make the mistake of saying that poor people go to heaven and rich people go to hell. After all, in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man goes to hell and the Lazarus, the poor man, goes to heaven. But Lazarus goes to meet Abraham. If all rich people go to hell, what was the rich man Abraham doing in heaven?

So we have to be careful what we say. It’s OK to have money, it’s a blessing of God to have money, but so long as you are the master of your money and your money is not master over you. Many poor people are much more money hungry than many rich people. How many people in this town buy scratchy tickets, for example? When you are ruled by your money, then your money becomes your master and your god. If you are ruled by your money, then you need to start giving some of it away, like Jesus says to this rich man.

When Jesus says how difficult it is for rich people to enter the kingdom of God, this is bad news for Australia. We are “the lucky country”, and we have everything we need. Once I met a Sudanese lady who was pregnant with her sixth child, and was told by her doctor to have an abortion because otherwise the child would starve. She said, “Starve? In Australia? I know what it’s like to live in a country where my children would starve. And I’d much rather live in a country where my children would starve, than in a country where nobody prays.” Yes, Australia is a lucky country, but a godless country. We are a rich country, we have everything, we are comfortable, and so we don’t need God, and we don’t pray like we should.

We read: And [the disciples] were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Here we are pointed back to the Gospel. The man walks away sorrowful—he doesn’t want to part with his possessions. But when Jesus starts to talk about camels and needles and the dangers of wealth, then the disciples start to despair. It’s almost like they want to fling their wallets straight to the ground before their weight drag them into hell. They think: We need to live on something, don’t we? They say: Then who can be saved? Now Jesus recognises: now I am talking to repentant hearts, now I am dealing with people who are face to face with the reality of their sin. Jesus says: With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. There is not one person who is able to save themselves, no matter how rich or how poor, no matter how much they keep the law. An honest person will realise just how easily their sinful hearts clings to the earth’s filth. We realise that it is impossible for us to save ourselves. God must do everything. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

Here at the end, Peter says: See, we have left everything and followed you. 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, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, house and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

The teachings of Jesus are incredible. They are so simple on paper, but then when we think it through, we might think: but if I went about saying that, my mum would completely freak out! I’d lose her—she’d never speak to me again. Or maybe, you think your husband or wife, or children would think you were mad. “Oh dear, old Grandpa’s become senile in his old age! He’s become a Christian!” Sometimes in the church, we can easily compromise the sharpness of the truth, because we worry what other people might think of us. And so, we end up with half-truths, or falsehoods.

But where Jesus calls us to sacrifice something, he always promises to repay. Our old friends and family who now reject us for our faith or our convictions, are repaid with new friends, new mothers, and fathers, or whatever. But when it comes to the truth of God’s word and the purity of the Gospel, we must sacrifice everything for it, because there is nothing in the world so precious. No sacrifice can be made in vain—because God’s church, the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, are priceless. If we give him everything, Jesus will repay everything. If we give too little, we are then in danger of losing everything, and being lost.

With us it is impossible. For us to save ourselves is like a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle. Jesus is the one who saves us completely. He has done it, he has accomplished it, he has paid the price and won the victory. And everything that we have ever needed, that we need today, and that we will ever need in the future belongs to him. As St Paul says in 2 Corinthians: He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for saving us. Search us, and continue to show us the idols of our hearts, so that we may abandon them, and follow only and wholeheartedly after you. Amen.