A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (28)

 


“…a man ran up and knelt before [Jesus], and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him… You know the commandments…He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” (Mark 10.17-22)

     Jesus is now preparing his journey, so as to arrive in Jerusalem in time for Passover, the Jewish national holiday (10.17).  The narrative is rushing towards its climax.  A man runs up, kneels before Jesus and interrupts his preparations.  This is the first of three episodes in this chapter where people come to Jesus with (what they consider to be) an urgent question.  In the case of this man, he asks “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life (i.e., the life of the Age to Come: 10.30)?”  Jesus begins by obliquely identifying himself with God – “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (10.18; cf. 2.7).  Jesus lists off six of the 10 Commandments, those commands that concern how humans treat each other (cf. Ex. 20.12-17), intimating to the man that this is “the way to life” (10.19; cf. Dt. 30.19-20).  The man replies that he has faithfully followed all the commandments from childhood (10.20).  Jesus looks at him, loved him, and delivers the final answer to the man’s question: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (10.21; cf. 6.7-13).  On hearing this, the man was shocked and walked away, saddened at not being any closer to the life of the Age to Come, but unwilling to give up his “many possessions” (10.22).  Jesus’ demand might strike us as unnecessarily harsh, but let’s not forget that Jesus is heading towards his destiny (cf. 10.32).  Even those who have been with him for many months are still struggling to understand the nature of his mission, and what is more, the inevitable cost of discipleship (cf. 10.35-45).  There is simply no time for Jesus to take on followers who have material attachments.  He and his disciples are journeying towards a grim fate, and one hesitant follower could cause the whole “flock” to scatter prematurely (cf. 14.26-31).

     Jesus then turns to his disciples and repeats twice “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (10.23-25).  In other words, how difficult it is for the rich to follow Jesus.  As far as Mark’s narrative is concerned, this man was the first person of means who had expressed interest in following Jesus, and it appears that Jesus did not intentionally seek to recruit wealthy people as disciples (cf. however Lk. 8.1-3, where Luke describes/names many women who accompanied Jesus and provided for his material needs out of their resources)[1].  The disciples are perplexed and astounded to learn that the rich will have difficulty entering the kingdom.  In the culture of the time, wealthy people were often benefactors of public religious institutions and infrastructure, and were considered to be favoured by (the) God(s).  Hence the disciples’ question, “Then who can be saved?” (10.26).  That is to say, if those who are considered to be closest to the divine have as much chance of being saved as a camel does of passing through the eye of a needle, what hope is there for anyone (cf. 10.25)?  Jesus responds by saying that “for God all things are possible” (10.27).

     Peter, always the first to speak up, says, “Look, we have left everything and followed you” (10.28).  Jesus responds with a promise – no one who has left house/home/fields/family for his sake and the sake of the gospel of the kingdom will fail to receive “a hundredfold” (cf. 4.8) in “this age” and in “the age to come”, eternal life (cf. 10.17).  Mark could not have made his point any clearer – leaving everything behind in order to follow Jesus is the path to life, the way into the kingdom of God; Jesus is the source of salvation, now and into the Age to Come.  The “Age to Come” (=kingdom of God) is the messianic age, the time when God’s people would be “justified” over against all pagan nations that had been persecuting/oppressing them, a time when the righteous dead would be resurrected into a world of perfect peace and justice (cf. Ps. 96).  As we have seen time and time again, those who will share in the life of the coming Age are more often than not precisely not those we would have expected to see inside the kingdom.  “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”


[1] Then again, Luke’s Gospel contains some of the harshest portrayals of wealthy people / teaching about the dangers of riches to be found in the New Testament…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (5)

Image
“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean .”   Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean !” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean .   (Mk. 1.40-42)      Along with exorcisms, Jesus performs many healings of various physical ailments in the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel.   Jesus’ first healing is that of Simon’s mother-in-law (1.29-31).   With the restoration of the leper, we begin to understand the meaning of Jesus’ healings (and exorcisms).   The thrice-repeated word “clean” in the above passage reveals what is truly going on when the King restores the members of the people of God to wholeness.   Leprosy rendered its victim “unclean”, i.e., it proscribed that person from participation in the life of the community, of both civil society and the worship/litur...
Read more

The Protestant Reformation - good news?

Image
  The study of Reformation Europe makes many Christians wish that they had lived in the 16th century. Name 1) Some good reasons for not living in the sixteenth century and 2) Some ways in which we can live more deliberately as Christians today because of the events of that century. How should it and how should it not make a difference?    Some good reasons for not living in the 16th century include the climate of religious intolerance and violence.   Religious affiliation and observance were compulsory and imposed on the people by the state, especially it seems, in Protestant countries.   There was no freedom of conscience, except perhaps in England during the reign of Elizabeth, where the windows to people’s souls remained shut to the state, so long as they publicly conformed to the monarch’s religion (as enforced by parliament).   One may have thought that Luther’s appeal to conscience at the Diet of Worms would have inspired a broader and more sensit...
Read more

“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

Image
Ancient relevance.   Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.   Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.   Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil .   And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).   In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.   Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people , Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their...
Read more