Wealthy Man

October 15, 2006 | Mark 10:17-31
Grace, peace and mercy from God our Lord and Savior, amen.
There has been a lot in the news these past weeks and it is really hurting the Republican Party.  There is the war in Iraq, and then it was the Halliburton connections, the Foley scandal and just this week congressman Ney.  For the Republican Party it’s not just a question of image this is beginning to look like a virus.  My point is not just to take a shot at the Republican Party, but to say there comes a time when you can’ just point the figure at someone else.  There comes a time when you can’t just use somebody else as a smoke screen.  There comes a time when we have to look at our own lives, own imperfections.   When we spend too much time looking at the faults and inadequacies of others we wind up with the virus, only to discover that we are the ones who are sick.  This is the situation the wealthy man in today’s lesson finds himself.  He has the virus and he is in denial.

In a moment I am going to invite you to pull out your bibles or your inserts out so we can at the text a little more closely.  In the chapters leading up this section of Mark’s gospel Jesus was in the area called Galilee.  In Galilee Jesus was healing and teaching people.  Before this section of Mark Jesus was in Galilee healing the 5,000, walking on water, healing people in homes, like the man who was lifted through the roof by his friends.  It was in Galilee were people begun to hear about Jesus as someone who healed people and someone who could taught the Scriptures.  People were coming to Jesus to be healed and to learn about the kingdom of God.  For the purpose of today’s sermon I want you to think of the kingdom of God as a place where people are healed.  I want you to think about the kingdom of God as a place where people come to be inoculated from the virus of greed, self-centeredness.    When you think of the kingdom of God I want you to think of a place where people are not separated by what they have, color of their skin, gender, sexual orientation.  When you think about the kingdom of God think of a place where people are healed and communities are made whole.

Now let’s look at the text.  Jesus is on his way from Galilee to Judea and Jerusalem.  The contrast would be like if Jesus is going from Des Moine, Iowa to Chicago.  Along the way a wealthy man runs up to Jesus and falls down on his knees.  Now this wealthy man is wearing a fancy suit, goochi shoes, Ralph Lauren tie.  It is really evident that this was not a poor man, this man was a saved, Christian right, Republican.  The fact that this man is on his knees is a good thing.  This is a sign that in spite of the fact that this man had a lot of money, a lot of power and a lot of influence this man was bowing down before Jesus.  The first words of the man are “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  
Jesus first checks the man for calling him good teacher.  This is probably because Jesus reads the man because he is spreading the butter.  This wealthy and influential man was doing what you do to butter someone’s ego to soften them up.  Jesus makes it clear, only God is good.  This is also a reference to the first two commandments to worship God and only God.  The other part of the question is the part of the text that stays most with me, the question about eternal life.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?
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What is eternal life?  For some people, eternal life is a destiny.  They think that eternal life is about getting to the finish line, where we will be with God and reunited with our loved ones.  For others, eternal life is the invitation to enter into a new reality, which Jesus talks about in the kingdom of God.  This is critical to question how Jesus responds to the wealthy man.  The wealthy man comes from a world of privilege, and he is looking for the guarantee that that world will continue in the next world.  This wealthy man lives in a world where you have command over others and command over your environment.  You live the right kind of life; you get the right kind of reward.  For the man in the text, nothing is really new.  Just tell me the rules, and I will work on it.  But when we look down a little later in the text, in verse 21, Jesus tells the man to sell all that he has and give it to the poor.  Now, I suspect that what was most difficult for the man was not the idea of selling all that he had.  What was most difficult for the man was the idea of giving what he had to the poor.  This wealthy man was raised in an environment that praised achievement, where if you worked hard and achieved success, you were blessed.  The man in the text was raised in an environment where if you achieved wealth, it was a sign that God blessed you.  I believe that when Jesus told the wealthy man to sell all that he had, that was not a problem.  The problem was when Jesus said to sell what he had and give to who.     To give what he had to the poor was to give what he had achieved and give it to people who did not deserve it.  To give what he had to the poor meant he had to give what he worked hard for, what he achieved, to people who did not deserve it.  It’s the virus, allowing illegal aliens to stay here, allowing teenagers to lead us in worship when they don’t clean up after themselves and leave wrappers in the sanctuary.  People who drive all the way from St Cloud to worship at Redeemer?  We do these things to innnoculate ourselves from the virus.  
Have potluck dinners when it is the same people bringing the dishes all the time.  Why do we do these? 
Now, I know this is challenging for some of us to see because we have the virus.   Let me tell you what the virus does to you.  The virus gets into your checkbook and begins to tell you that what you have is yours; you earned it.  The virus gets into your mind and persuades us to think that because we were born into the church, it eats away at our ability to let go of our possessions…. Because we have the virus, our vision gets in us, and we can never let go of its grip without the belief in someone; something can actually be greater than ourselves.