20 Pentecost b P.23 October 10, 2021
Amos 5:6-7,10-15 Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16 Mark 10:17-27
We’ve read the well-known story of Jesus and the rich young who was very religious. Certainly this was a teaching story in the early church. And it includes several significant insights.
And some of those insights might be convicting for us today.
There is a very simplistic folk theory of fate and karma that happens in the interpretation of the events in our lives.
If I am fortunate, have good health then that must mean that I am doing something right in life. And if I am misfortunate and in bad health and in poverty and bad relationships, that must mean that I have done something wrong in life to deserve it.
So read the handwriting on the wall; if you’re lucky you deserve it for being good, and if you’re unlucky, you deserve it because you are or must be doing something wrong.
This simple theory had the entire book of Job written to shoot this theory down. Because bad things happen to good people and good things happen to really, really bad people.
The community to whom the Gospel of Mark was written in the 7th decade about forty years after Jesus, needed some insights about how to understand the things happening in their lives.
We cannot say that the Jesus Movement in the 7th decade was an imposing religious group with great social and economic success. They probably were more liable to be persecuted at the time when the Roman armies had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.
The Gospel story that we have read encapsulates some of the big issues in the church of the 7th decade of the common era, but they are also universal themes and relevant to us today.
Prosperity Gospel is an issue today. There are many televangelist preachers today, some flying around in expensive personal jet planes, who tout the blessing formula. If your life is right with God, God will bless you and that blessing will come in the form of actual wealth.
So what is the opposite? If you are not blessed with wealth, then your faith must be lacking. By the way, send me some money as “seed faith.” I might need a bigger jet.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, this was called the Deuteronomy theology of history. Why did Israel prosper or fail? It depended upon their faithfulness to the Ten Commandments. That is a very simplistic cause and effect answer, since the great armies of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and the Romans had lots to do with the downfall of Israel.
The rich young man in the Gospel story represented this “blessing formula theology.” He is one who wanted Jesus and the Jesus Movement to affirm that he was in God’s last will and testament which would allow him into heaven. In the encounter, Jesus threw him back upon his own assumptions. What does your tradition tell you about the questions? What does the Torah tell you? Keep the ten commandments.
"O but Jesus, the 10 Commandments are my resume; I haven’t killed anyone, I’ve been faithful to my wife or wives and my parents, and I don’t lie or steal. I’m heaven bound, right?"
And Jesus said, “If you are counting on personal achievements to get you into heaven, then you must not think that you are yet guaranteed heaven. So, I am going to give you your next commandment. Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and follow me.”
And the next commandment really stumped him because he had too much wealth to give up.
All of this became a discussion for Jesus and the disciples meaning that it was a discussion in the Jesus Movement in the 7th decade, right at the time when Israel and Jerusalem had been overrun by the Roman Army.
It was a discussion about this blessing formula. The words of Jesus instructed that wealth could be distracting baggage in life and if you are trying to get somewhere, it can slow you down.
How did travelers at night get into Jerusalem after the main city gates had been locked? Well, they had to go through the gate called the eye of the needle. This gate was like a dutch door, with a top and bottom swinging gate. At night the top gate was locked. The bottom gate was left open; so you had to unload your camel or beast and maneuver your beast on the camel’s knee to get into the city.
Can we see the meaning of the metaphor? Too much baggage impedes our ability to know that we are in God’s kingdom from creation. Our wealth is the baggage of being alienated from our birthright from creation because being made in God’s image, means we are God’s children and in God’s will and have inherited God’s kingdom.
The poor rich man was alienated from his birthright by all of his baggage, so he thought he had to earn something that he already had. And the Jesus movement was about returning to the original blessing as revealed by Jesus.
The disciples were saying, “Jesus, we’ve gotten rid of our wealth and baggage to follow you, so how can we have any assurance of the kingdom of God? Surely, success in our lifetime means that God will bless us with success.”
And Jesus reveals the secret which was the secret of Jesus Movement. Get rid of the baggage of your minds which keeps you from realizing the always, already inheritance of being a child of God.
This my friends is the next commandment for us. Get rid of our baggage which is the alienation in our minds regarding God being the parent of the universe who has always regarded us to be children of God. Can we accept this? If we can, then we can also live in peace about being in the last will and testament of God regarding our eternal inheritance.
Today the words of Jesus invite us to get rid of distracting baggage which alienates us from knowing that we are children of God. Amen.
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