Preached on the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost (Year B), October 13, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Phillip Lienau.
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
Such is the Kingdom, by Daniel Bonnell
The gospel passage today is about money. We’ll get to the money part. But first, we need to talk about the powerful emotions that are driving the encounter in this gospel.
A man ran up and knelt before Jesus. This is not a casual encounter. This is not a theoretical conversation about socioeconomics. This is also not a trap conversation, the kind of encounter in which a group of religious specialists try to trap Jesus into saying something that will get him into trouble.
Instead, this encounter is sincere, heartfelt, deeply personal, and urgent. This person runs to Jesus, and kneels, and asks his question. This behavior should remind us of the people who run to Jesus begging him to save a family member who is dying. This man who runs up and kneels before Jesus needs something. What he needs is a matter of the utmost importance, for him, and as we will see, for us.
The question he asks is this: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”, or more literally, “the life of the age.” This distinction in translation is important because the phrase “eternal life” implies that this question is only about the future, maybe about some sort of life after death. It may mean that, but I propose that it does not only refer to the future in this case, but is also about the present.
Later when Jesus is talking only to the disciples, he says that “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.” It is important for us to remember that the kingdom of God means, first and foremost, not some future reality, but the here and now relationality between people. The kingdom of God is how we are called to be with each other today, not after we die.
The kingdom of God is not some reward for people who scored just enough points in the virtue game. The kingdom of God is about relationship, with God, and with each other. This is why the kingdom of God is always already now and is constantly inbreaking, or rather, why we are constantly encountering ways to access the only true reality of this Cosmos, which is the loving relationality that Jesus calls the kingdom of God.
So when the man runs up to Jesus and kneels before him, and asks his question, he’s not asking only about the future, if indeed he’s asking about the future at all. This is not a question about how to get into heaven. This question, and the heart of its urgency, is about how this man can be in relationship with Jesus. This question is about how this man can be a part of this wonderful thing that is going on, this new beloved community growing up around Jesus.
Jesus’ initial response is so gentle. He lists the major commandments that have to do with relationships between people. “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.” These, by the way, are not unique. These are the basic rules for any and every civilization. These are the foundation of human society that survives. Frankly, it should be unremarkable to follow them. They are stuff of minimal, basic decency.
What is remarkable is what happens next. Jesus, who knows the innermost chambers of this man’s heart, looks at him, and loves him. This man runs up and kneels, and asks his one question of God incarnate, and Jesus looks at him, and loves him.
Hold on to this moment, this extraordinary tableau. I sometimes live in this moment. It is as if the whole Cosmos holds its breath, time slows to a near stop, and the eternal story of the longing of the created for the Creator, and the love of the Creator for the created, unfolds in this moment.
And the tragedy of this moment, from the point of view of the man, is that he has asked a question of the one person on earth who will unfailingly tell him the truth.
The question, remember, is this: what must I do to inherit the life the of the age? What must I do to be in relationship with you, Jesus? What must I do to be in right relationship with God? Not because I want to know how to survive some cartoonish examination by St. Peter in front of pearly gates. No, this man, and I with him, long for our beloved, for God. It is, more than anything else in this existence, a matter of life and death, because it is about more than this body–it is about the life of the heart that longs, the heart that loves.
The answer to the question is this: remove all that separates from God. Remove all that distracts from God. And at the top of Jesus’ list of things that separate, distract, prevent us from being in loving relationship with God, and with each other, is wealth. Over and over again in the gospels Jesus teaches us that wealth is a barrier to life—not the basic, rudimentary life of human society that requires only that we don’t regularly kill or steal—but a life of flourishing in the love of God, the life of the age, the kingdom of God.
For two thousand years, Christians, and especially clergy folk like me, have worked very hard to soften this teaching. There is some good reason for this. Part of my job is to look out for everyone in this parish, including people who may be wealthy compared to other people. I am supposed to stand up here and deliver a sermon that illuminates the good news. On the surface, it seems that unless I soften the message about wealth, I’ll fail in my job to be pastoral toward people with wealth.
But I believe that to soften the message about wealth in this gospel passage is to fail. Jesus, looking at the man, loves him. Jesus sees the longing of the man, and tells him the truth about how to achieve the thing he desires. Jesus is giving the man, giving us, what we need to hear.
We need to hear that wealth separates us from God, and from each other. We need to hear that it is hard for people with wealth to be in truly loving relationship with the people around them, or, I should say, us. I am a homeowner in this city. While I have had periods of my life in which I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay rent, or how to replace clothing that was falling apart, or whether I had enough change to buy my next meal, I’ve never actually been in danger of being without shelter, clothing, or food.
Given how many people are barely staying alive, including in this city, including on this block, by any reasonable measure, I am wealthy, and always have been. I am the man in this gospel passage. I don’t know all of your individual stories. Maybe you’re also in this gospel passage, maybe not. But if you are, like me, wealthy enough to not worry about the basics of life, then I think you and I are suffering.
But I think this suffering is so common, so expected, that we have learned to pretend that it’s not really suffering. I can tell myself that I am just living the best I can in economic systems I can’t change. I can tell myself that this is the way of the world, and I just have to make my peace with it.
But I challenge us to consider, if the world is unchangeable, then what was the Incarnation for? To not take this gospel passage seriously, to me, is like saying that Jesus just needed to show up to announce that we should say some magic words like “I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior,” and then we just have to survive this world until we die and the magic words act, like a password, to get us into the heaven club.
If that were the case, then when the man ran up and knelt before Jesus, why didn’t Jesus tell him he could keep his wealth, but perhaps give a little more to the poor from time to time, but that what he really needed to do was to say the magic words “I believe in Jesus.”?
So. The good news is that Jesus looked at him and loved him, and told him the truth. Jesus shows us the way. We might not like the way. We might not like the truth. It might be most inconvenient.
In my own case, I’ve heard this gospel before, and I haven’t followed the directions. I am guessing that is true for some of you too. I believe with all my heart that this means that I decide, day after day, that my wealth is more important than being in better, more loving, relationship, with God, and with you. And I am sorry for it. When Jesus tells the man the truth, he is shocked and goes away grieving. I sometimes am shocked by this gospel, and go away grieving.
The good news is that relationship need not be binary, either perfect, or nonexistent. I fail to follow Jesus as much as I could. Yet I believe that Jesus nonetheless looks upon me and loves me. Jesus on the cross looks at stubborn, selfish, me, and still wants to be in relationship with me, with all of us.
For those of us who intend to keep hoarding more resources than we need, I believe that in this time before we decide to follow Jesus better, we can be mindful of how our wealth can distract, and separate us from God, and from each other.
I see people at St. Paul’s working on this mindfulness all the time. I am so glad to be here, to struggle with this gospel alongside you. To the extent that I allow unjust economics systems to persist, pretending that I can do nothing to change the world, I beg for God’s mercy, and, frankly, for yours.