Rich Man and the Kingdom

Wisdom of Solomon 7:7–10 NRSV

Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her. Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem, because all gold is but a little sand in her sight, and silver will be accounted as clay before her. I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her radiance never ceases.

Mark 10:17–31 NRSV

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ ” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

How do we hear this call from Jesus to leave all that we have behind and follow? To actually let go of all our stuff and leave our families and pass on our riches — are we able to truly fathom what this might be like?

And if we do let go of it all, give it away, what can we expect in return? What do we receive? Isn’t that our logical next question — what do I get out of this?

The rich man has become rich because he has invested his resources, leveraged his wealth and position, accumulated a full life of success. He has the world at his disposal.

And notably, he has kept the commandments. The big stuff — not murdering, not lying, keeping his way pure, according to the law. Even the list Jesus gives him has echoes of unjust means by which people accumulate wealth — cutthroat, dishonestly, cheating the system, even dishonoring your elders. And the rich young man attests — he is innocent of any of this.

But these are the minimum — these are an expectation of us all.

I’ve been thinking a bit, in this season of elections and time of stewardship and the season where we speak of how we will order our lives together going forward — I’ve been thinking about the theory of the “social contract.”

You might have to go back to your history books to recall this, but as a part of the enlightenment and renaissance, there were philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes or John Locke who articulated this idea. Basically, it outlines a social agreement that is made between the people and those who hold power, the government. There is a set of expectations that the government will provide for the people, things like safety, food, and orderly society and the people agree to not overthrow the state. Basic, wide swath there — social contract.

And that’s the same kind of thing Jesus is outlining in his first reply to the man. All things being equal, we have a social contract that we abide by that says, yeah, we don’t murder, lie, cheat on our partners, defraud our neighbors, and respect our elders. That should be a given.

And the man has done this — those of us who are successful in fulfilling the social contract, well we’re pretty decent at keeping up the basics — abiding by the rules.

And here is where Jesus’ way presents the man with bind, an ask that exceeds the limits of what this man is willing to do. And for what reason — what does he get in return? Sell all you own and give your money to the poor?

Well this is terribly difficult for the man to do. These are the markers of his success, the spoils of his honest work, the riches accumulated by obeying the social contract, getting ahead, working hard. Isn’t he due at least the retention of his wealth?

Sadly, he is confronted with a choice. In it’s simplicity, we musn’t overlook how difficult the choice is. And it should confront us in much the same way — are we willing to let go of what we have to follow Jesus?

Are we willing to let go of what we have accumulated, achieved, stored up, for this way?

The man is earnest with his questions — he wants to know what will lead him to good, eternal life. I want to trust him in his honest pursuit of wisdom, the good way.

Notice how Jesus rebuts being called “good.” What do you mean, “good”, we can almost hear him scoff. Only God is good. The man is deferring to Jesus’ role as rabbi, teacher, but can’t we also hear him looking for some validation that he is also “good”? Has he done it right? Has he done enough?

He wants to be good. This desire to be good speaks to a deeper longing for wisdom. When we have encounter one who is wise, who has found the glory of wisdom’s riches, we want to know how to be like them. Because the riches of wisdom outshine the glimmer of wealth. How do we become good? How do we become wise? It is in the relinquishment of this desire for approval and validation.

I get that. I want validation too. I want to know that I’ve properly upheld the social contract, but above and beyond that, I want to know that I’m one of the good guys, that those in power over me would look to me and say, “hey, good job, Seth, you’re on the right track.” And more deeply, don’t you also long for that validation from God, those words of “well done, good and faithful servant?”

The man hears Jesus’ reply and he’s grieved. Ugh, that was not what I wanted to hear…that’s not gonna be easy…he thinks. And he hangs his head and walks away. Quite dramatic, this exchange. But resonant, too, isn’t it?

Then we hear one of Jesus’ most famous lines — “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Oof. That’s a gut punch. We feel for the man, as he walks away. He upheld all the rules, didn’t he?

If we look at our social landscape today, we feel this same disappointment, don’t we? We’ve played by the rules, we’ve kept up the contract, we’ve obeyed the laws. And we witness so many out there, in the world, or even here, in our close proximity, who we can see are actively skirting the social contract, disobeying the rules (and getting away with it). We start to wonder — does the law even matter any more? Shouldn’t we just hunker down in our righteousness and protect what’s ours? Maybe we fly a flag that says, “don’t tread on me” or slap on a bumper sticker that says “not my president.” Maybe we separate ourselves off into a safe religious community, where at least we know others think like us and that somehow makes us safe.

What are we to do with this teaching?

I know we see what Jesus is getting at here. I think we can, at least for the most part, agree on the virtues he is instructing his followers in.

And I know we can also make very strong arguments for the good work that wealth allows us to complete in the world, and here, now, in our community. Wealth and assets make it possible for us to sustain so many good things. We need wealth and we need to leverage it to make a difference here and now.

I follow this really interesting account on Instagram, called The Ocean Cleanup, which documents efforts to clean garbage out of the oceans, rivers, and streams, using some pretty cool waste capture technology. Anyway, just this week, they posted a mind-boggling stat — We could clean up the entire Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch for about $7.5 billion dollars. There’s a great big patch of garbage in the Pacific Ocean that we could clean up with $7.5 billion dollars. That might sound like a lot — but it’s less than what we spend in the US every year on Halloween decorations and it’s less than 0.5% of the net worth of the 10 richest people on earth.

Wealth can make a huge difference. It can save ocean habitats, it can help with disaster relief, it can save lives with research grants, and make us all better off.

But the way of Jesus, the way of the Kingdom, requires us to be willing to hold all wealth, all possessions, all power, loosely. With open hands, ready to share, ready to give when we hear the call to do the real work of strengthening our life together and lifting up those who are hurting.

Now, this sounds impossible. Jesus says so. It’s impossible for us to do this.

So, do we hang our heads and walk away, like the rich man? I don’t know about you, but I feel like the social contract that Jesus is articulating might be beyond my reach — I don’t know that I can do what he’s asking, either.

Good ‘ol St. Peter chimes in at this point. He’s confused, because he’s done what Jesus asks. He’s a little jilted, perhaps, because his rabbi, Jesus, is making it really difficult and maybe Peter and the other disciples are caught questioning whether they’ve done enough, done it right.

This gives Jesus an opportunity to point to the wisdom of this teaching. Yeah, it’s really hard to do. Yeah, it’s countercultural. Yeah, wealth is hard to part with.

But Jesus points to the promise of wisdom — if we learn to leave behind what the world teaches us to hold fast to…if we learn to live with generosity and abundance with our possessions and talents…we find eternal life. We find fullness. We know wisdom. Even amidst struggles, we find real life.

Something new catches my attention in this passage, something I don’t think I noticed before. Let’s hear this interaction between Peter and Jesus once more, vs. 28-31:

Mark 10:28–31 “Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.””

He says we leave things behind and are promised to receive a hundredfold (a 100 times) back in houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields…” Things we’ve left behind, we get them back…but here’s what catches me, Mark 10:30 “who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”

We get something in return, but it comes with persecutions. The way of Jesus, the way of wisdom, leads to a full life, but also a life which runs in opposition to the ways of much of the rest of the world.

Can following Jesus teach us to let go? To release the need to be right or secure or protected, even just a little, by our wealth or privilege or position? If we did, if we learned to release to God what ultimately never belongs to us in the first place, our stuff — if we could release the stranglehold…what might happen?

Think of this Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch Cleanup — how simple…$7.5 billion dollars. Sure, 10 people in the world could do that in a heartbeat. But even the whole of us — if each one of us on earth had $1 to contribute to that project, we could solve it.

And the same goes for our life on a smaller scale. In the weeks to come, we’ll talk about stewardship and giving to your church. If we each, according to our means and gifts, stepped up to contribute and release our hold a bit, we can do good, helpful, liberating work here. We can fund staff positions that offer spiritual care and nurture. We can continue to improve our building so it can be a better hub for neighborhood and church activities. We can support the work of others in our city who are also seeking to share the good, abundant, eternal life of Christ with those in need.

Jesus closes with yet another world-shifting statement: Mark 10:31 “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.””

Your place in the Kingdom of God is of the utmost importance. We belong in this Kingdom, together, working with one another. With what we have and who we are, we can participate in that kingdom, get into that way of being. It isn’t always easy and it doesn’t always line up with the ways we see our world ordered. But when we do, we see the world turned upside down, in the richest, most life-giving ways.