July 3

The Rich Young Ruler

            As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.  You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’”  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

            The Rich Young Ruler had a fantastic question:  How do I get to Heaven?  He phrased it poorly and the sincerity of his question was called into question due to his flattery.  But the question is one of the most important out there.  He had a good question and he knew where to take it.  He went to Jesus, which is where we are all supposed to go with our big, hard, important questions.  They recite some scripture and then the man leaves sad because the call is just too hard for him.

            “You lack one thing.”  Those were Jesus’s words to the man.  He was missing one thing and then Jesus told him to go do three things: go, sell his possessions and give the money to the poor.  Those three actions all revolved around the central piece that he was missing: He lacked a relationship with God and his wealth was what stood in his way. 

            Look at the commandments that Jesus recites.  They are from the 10 Commandments, but there are only 5.  He left out

·         You shall have no other gods

·         Avoid idolatry

·         Do not take the Lord’s name in vain

·         Honor the Sabbath

·         Do not Covet

The Commandments that Jesus listed were all external actions that revolved around the man’s interactions with his fellow humans.  He quickly checked off those boxes as achieved.  The Commandments that Jesus did not list were all about internal realities and the man’s relationship with God.  That relationship was lacking and Jesus’s recommendation for how to fix that problem was to get rid of the things that got in the way.

            Unfortunately for the man, he had a lot of things that got in the way of a true relationship with God.  He was wealthy and the pursuit of that wealth had become his object of worship…his idol.  The solution was simple enough, but it involved rejecting the god that he had devoted his life to in order to embrace the God that leads to Eternal Life.  It would involve suffering and sacrifice to find the joy that he was after.  He walked away sad because the cost just seemed too high.

            We are not all called to give away all that we have, although growing in generosity would not be a bad thing.  What we are called to do is examine our lives in order to discover what gets in the way of our relationship with God.  What have we devoted our hearts and lives to instead of our Creator?  What do our hopes and dreams revolve around instead of the God of Eternal Life?  Sometimes idols are as simple as a romantic relationship or a job title or a sports team.  Sometimes they are a little more abstract like the pursuit of success or perfection or a political ideology.  Sometimes they are as simple as the love of money and wealth and power.  A real simple self-test is to complete this sentence, “When I have _____________, then I will have the time to devote myself to God.”  Whatever fills in the blank is likely an idol.

            The rich young ruler lacked one thing.  The One Thing.  The Only Thing That Mattered that everything else flowed from.  Find what gets in your way of the One Thing, whether it be internal or external, and get rid of it because in the end, there are those who get to stay with Jesus forever and those who walk away sad.

A moment to reflect:

What gets in your way of the One Thing?