Mark 10:17-31
October 14, 2012
The
story of the rich man.…better known as the camel getting stuck trying to go
through the eye of a needle. We know it
well. The man comes to Jesus asking what
he needs to do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus, after asking if he follows
the commandments, says, “You lack one thing:
Go, sell everything you have, give to the poor, and come follow me.”
I
probably don’t have to repeat the statistics about wealth in this world. Suffice it to say, most people live on less
than $2 / day, and I live on $110. I
think most of us pretty much know who we are in this story.
So,
do you want the good news or the bad news first? Let’s start with the good news: After the man tells Jesus that he does,
indeed, follow all of the commandments – which I think basically means he tells
Jesus, “hey, I’m a pretty good guy,” – Jesus looks at him, and loves him.
This
is good news for us! We may have to
admit that we are the rich man in this story, but Jesus loved the rich man.
The
bad news: This is pretty tough
love. It doesn’t come with a blanket
acceptance, affirmation of who the man is and what his life looks like. It doesn’t come with an unconditional call to
join the group. It doesn’t come with a
promise that he will be saved, no matter how good he has been. In fact, Jesus “loved” him so much that he
asked him to do something he wasn’t, in the end, able to do.
This
begs the $64,000 question: Can we be
rich and be “saved,” inherit eternal life?
I’m going to suggest that’s the wrong question – and not just because
answering correctly would give you $64,000 and so apparently disqualify you
from inheriting eternal life.
It’s
wrong for two reasons: First, when we
ask this question we’re usually thinking about what will happen to us after we
die, and more and more I think Jesus was only mildly concerned about that. Second, this is a question about “me,” and
“my” salvation, and I think Jesus was thinking about something much larger.
We
are a bit ruined by centuries of Christian theology. When we hear anything like, Kingdom of God,
heaven, eternal life, saved…we immediately think about life after death. Or, maybe,
what happens to us when Jesus comes again at the rapture. Do we win?
Do we get to go to heaven? Live
eternally? Be admitted to the kingdom of
God? Be with all the good folks who have
gone before us?
I’m
not saying Jesus and his followers were completely disinterested in this
question. I think it’s pretty darn hard
to be a human being and not be concerned with what happens to us after we
die. Is there more than just this
fleeting time we have on earth? It’s not
an insignificant question. I just don’t
think it was Jesus’ only, or even primary, concern.
Jesus
talked of the kingdom of God being something we can manifest here and now. It was a way of living that brought the
eternal age into the present. God’s
kingdom, for Jesus, is here now
whenever the way of God is lived out on earth.
It’s a reality, not a place or destination.
Second,
Jesus wasn’t really about a one-by-one admissions policy. This doesn’t mean Jesus – or God for that
matter – doesn’t care about each of us.
What it means is that the kingdom of God doesn’t exist somewhere –
either on earth or in heaven – with a gate and guards posted out front deciding
who gets in and who doesn’t. Jesus
doesn’t invite people to “get into” the kingdom of God. Jesus invites people to create, make real,
and offer the kingdom of God to others.
This is about transformation: of
individuals, yes, but ultimately he imagined the transformation of the world.
When
Jesus was addressing the issue of wealth with the rich man and the disciples,
he was talking about competing world orders:
the kingdom of Caesar and the Kingdom of God.
In
Palestine at that time, there was a major imbalance in the distribution of
wealth. Wealth, in Jesus’ day, was
pretty much equivalent with owning land, and
90% of the population did not own land.
Consequently, 10% of the population controlled 90% of the wealth. Add to that, in the Roman Empire, one individual acquired at least 25% of the
annual income of the empire – sometimes as high as 50%: namely, the emperor.
Within
this massively disparate system, family was your only means of security. Households were economic systems, more than
cozy abodes of love. Each household had
a “head,” and that person was responsible for caring for every member of the
house – including children, servants, and even slaves. This was a very top down system, which put
everyone at the mercy of the one at top.
To
not belong to a household meant you had no means of caring for yourself. When the bible talks about “leaving your
father and mother,” it is not about going off to college to start your
independent life. If you do not have
another household to go to, leaving father and mother meant complete
destitution.
In
addition, in the world order of Caesar, people assumed resources were
scarce. In other words, there were a
finite number of resources – or, more specifically, there’s a finite amount of
land – and if someone had more, others had less.
Finally,
the prevailing wisdom was that if you had a great deal of wealth/land, that was
because you were favored, or blessed by God.
The disciples illustrate this perfectly:
When Jesus tells them “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” the disciples
didn’t say, “Amen brother. Tell it like
it is!” They said, “I don’t get it. If the rich people aren’t saved, then who the
heck is? They are the ones with God’s
blessing, right? Surely the poor – who
have obviously upset God in some way – aren’t saved.”
The
rich man represents the prevailing world order.
He owns land. He is the head of a
household. He is responsible for the
well being of many people. And, he
believes he has what he does because he is a good Jewish person who has obeyed
God’s commandments.
The
world Jesus imagined was very different –and he called it, “the kingdom of
God.” In this world, God “owned” the
land, and it, and the wealth that it gave, was shared equally by all. Of course, this wasn’t a new thought with
Jesus. Over and over the Torah makes
clear that God has given the land to the people, and there are extensive provisions and protections to
ensure that the distribution of the land is not skewed. When these provisions and protections were
adhered to, the promise was that there would be enough. God provides our daily bread, period. Not more, not less.
In
the kingdom of God, family is not defined by who is in your economic household,
but by who follows the laws of God’s kingdom.
Jesus, more than once, talks about redefining family: Those who do the will of God are my brothers
and sisters, mother and father, he says.
And one person at the top is not in control of this family – all are
responsible for one another.
And,
according to Jesus’ wisdom, the rich were not rich because they were blessed by
God, they were rich because they were exploiting the poor. Not only were they not automatically within
the kingdom of God, they were likely outside it.
So,
let’s reframe the question a little bit:
Instead of, “Can I be saved if I am rich?” how about, “What does it mean
for my life to create the kingdom of God here, in this world of great wealth
disparity when I am one of the wealthy ones?”
In
2007, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom
80% of the population owned 15%. And
that’s just within US. When you look at
the whole world, the disparity is even starker.
And
while I don’t think our sense of family is what it was in Jesus day, I do think
we tend to define family very narrowly, which leads to believing, for example,
our children are more deserving than someone else’s. It means believing that because my child was
born into a family with wealth, it’s only natural that they should get to go to
the best schools, have the best opportunities, get the best jobs.
Like
those in Jesus’ day, we, too, sometimes operate out of a mentality of
scarcity. We fear that more for you
means less for me – and this can make us cling to what we have pretty tightly. But, I think there is something more
insidious in the US today than a model of scarcity. We think resources are limitless. My grand vision is to somehow maintain what I
have, and help others get it too. I’m
loath to admit that it might not work that way.
I struggle to remember, for example, that it’s my own consumerism and
desire for more that leaves some people exploited in the first place.
And
the fact is we also recognize wealth as blessing – at least unconsciously. We talk about how blessed we are, and how
thankful we should be to God for our blessings.
But usually this comes from people who feel like they are doin’ pretty
well. We don’t think about the implied
corollary; people who don’t have abundance are not blessed by God.
If
we look again at Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom of God, and apply that to
today, what might we learn?
First,
all is not well. When disparity defines
our system, we are definitely not living in the kingdom of God.
But
Jesus says it need not be so:
Resources
are neither scarce nor limitless. There
is enough. Acquiring wealth in excess of
what we need will lead to a world of haves and have nots. It is a fantasy that the economy can grow
indefinitely, and everyone can just have more and more. It is a fantasy that I can use as many
resources as I want and not affect what’s available to others. It’s a fantasy that I can accumulate things
without exploiting people. But there is
enough when all is distributed justly.
And,
having wealth does not mean I am more blessed by God than someone else. It does not mean I’m better, that I deserve
it. In fact, at worst, having wealth
means there’s something amiss between me and God, and me and my neighbor. In the kingdom of God, all are favored by
God, and all our lives should reflect that.
Finally,
it would be good to redefine family a bit today as well. We all assume it’s a good thing to love our
children more than anything in the world.
But, should I love “my” child more than the child who has nothing to
eat? Is my child more deserving of a
good education, even if that means it comes at the expense of the education of
other children?
It’s
harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to
enter the kingdom of God. It’s
impossible not because we, the rich,
can’t squeeze through the entrance gate to heaven, but because it (the kingdom
of God) doesn’t exist in the first place when there is a system in place that
assumes it’s okay for some to have wealth when others suffer with not enough.
It’s
fair to ask whether what Jesus asked of the rich man was realistic. It’s fair to wonder if this new world order
Jesus imagined was just a romantic ideal.
It’s fair to wonder if a world without wealth disparity is even
something to try for when we know how little a dent we can make in things. Is it worth risking my, and often our
children’s security and privilege if it’s not really go to make any difference. And it’s fair to wonder, even if I believe in
Jesus’ vision, even if I want to be a part of creating the kingdom of God, is
my only option really to sell everything I have and give the proceeds to the
poor. Is this an all or nothing
proposition?
I
think if we go global right away, we will give up – walk away sad because it’s
just too big a leap. But, Jesus wasn’t
asking the rich man to do this alone.
Nor, do I think, was he expecting that he could single-handedly change
the empire system. He offered him
community…follow me, he said. Join us on
this journey. You’ll leave the comfort
of the wealth system – you’ll give up the power of being head of household, but
you’ll gain us…a family where all are cared for.
Yes,
it was a tough proposition, but we know the earliest Christian community gave
it a try, at least among themselves – and the community included the wealthy
ones and land owners. They tried to
redefine family, they saw resources among themselves differently, they trusted
there would be enough to provide for everyone who had need, they opted out of
the economic system where owning land was the pinnacle of existence. Wealthy and impoverished were a part of the
same community, and when they came together, there were no distinctions between
them.
Listen
to this passage from the book of Acts that tells about a group of people trying
to live the new world order Jesus envisioned:
All the believers were one in heart and
mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions were their own, but they
shared everything they had. There were
no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or
houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles'
feet, and it was distributed to anyone as they had need.
It
sounds tough. But, for Jesus, this is
love. And with God, all things are
possible. Amen.
