19th Pentecost
Mark 10:17-31
Every preacher knows you catch more flies with vinegar than with honey. That is; if you're craving comments on a sermon, preach law rather than grace. I don't quite know why that is; maybe people don't feel like they've really been in church unless they have been challenged in some way. Maybe there's a bit of the "Wow, you really told them today pastor." Maybe it's just that we listen harder when the sermon is coming straight at us rather than gently creeping up on us. In any case it is true that generally speaking we respond more to the negative than the positive.
So it was that I was more than a little gleeful on Monday when I read the text for this Sunday. This incident is recorded in all three synoptic gospels. We call it the incident of the rich young ruler but in Mark, the man who comes to Jesus is not identified as either young as he is in Matthew or a ruler as in Luke. In the Gospel of Mark what we've got is just an ordinary man coming to Jesus. We only find out at the end of the story that he has many possessions.
What better story to preach law especially to a group of people living in Lake County IL where the income level is in the top 5 % of the nation and more stunning still in the top 1 % of the world. This is a great text for law--for making everybody feel guilty and miserable.
But you know what; I don't want to go there. I want to notice something important that only Mark's gospel records and it's kind of strange for Mark. Mark, as we have seen in the past few weeks especially, is pretty hard on his disciples and on the people who come to him. What does he say to Peter, "Get behind me Satan." What does he say to the Syro Phoenician woman when she comes begging for her daughter's healing--"I didn't come for you, I came for the house of Israel." The Jesus that Mark introduces us to has a definite edge to him. The Jesus that Mark shows us is quick witted enough to slice and dice the set up questions that the religious authorities bring to him.
That's why it is so interesting that in this incident in our gospel lesson Mark makes a point of showing Jesus in another light. This edgy, confrontational Jesus looks at this man who comes to him; (by the way, the Greek word for "looks" actually means, "gazes into",) This normally edgy Jesus gazes into this man's heart and soul and loves him. Jesus looking at him loves him. Jesus looking at him LOVES him.
Barbara Rossing the seminary professor who some of you are acquainted with from her work challenging the Left Behind series has an interesting take on this text from her study of it. She says that this is just another one of Jesus healing stories.
Now, The Gospel of Mark is full of healing stories. There is a standard pattern to them. Jesus is passing by and a sick person or parent of a sick child runs up to him and falls down before him with a plea. That's the pattern in the story of the man with leprosy, Jairus's daughter and the Syro Phoenician woman. "Make me well", "Heal my daughter". All of them come to Jesus for healing.
Dr. Rossing says, "I propose that the story of the rich man in Mark 10 also follows the pattern of a healing story and that we can understand this story by seeing his condition as an illness. Like the other supplicants, the rich man in the Mark 10 story runs up to Jesus on the road and falls on his knees using the same Greek word as the leper uses. Like them he has a request; "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Here however his request does not seem to fit the pattern for he doesn't appear to be asking for healing. Curious.
Let's move our mental picture now to a doctor's examining room. A woman sits on the examining table in her skimpy little hospital gown. She looks worried as she waits for the doctor to appear and she hugs her purse nervously on her lap. The woman is Jackie O'Ryan from the soap opera "All My Children", but here she is starring in a little soap opera drama called "lives of our days", complete with suspenseful soap opera music. As she sits on the table fiddling with her huge gold earrings and necklace, in walks the doctor with grave news: "I'm afraid there is nothing physically wrong with you."
"Then why do I feel so awful, so bloated and sluggish?" She asks. "Nothing gives me joy anymore--not the clothes, the house, the raise. Doctor, I'm frightened. Can't you give me a pill?"
"There is no pill for what you have. I'm afraid you're suffering from ...Affluenza."
"Oh, my God, " She reacts. "Why me? Is it fatal?"
"It's catastrophic. It's the new epidemic."
"Is there a cure?"
"Possibly."
So begins John de Graaf's hit documentary film "Affluenza" that our men's group has discussed and our confirmands see. It's a look at our culture, at our insatiable appetite for MORE. The more that the producers define as truly epidemic. The more that is making us and our world ill.
The man in our text does not know he's sick or does he? What, after all, is he coming to Jesus for--just to find out how good he is, to be assured and praised--or perhaps, perhaps to be saved or as the word "saved" is also translated to be "made whole". What after all is he coming to Jesus for unless he has a strange longing for something, an emptiness in the pit of his stomach, a lack of joy and zest in his life, something that makes him feel less than whole.
Now healing stories usually continue with a command to do something, often beginning with "Get up" or "go". Little does this man realize that the doctor is about to write out the toughest prescription imaginable. Jesus uses the same words he uses with so many others to make them whole. He says to this man as he says to the man with leprosy, the man possessed of a demon, the man born blind, "Go". Then the prescription; "Sell what you own and give to the poor and you will find treasure in heaven. And then come and Follow me." This will be health to you, this is eternal life.
Usually when Jesus invites someone to follow him, he meets with more success. The sadness of this story is that the rich man cannot do it. He can't take the cure, the pill is too bitter. Even though Jesus has looked at him and loved him, this man leaves grief stricken and alone. Apparently he is so sick with Affluenza that he misses out on all the richness that following Jesus can hold. He misses out on being part of the community.
I hope for him that that is not the end of the story. It has been suggested that his grief, his weeping may be the first step for him toward healing. Perhaps in his sorrow he can open himself to the pain and sorrow of others and be cleansed. Perhaps he will go home and look at all his stuff and realize it is not life giving but life sapping. Perhaps as he passes the beggar and the homeless he'll recognize their common need for healing and wholeness.
The story shifts then to the disciples who struggle to understand what has transpired. After all the common theology of the day would say that wealth is God's reward for good life. So if it will be 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 are perplexed and astounded. "Who then can be saved?"
The truth is we're all sick, we're all in need of healing and all long for the wholeness we do not feel. Probably the saddest thing of all is that Jesus writes the prescription, offers the cure and too often we turn away.
I know this sermon would go over better if I left the message there but I can't because Jesus doesn't. Jesus concludes with a message of hope for us all. How can we be saved? For mortals it is impossible but not for God; for God all things are possible."
As much as we might want and expect to feel indicted and chastised in our association with the poor rich man of our story that's not where we're left. Looking on us with love Jesus will not leave us hopeless. With God all things are possible.
Amen