Entering the Kingdom of God

In 1845, Captain John Franklin led two ships on an exploration of the Arctic region. Unfortunately, it did not end well. The entire expedition, comprising of 129 men, died in their efforts.

Curiously, however, we have been able to learn a bit about their efforts due to some archaeological efforts.

It has been noted by one historian reflecting on the failure, that their preparations left a lot to be desired.

You see, they were meant to be going into the frigid weather of the Arctic and so you would expect they would allow for unexpected events. But instead of, say, allowing for extra reserves of coal for their steam engines, they instead filled their ships with luxuries.

Now there has been a lot of discussion about exactly what went wrong, and it’s not my intention to talk about the reason for their failure (I’m not even remotely qualified for that), but when some of the dead bodies were eventually found, some surprising things were found.

One of the skeletons that were found, wore a fine blue cloth uniform edged with silk braid, clothing that has been identified as completely inappropriate for the weather.

Another body close to this one, was found carrying a place setting of sterling silver flatware.

Now you’ve got to ask yourself, why in the world were they concerned about looking good and having expensive things when they were in so much danger?

Now we can laugh at their foolishness, but somehow I think we can be just as foolish.

You see, from their perspective they were being very valiant. They were exploring new territory. But I can’t help but think that in the back of their minds, they trusted in their wealth.

You see, wealth can give you this false confidence. Look how much stuff I’ve got. What could possibly go wrong?

It can be very subtle in one regard, in that you probably wouldn’t state it so bluntly, but it can also dominate your thinking more than you might think.

The problem with wealth

Wealth can be a strange thing. The problem is, we are often so blind to its clutches.

Actually, the truth is, we do know the problems of wealth. We look at the filthy rich, in all their sadness and we see how they think they own everything when really they have just become blinded.

But this is actually where we become blinded to it. Because most, if not all of us would hardly describe ourselves as rich, and thereby think that somehow we are immune to its power.

The reality is however, whether you own 20 houses, or you can barely afford the rent of your small house, you can be controlled by money.

That’s because whether you like it or not, money is central to our society.

Now money is not inherently evil. The key however is how much you allow money and wealth to be a driving force in what you do.

You see, whether you are rich or poor, you can be like those sailors that carry around their fine silverware when they should have been worrying about far more important things.

Indeed, when it comes to our Christian journey, how often does our love of money get in the way. Of course, we can explain that love away as a necessity,but if your honest, is it really.

Link with passage

This morning we come to a somewhat troubling passage - at least it’s troubling when we look at it honestly. It’s one of those passages that is actually quite easy to modify so that it feels a bit more comfortable. But what we’re going to see, is a conversation in which Jesus wipe away all the fluff and gets straight down to what is important - and the result left the other person feeling very uncomfortable.

So if you feel unsettled by what this passage reveals, maybe it’s because God wants us to start being a bit more honest.

Context

Well, let’s jump into Mark’s gospel to see what we can find.

Last week, we had a visiting preacher who finished off for me.

The two weeks before that, I had described how starts off on a bit of a new theme for us.

Whereas the first 8 chapters answers the question of who is Jesus, these next two move more into the question of: what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus.

In the first two scenes in chapter 9, I explored how following Jesus can be tough - really tough, but that with Jesus there is hope.

I understand that last week, John spoke about the need to reframe our focus for us to be salty Christians.

Well, I’m going to jump over the start of chapter 10, not because it’s not valuable for us, in fact there are some really good messages there for us, but because of time constraints.

as we come into chapter 10 you may notice that I’ve jumped over the first section in chapter 10, and maybe you thought that was because I wanted to avoid a some what unpleasant topic - namely divorce.

Well, while it’s not going to be the focus on my message this morning, I actually don’t want to ignore it entirely because in it, we’ll see a way of thinking of Jesus that will help understand our passage this morning.

The rich man

You see, this topic of divorce seems to come out of left field.

I’ve argued that in this section of Mark’s gospel, we are getting a picture of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus - but then we could argue, what’s divorce got to do with that.

Well, without getting fully into this issue, I want to suggest that the Pharisees who raised the issue of divorce, while essentially trying to trap Jesus, actually had more riding on the issue than just getting Jesus on his words. You see, an easy divorce is actually just a means of control.

The Jewish system by the time of Jesus had developed divorce to the point at which a husband could divorce his wife for as simple a matter as: she displeases me. Interestingly, note that it is the husband who can divorce the wife, not the other way around.

But leaving aside the gender inequality for now, divorce is a means of us manipulating a God given thing.

Now there are obviously a lot of complexities when it comes to divorce, and as I said, I don’t plan on getting into the whole issue, but what Jesus does is to bring it back to the point where he says, God gave us marriage and we cannot just run over it like it is not important. He recognises that divorce will happen, but that’s a concession due to our hard hearts, not something to take lightly.

You see, divorce can just be another means of control, just like money, whereas Jesus wants us instead to look to God, not ourselves!

The rich man

Instead I’ll jump down to verse 17 in chapter 10 because it is here that we see a man who it will turn out like to keep control with his money, although, on the surface he seems to make a good start to the whole conversation.

Now, on the surface he seems to make a good start to the whole conversation.

Now, we don’t know a whole lot about this man. We don’t know his name or where he is from. Initially we’re not even told he’s rich - we only find that out at the end of the account.

Based on the conversation we can safely bet that he was Jewish. But what is also evident is that he has obviously heard the reputation of Jesus.

So in verse 17, this man runs up to Jesus and falls on his knees calling him “Good teacher” - at this point everything seems very commendable.

The question

He then asks the question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now this is actually quite an intriguing question. Indeed we might think of this as “the” question to ask, but no one, not even the disciples had asked this particular question before.

From the conversation that follows, it certainly seems to the man recognises that there is something more than just the commandments. It’s almost as if something is unsettling him.

Now with such a great question, surely this is Jesus’ opportunity to give a great presentation of the gospel.

Those who like evangelism would do anything for a question like this, and the moment it comes they would surely dive in with a beautiful answer about how no one can be right before God, but if you trust in Jesus and his redeeming work, than you will have eternal life.

But you know what? Jesus goes down a completely different path.

If you didn’t know it was Jesus and you read the next thing Jesus says, you might think his fluffed the whole thing.

You see, Jesus responds to this great question with: “Why do you call me good?”

Now don’t get me wrong, Jesus certainly knows what he’s doing, but it can sound a little strange at this point.

In fact, what Jesus is doing is not denying the designation of “good”, but highlighting exactly what he is saying. By calling him “good”, he is putting Jesus in the same category as God!

But after this, Jesus gets back to the actual question. But again, he doesn’t answer in the way that you might suppose he would.

Instead, he proceeds to answer the question by outlining some of the Ten Commandments.

This is unexpected for a few reasons. Perhaps foremost because we know from other parts of scripture that we can’t be saved by what we refer to as works. That is, the commandments can’t save you because no one is able to meet God’s standard.

This becomes all the more so once you read Jesus’ own sermon on the mount where he reframes some of the commandments like murder and adultery.

Jesus tells us that if you are angry in your heart at someone, you are guilty of murder, or if you look lustfully at someone, you’ve committed adultery.

Perhaps also unexpected in Jesus answer is that he doesn’t include the first four commands. For those of you familiar with the 10 Commandments, the first four all relate to how we relate to God, with the second half relating to how we relate with others.

Well, this answer doesn’t seem to surprise the man. After all, our assessment is that Jesus is talking with a fellow Jew so this would have been right on the money. And so the man answers: “all these I have kept since I was a boy”

Now again, knowing what we know, you would expect Jesus to jump on him (metaphorically of course), telling him that no one is righteous, not even one.

What Jesus does instead is actually something very beautiful, and something we should all learn from. It tells us that “Jesus looked at him… and loved him”.

At the heart of it

What Jesus does next is something that Jesus does so well. He is able to look past all the mess of it all, and instead see right into the heart of the problem.

You see, this is where wealth comes back into it. Jesus can tell that this man is hooked on his money. While ever money is this man’s top priority, he will be unable to have God as his top priority. As Jesus says elsewhere, you cannot serve two masters.

Then Jesus says something which seems to us as a bit over the top. He tells the man to sell everything he has and give it to the poor.

Now this is one of those parts of this passage that we like to downplay.

Surely Jesus didn’t mean everything. Did he? Surely Jesus just meant to sell a few things, maybe enough so he can feel it, and then things will be alright.

But he actually tells him to sell everything.

Now, of course, we can rightfully point out that Jesus didn’t ask everyone to give all their wealth away to the poor. And so we can breathe a sigh of relief.

But before you breathe too easily, we need to understand what Jesus is saying.

You see, while we might not called to give all our money to the poor, we do need to recognise that all of our money and possessions belong to God. God has graciously provided our every need but we are just stewards of these provisions.

Unfortunately, the concept of tithing has skewed our understanding of this. Now tithing is the practice of giving ten percent, in fact tithing literally means, ten percent. But it is easy to start thinking - well, this ten percent belongs to God, but the other ninety percent belong to me.

This is not how tithing should be understood. Ten percent is a good practical guide to thinking about how much to put aside, specifically for God’s work, but this should just be the start of it, not the end.

All of your money should be used to honour God. Exactly how you are going to do that is something you need to pray and be discerning about, but I will say that looking after your family and providing their needs is honouring to God.

So while Jesus’ call to sell everything to give to the poor might not be explicitly directed to you, what I believe is a universal call for all Christians is that we need to think about every dollar we spend and ask: am I honouring God with this?

Too much to ask

Unfortunately, for this rich man, the request from Jesus was too much.

We’re told that his face fell and he went away sad.

But it wasn’t just the rich man who was shocked at this. Verse 24 tells us that even the disciples were amazed at his words.

You see, they understood the gravity of what Jesus was saying.

If you think that it was a lot for Jesus to ask this man, the truth is, your right. It is a lot to ask for.

In fact, even Jesus acknowledges this. Twice, in both verses 23 and 24, Jesus talks about how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.

Camel and eye of needle

In verse 25, Jesus then gives an analogy which demonstrates just hard it is.

He tells us: “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.”

Now this verse deserves some explanation.

In some ways it shouldn’t need explanation because what Jesus is saying is actually impossible. A camel is huge. The eye of a needle is very tiny. You don’t have to get your measuring tape out. Anybody can tell that you will not fit a camel through the eye of a needle.

However, that being said, some people have pointed out that in Jerusalem there was a gate that was known as the eye of the needle. This gate was smaller than a camel, and so for a camel to go through they had to bend down in an awkward position. It was very difficult, but not impossible.

I want to suggest that in fact, nothing in the text suggests that this is what Jesus had in mind.

If you look at verse 27 you’ll see in fact that Jesus was not talking about something difficult, he was talking about something impossible, stating clearly: “with man this is impossible”.

Feeling uncomfortable

I mentioned earlier that this passage might make us feel uncomfortable.

If it doesn’t, maybe you need to ask whether you are being honest about what you are actually trusting in.

If you clearly heard Jesus asking you to sell all your possession and give to the poor, would you be able to do it?

I would certainly struggle with it.

And so I need to ask, am I actually fully trusting God rather than my possessions.

How easy it is to become blind to the clutches of wealth on our lives.

Application

So apart from feeling uncomfortable, what do we do with this lesson.

Child like trust

Well, I think the first major lesson for us is to trust God.

Maybe try giving more than you think you can afford. You know sometimes I think we can complain because we don’t see God working in generous way, but maybe that’s because we’re not giving God any space to show how generous he can be.

Or maybe you need to step out in faith and go to places where God can really use you. Could that even be cross-cultural mission?

I asked before about how we would respond if Jesus made the request of this rich man to us. Of course, being purely theoretical it is really difficult to answer, but perhaps we could at least test ourselves by trying to stretch ourselves a little.

This suggestion is not just for those who have a nice tidy little nest egg to sit on. For all of us, we have the opportunity to be generous for what would seem beyond our ability.

Now, when I was giving the background to this chapter earlier, I skipped over the section immediate prior to this account. It was an encounter with children, with Jesus holding children up as the model for us to enter the kingdom of God.

Well, in this way, can I suggest that the trust in Jesus that we need to have is like that of little children.

You know, one thing about children is that they don’t tend to ever worry about money. They just trust that their parents will provide for them.

Now let me just add, this is not a call to be negligent. God calls for us to have wisdom and to be good stewards of what he gives us, but at the same time, I believe we should trust God, just like little children trust their parents to provide.

Care for the poor

The other major lesson that I want to draw from this is the care we should show the poor.

Now I recognise that most of us here would not count ourselves amongst the rich. But the reality is, by world standards, we are all very rich.

There are millions, even billions in the world who are starving and struggling with very little.

I remarked earlier about how when Jesus lists off some of the Ten Commandments, the ones he focuses on are the ones that talk about how we relate with other people.

The man obviously thought that he related very well to other people. But by evidence of how much he struggled with Jesus command, perhaps he didn’t relate nearly as well as he thought.

You see, we need to be generous to others.

Perhaps if you are struggling to be generous in this way, maybe this is actually evidence that you are relying on money too much.

The Good News

I believe this passage can be a really big challenge for all of us.

Certainly within the passage we’ve seen how troubling it was, not just for the rich man, but also for the disciples.

But as troubling as it is, there is good news.

You see, while Jesus says: “with man this is impossible”, he doesn’t finish the statement there. In fact he ends it with: “but not with God; all things are possible with God”

While this passage contains a big call for us to be generous, generosity alone will not give us eternal life.

Trust in God gives us eternal life.

In fact our generous spirit does not come first. First we experience God’s love.

This man experienced God’s love. In fact it told us that back in verse 21 when it said Jesus looked at him and loved him.

At the end of the day, this is what receiving eternal life is all about.

And it’s because we receive this that we can then be generous.

Conclusion

So this passage should actually be both very comforting and very troubling at the same time.

Troubling, because it holds up a mirror to us, revealing how easy it is to become hooked on money.

But also comforting, because we know that in God, all things are possible.

My hope is that you can sit with that tension of both discomfort and comfort. Because in this way, we can truly start to have the trust and generous spirit that God wants for us.