19th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23)
Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31
by A. Katherine Grieb
Today, a bonus lectionary post—because preaching on Jesus and the rich man takes all the help you can get. —Ed.
Today’s Gospel reading worries Christians seriously contemplating Jesus' rigorous discipleship teaching. Preachers do well to honor both the worry and the teaching. All three parts of the story—Jesus and the rich man (17-22), Jesus and the disciples (23-27) and Jesus' reply to Peter (28-31)—concern money and discipleship.
Because this is a story of failed discipleship, commentators often criticize the rich man, but it is not clear that the Gospel does so. He is sincere and serious, kneeling before Jesus and addressing him as "good teacher." Jesus' reply ("Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone") is less a rebuke than one of several Markan hints at Jesus' true identity—an identity hidden until his crucifixion.
Why caricature the rich man as smug and self-righteous when Mark shows him humbly asking a genuine question that is existentially real for him? Instead, we might notice that Jesus probes his level of commitment by asking not about his beliefs but about his practices: has he kept God's commandments?
The commandment "do not defraud," while not in the Decalogue, reflects the Bible's compelling interest in economic justice. Jesus' mention of it invites him to assess how he achieved his wealth: was it gained honestly? The man's answer, "I have kept all these since my youth," need not be read as arrogant or self-aggrandizing. Rather, the dialogue establishes his integrity and seriousness.
"Jesus, looking at him, loved him." The loving gaze of Jesus penetrates to the heart. Elsewhere in scripture he is described as the living and active Word of God whose gaze, like a scalpel, dissects bone from marrow, the one whose winnowing fork separates wheat from chaff. His love sees clearly and speaks truthfully.
Today we might describe Jesus' word to the rich man as an intervention, love bold enough to step between an addict and his addiction: first things first; changing one thing changes everything.
"You lack one thing," Jesus tells him. "Go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (This was the story that converted Francis of Assissi.)
Discipleship begins when the one thing that enslaves us is renounced and all its claims upon us are dissolved. We see the extent of the poor rich man's captivity by his downturned head as he slowly retreats. This is the one thing he thinks he cannot do.
Like many stories in Mark's Gospel, this one is open-ended. The narrator does not add, "and he lived unhappily ever after." We are free to wonder: did the rich man later realize that as a disciple he would gain a support group? That Jesus' invitation conferred the power to accept it? That "mission impossible" is God's daily agenda?
We are not told. Instead, Jesus directs our attention to the power of riches. How hard it is for those who have riches.... Preachers must keep awake: it is tempting to generalize the problem to "whatever keeps us from following Jesus wholeheartedly." But then perhaps we too would be walking away from Jesus.
Money is an enslaving power: our possessions have a way of possessing us. How hard it is to stay with the story and to submit to that loving gaze of Jesus as it discerns the roles money plays in our own lives.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that for a rich person to enter the reign of God." Forget the medieval fantasy about a special camel's gate in Jerusalem or trying to change the Greek word for "camel" into the similar word "rope," as if that would help. These attempts at domestication miss the point of Jesus' jolting joke.
It startles disciples then and now. Isn't material wealth evidence of God's blessing? If a rich person fails to enter God's reign, "then who can be saved?" But there is no prosperity gospel here. Even the material blessings of discipleship in community come "with persecutions."
Jesus' invitation to discipleship is still on the table. Will anyone pick it up?
A. Katherine Grieb teaches New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary and is the author of The Story of Romans (Westminster John Knox).
October 7, 2009
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4 comments:
Wonderful reflections - clear, concise and elegant. One could perhaps preach a whole sermon on Jesus' "joke" as Dr. Grieb calls it and God's ability to do the impossible. I personally appreciated the idea of Jesus intervening, telling the truth in love. Thank you.
John12:49 For I have not spoken of Myself but of My Father who has sent Me. He gave Me a Commandment of what I should say and what I should speak.
2Corithians4:18 Look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal, walk by faith not by sight.
1Corithians14:33 For God is not the author of confusion.
Hosea11:9 God says,"I am God and not human."
Numbers23:19 God is not human, He does not lie nor is He Son of human beings that He should change His mind.
John1:18 No one has seen God at anytime the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of His Father has declared Him.
John8:54-55 Jesus answered, If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing it is My Father's honor of whom you say that He is God yet you have not known Him but I know Him. If I should say I know Him not I shall be a liar like you but I know Him and keep His commandments.
John7:16-18 And He said, My doctrine is not Mine but His that sent Me. If any person will do His Will they shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of Myself. Whosoever that speaks of themselves seeks their own glory but they that seek His glory that sent them no unrighteousness is in them.
Acts4:18-19 But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets that Christ should suffer He has fulfilled. Repent you therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come.
Note: In order for conversion to take place you must pray to God Almighty, name your sins in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ and then be baptized in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost so that your sins are washed away and you receive God's gift which ensures you that you are of God.
John4:23 But the hour comes and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeks such to worship Him
The flabbergasted disciples were told by Mark’s Jesus in 10:27, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
Actually, an early version of Mark may have had a happier continuation within chapter 10. A discovery made in 1958 and published in 1973 by the late Morton Smith relates an episode that once was between 10:34 and 10:35 of Jesus raising from the dead a rich, grateful “young man,” who wanted to be a follower. Jesus, after six days, taught him the secret of the kingdom of God. Some believe this same young man reappears in the empty tomb as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.
The so-called “Secret Mark” episode has been attacked as a hoax, but some leading scholars, such as Harvard emeritus professor Helmut Koester, defend Smith’s find as legitimate and further evidence of the editing the oldest gospel underwent prior to the canonical version. My Decoding Mark (Continuum) and my article in The Fourth R (Nov-Dec 2008) argue this as well.
On Secret Mark, there is some news.
Everyone took Carlson at his word but no one bothered to check the methodology for his greatest proof.
Until now:
http://salainenevankelista.blogspot.com/2009/12/tremors-or-just-optical-illusion.html
There is no reason to think that it is a forgery. Even Birger Pearson questions Carlson's methodology now after reading that article
http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/2009/12/birger-pearson-says-it-best-it-is.html
There is nothing gay about Secret Mark; the only thing that was queer was Carlson's methodology (and again, that not one scholar bothered to double check his work).
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