Mark 10: 13-27

Dearly loved people of God,

We Have Nothing to Offer God

Kids are good at receiving gifts.

Receiving the Kingdom the way Maelynn received the sign and seal of baptism is a challenge. It’s hard to be a passive recipient. It offends our sense of independence. It offends our desire to be self-sufficient.

God’s grace through Jesus seems too easy, too free. Religious people, those well established at being good or respectable, find God’s generosity with his grace a stumbling block. Shouldn’t Jesus just be for those who are righteous, experienced, active in faith? Shouldn’t there be more hoops to jump through? If it was up to us, the bar limiting entry in to the Kingdom of God would be a little bit higher, wouldn’t it?

The very thought that the DISCIPLES blocked the children’s access made Jesus indignant. These people should know better. The way Mark tells the gospel, Jesus had made this point a little earlier. You find it in the previous passage:

Mark 8:36–37 NIV

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

: 36-37

The scene with the rich man illustrates what Jesus means by entering the Kingdom as a child. God is generous; all are welcome to freely receive God's grace. We find it difficult to recieve gifts. Kids know they have nothing in exchange for a gift.

Mark 9:36–37 NIV

He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

After hearing Jesus make such a strong statement, you’d think the disciples would roll out the red carpet for these kids in . But they don’t. They don’t get it yet. In some ways, all of us are still trying to get it (Cf. Tim Keller on Religion).

The scene with the rich man illustrates what Jesus means by entering the Kingdom as a child. God is generous; all are welcome to freely receive God's grace. We find it difficult to recieve gifts. Kids know they have nothing in exchange for a gift.

Jesus anticipates the rich man’s brag about keeping the commands before he makes it. Only God is good.

You can see how the rich man confused this. Based on the OT examples of Abraham etc., people of his generation assumed that wealth was a sign of God’s favour. Therefore, being strict in observing the commands AND being wealthy meant this guy had reason to be confident about eternal life but his question reveals insecurity. He still wasn’t sure.

Oh, the person at the cash wants to give me a sucker? OK!

Discipleship Requires Everything

So What?

Christmas is coming and you want me to make a list of gift ideas? OK, I can do that!

Maybe that’s what’s on Jesus’ mind when he says

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

(NIV)

There’s Jesus, with little kids around him, brought by parents who thought this rabbi might have a blessing for their children. These little ones accept it when their parents pass them to Jesus’ arms and they passively receive the blessing the good teacher gives.

As we move out of childhood, the idea of receiving a gift becomes more challenging. Have you ever notices that commercials that offer gifts emphasis that they are free? “Come in now for your free gift!”

If it’s not free, is it really a gift?

After getting burned a few times, we learn that gifts usually have strings attached. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” we warn each other. Usually something is expected in return.

Kids don’t usually worry about it. They have no money, no piety, no maturity, what could anyone want from them? They are free from suspicion, opening their hands to whatever anyone offers.

Jesus invites each of you to receive entry into the Kingdom of God with that childlike acceptance. Who me? I can gain eternal life? Ok; I accept.

That’s the trouble with the disciples and the trouble with the rich man. The idea that Jesus was offering to do the impossible on behalf of people who don’t deserve it was a major stumbling block. They couldn’t get over it.

So the disciples rebuked people for bringing their kids. They tried to send them away. I mean, Jesus was talking about important stuff to mature people.

Kids can’t understand deep theological stuff like love and sin and grace, can they? Come back when you’re older. Come back when you’re mature. Then you’ll get it!

You don’t often read about Jesus getting mad in the gospels. This is one of the times when Jesus gets really upset. Maybe you remember another time when Jesus is really angry.

Each of the 4 gospel-writers describe how the temple courts became so full of sellers and money-markets that, the blind, the lame and foreigners can’t get close nor pray. Blocking access to God’s mercy seat made Jesus livid. He cracked a whip to drive the sellers out, making room for outsiders to come close to God.

It’s the same thing here. Jesus gets angry with his disciples for blocking children from coming to Jesus for a blessing. His anger is all the greater because the disciples just don’t get it. In Mark’s gospel, it was only a few paragraphs earlier that Jesus had instructed the disciples about children:

He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

(NIV)

Yet the disciples didn’t get it. They tried to shoo the children and their parents away.

When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

(NIV)

Jesus doesn’t want anything to hinder kids or anyone else from receiving the blessing, the grace that he has to offer.

Too often it’s the religious folks that stumble over this. Folks who are really invested in religion, people who work terribly hard at being good, find it odd that God would be so free with his blessings and grace. That’s not the way the world works!

That’s illustrated vividly in the account of the rich guy who comes running up to Jesus after the last child has been blessed and Jesus heads down the road. As the conversation goes on, we learn a lot about this poor, little, rich man. He lives a privileged life. His expectation of rewards is high. It rests on his righteousness and his confidence that God approves of him.

Ever since his bar mitzvah, this guy has pursued righteousness. Jesus responds to his question about inheriting eternal life by pointing to God’s instructions for holy living:

You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

(NIV)

How did he respond? With Jesus’ comments about only God being good, he didn’t call Jesus “Good Teacher” this time, instead he asserted his own goodness.

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

(NIV)

Jesus loves him for his zeal for holiness. But his confidence in God’s favour doesn’t let this man accept the gift of grace like a little child. The sense of entitlement spoils the gift.

See, we’re inclined to think that rich people are a little more equal than others. In Jesus’ culture, that sense that God was especially fond of rich people was based on the examples of God richly blessing the Patriarchs by entrusting them with a lot of wealth. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their wives and family were God’s chosen people. God lavishly gave them lots of stuff. This rich man assumed that anyone who was rich was equally favoured by God. That sense of entitlement made it difficult for him to graciously inherit the free gift of eternal life.

It’s hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. They have trouble receiving God’s grace like a child. This rich man’s wealth blocked his ability to receive God’s blessing. So Jesus instructed him to get rid of his idol.

If his lands and possessions were more important to him than freely trusting God, he had to let them go. The lesson carries over for our generation: only if your possessions are more important than depending on God that you need to give them all up.

But listen again to what Jesus tells his disciples about possessions:

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.”

(NIV)

Does anyone know how big a camel is?

If I had a camel beside me on the pulpit would you be able to see it? Would it be bigger or smaller than me?

Can you even see a needle if I held it up? Can you see the hole where the thread goes? That’s called the eye.

Obviously a camel cannot fit through the eye of a needle!

That’s why the disciples gasped. That’s why they were flabbergasted. “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus supplies the answer:

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

(NIV)

See we’re stuck with the same conundrum as the rich man. Jesus told him off the top that no one is good—except God alone. Jesus loved his zeal for the law, but before he listed the commandments, Jesus already indicated that the rich guy had fallen short. Not since Adam & Eve, has there been any man, woman, or child who has kept all the commandments perfectly. No one is good in that sense.

Yet the rich man was on the right track. He addressed Jesus as “Good Teacher.” That was truer than he probably realized.

Jesus was God. It’s what we celebrate every Christmas: God came down to earth on a rescue mission. He became human like all of us, except without sin. He makes it possible for us to inherit eternal life. He freely gives us entry into the Kingdom of God.

In order to receive, we give up all hopes of saving ourselves by doing good. Even on our best days, our best deeds and intentions are tainted with selfishness or pride. Our sense of entitlement, the idea that God owes us something spoils our ability to receive his grace.

Jesus, took all of that guilt, all of that sin upon himself. He suffered beatings and crucifixion in our place. He died so that we can be raised to life – a life with God, a life for God.

That’s the invitation the rich man turned down. If he had given up everything that hindered him from following Jesus, he could have been on the adventure of living as a citizen of God’s Kingdom. He would have learned that grace is the currency of the Kingdom of God.

That’s the lesson that Jesus disciples were still trying to learn. Jesus was indignant with them because they were so slow to extend the same kind of grace that they had received from Jesus. They had blocked children as if they were unworthy of Jesus’ attention, Jesus’ blessing, Jesus grace.

Jesus’ disciples today are still trying to adjust to life according to the principles of God’s Kingdom. We’re so used to our own culture that it takes a while for God’s grace to shape us into gracious people, generous people, hospitable people.

Maybe you feel like Jesus’ disciples have blocked you. Maybe you feel like Jesus’ offer sounds really good, but the church on earth doesn’t line up with the Bible’s description of the Kingdom of God. Don’t let anything hinder you from accepting God’s offer of grace through Jesus. I can assure you that Jesus is the real deal. He pulls no punches when it comes to sins or idolatry, but his generosity is out of this world! I invite you to receive the kingdom of God, the way a little child does. (Don’t tell them; show them!)

As a congregation, we have a ways to go – I have a ways to go – to practise Jesus’ grace, his generosity. And it is something we need to practice. The more repetitions we do, the more natural it will feel.