Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-august-14-2025
Mark 10:17-31
The Rich Young Man
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
In our passage for today, a rich man asks Jesus what he needs to do to “inherit eternal life.” Jesus first mentions keeping the commandments, which the man declares he has done all his life. And we’re told that Jesus looks at the man and “loves him,” which presumably means that he could tell the man was telling the truth about obeying the commandments.
But then Jesus tells the man that he needs to do one more thing: He needs to liquidate all his worldly wealth and give the proceeds to the poor. And we’re told that the man “went away sad, because he had great wealth.”
Now, it seems worth noting that the text doesn’t really say that the man failed to dispose of his wealth and then follow Jesus. It just says he was sad because he had great wealth. But interestingly, almost all the Bible interpreters seem to assume that the man couldn’t bring himself to part with his wealth. I suppose that’s right, since the learned scholars all say it is, but that’s not exactly what the text says. In fact, later in the passage Jesus says that, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” So it seems like at least a possibility that the man went away, sadly disposed of his wealth, and then began a new life as a disciple.
But whatever the fate of the man in the story, it seems to me that the real point is that worldly wealth has a powerful grip on us. It’s sometimes said that some people allow wealth to become their god, and in a certain sense that’s true. Nobody really ‘worships’ money, but I tend to operate under a different definition of one’s god — I think your god is what you look to for salvation. And some people definitely look to their wealth to save them.
Of course, that raises the question of what those people think they need to be saved from – and it suggests that poverty is what those people really fear, maybe more than death itself.
It’s said that the purpose of a sermon is to “provoke theological reflection.” And I tend to think that’s probably the purpose of these daily Reflections, as well. So for those of us who are materially comfortable, this story invites us to reflect on how ‘wealthy’ we are, compared to most of the people of the world. And the truth, if we’re honest, is that most of us are very richly blessed. And if we’re not careful, our worldly wealth can get such a grip on us that it compromises our relationships with God and other people.
And while we’re thinking about this story, we should probably say a few words about the famous metaphor of the camel going through the eye of a needle. Various Bible interpreters have given different interpretations of what Jesus said, including a widely repeated (but apparently completely mistaken) claim that Jesus was referring to a certain gate in the city wall of Jerusalem.
But New Testament scholars are coming to suspect that this famous metaphor is actually a mis-translation of a phrase from the Aramaic language Jesus himself spoke. In that language, the same word means ‘camel’ and also ‘rope.’ So the scholars say Jesus might have been painting an absurd word picture with the idea of someone trying to get a rope through the eye of a needle. That would have a lot in common with one of his other metaphors, about a person with a log in their eye.
The other part of this passage that seems especially worth thinking about is how shocked the disciples were when Jesus said it’s hard for the rich to get into the kingdom of God. As Jews, the disciples would have been raised with the idea that worldly blessings were a sign of God’s favor – and that if anyone could expect to get into the kingdom of God, it would be the rich.
It seems to me Jesus is contrasting what human effort can achieve with what God can achieve. That’s an idea at the heart of our Reformed vision of following Jesus. It’s the idea of grace – that God can give out of his gracious love what we could never earn for ourselves by righteousness or good deeds.
No matter how hard we might try, our efforts to make ourselves righteous will inevitably fail. That includes the effort to break the grip of worldly wealth and possessions. We’re just not mentally and spiritually strong enough to change ourselves by a self-help program.
But God can do what we can’t. God can change our hearts so the grip of worldly wealth and possessions on us is broken. That change can allow us to put our hope for salvation in him alone, and not in worldly things that we know we’re bound to leave behind when we leave this world.
Let’s pray. Lord, let your Spirit be at work in us to break the grip of worldly things. Make us thankful and joyful in our blessings, and generous in sharing them in your name. And let our hope always be in your Son, our Lord Jesus, as the source of our salvation. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
Recent Comments