disclosing new worlds

Job 23: 1-9; 16-17
Psalm 22: 1-15
Hebrews 4: 12-16
Mark 10: 17-31

What does God “look” like through your eyes? If you’re Job, God’s pretty terrifying – someone who’s basically “out to get you”. If you’re the property owner in today’s gospel story (note: it’s only Matthew who calls him “young” and Luke who calls him a “ruler”!), God gets you where it hurts most. For the writer of Hebrews, God’s frighteningly incisive – cuts to the heart of the matter – but it’s okay, because God does it not to play on our weaknesses, but to lead us deeper into truth.

I ask about what God looks like because the gospel passage is about Jesus’ “gaze” – how things look from his perspective. Three times Mark talks about Jesus “looking”:

• v21: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him …”
• v23: “Then Jesus looked around and said …”
• v27: “Jesus looked at them and said …”

Mark wants us to “follow Jesus’ eyes”, or rather, to be met and held by Jesus’ gaze. Mark uses “looking” to indicate the penetration of Jesus’ gaze: that Jesus “sees things as they are”. What he then says is something we ought to make a point of listening to! And today, the object of his gaze and the subject of his speech is wealth, and its relationship to discipleship.

Not as innocent as he seems!
We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is the concluding pericope in the section on “Who is the greatest?” That is why it concludes with a restatement of the first/last inversion (10:31, cf 9:35). In this section, Jesus confronts the notion that wealthy people have the power and influence that goes with wealth because they are blessed by God. Instead, he suggests that the accumulation of wealth is a problem. Its origins is fraud and the absence of compassion, and its effect is to keep would-be disciples of Jesus from following, because the cost is too great.

On a first, “innocent” reading, Jesus does three things that have kept good bourgeois exegetes guessing for years: firstly, he refuses the designation, “Good Teacher” (something that has really worried them), secondly, he answers the question about inheriting eternal life by quoting the Decalogue (when he’s gone to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate that citing bible verses is not the way to discern what God thinks/wants!) and thirdly, he seems to be unnecessarily harsh towards the man – not because Jesus doesn’t love him, but because he refuses to compromise on the cost of following. The demand to sell all and give to the poor sounds like hyperbole. Jesus couldn’t have meant this other than metaphorically, could he?

The point here is that we ought not to read this “innocently”. This isn’t about a conversation that goes inexplicably wrong, but is about a deliberate and direct confrontation between discipleship of Jesus and the accumulation of wealth and privilege. What Jesus says shocks not only the property owner, but the disciples, too – hence all the very serious “gazing” that Jesus does in the passage.

Exposing flattery
The action of kneeling and calling Jesus “Good Teacher” has far more to do with flattery than with worship! Convention demanded that the man kneel. He was quite properly acknowledging Jesus’ authority. However, calling Jesus “Good Teacher” is a calculated act of flattery. Jesus would have been expected to respond in kind with a similarly flattering description of the man, thus establishing a certain equality. That was how it worked among influential people – and Jesus refuses the game.

There are two points about his apparently strange reply that make perfect sense once we recognise that Jesus chooses to confront the whole question of power that is associated with wealth. The first is that Jesus exposes the hollowness of his title: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone!” Now of course, there is an irony here: we know that Jesus is both good and God! So why does he apparently rebuke the man? Surely this rich man, kneeling at his feet, has recognised something in Jesus that others have failed to spot?

The second point to note here is that the title the man gives Jesus is hollow! Jesus knows this, because he “knows the heart”. But, if there is any doubt, look at the exchange:

“Good Teacher” (v17)
“No one is good except God” (v18)
“I have kept every commandment since my youth” (v20)

Do you see the point? Jesus says, “Only God is good”; the man responds, “I am blameless”! In the Talmud, Abraham, Moses and Aaron are believed to have kept the whole Law. It is into his exalted company of saints that the young man blithely and calmly places himself! Of course, one point of the exchange is that the man is supremely unaware of his own shortcomings. And significantly, Jesus does not condemn him for it. Jesus “looks at him and loves him”. Jesus sees what is blinding him to his own motives and preventing him from following. Nevertheless, what the exchange does is to expose the title” Good Teacher” as empty. This is someone who has no purchase on “goodness”.

Wealth and fraud
Why does Jesus uncharacteristically respond to the man’s question by citing the Decalogue? What is interesting here is what Mark includes and both Matthew and Luke omit: “Do not defraud”. This doesn’t appear in the Decalogue, but was part of the teaching about theft. Matthew and Luke deliberately omit it, and Mark strangely appears to inject it clumsily and unnecessarily into the narrative, putting it on the lips of Jesus. Why? “Defrauding” in the bible refers to deliberately withholding wages that are due. It is associated with the abuse of power by property owners – employers – and, as Mark tells us, “he had much property” (v22).

In other words, Jesus is doing two things. Jesus is deeply suspicious of wealth. He finds it difficult to believe that the accumulation of conspicuous wealth can happen without fraud – and fraud committed against the vulnerable and the exploitable: the workers! Jesus, therefore, is contradicting the equation of wealth with God’s blessing. It isn’t “The rich man at his castle/the poor man at his gate/God has made them high and low/and ordered their estate”. It’s “The rich man in the castle is the direct cause of the poor man’s poverty! God doesn’t like it!” And secondly, Jesus is saying (gently) to the rich man, “Just stop and listen for a moment. You’re not actually blameless. You have what you do because you have exploited your workers. You’re a thief.”

Cutting to the heart of the matter (Mark 10: 21-22/Hebrews 4: 12-16)
“The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces to the heart of things until it is even able to divide soul from spirit and joints from marrow! It is able, in fact, to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Pretty terrifying stuff, eh? Which of us can face having our thoughts and intentions exposed – to ourselves, let alone more widely? The writer doesn’t let up: “Before God, no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One to whom we must render an account”. Ouch! I don’t know about you, but I probably spend a lot of time subconsciously trying to “fool” God. I (subconsciously) marshal my arguments to throw my thoughts and intentions in the best possible light. In fact, I tell myself I’m grateful that God can see “the thoughts and intentions of my heart”, because I so frequently find myself doing things that I oughtn’t, or failing to do what I ought, even though my intentions are different! Human nakedness before God on the intimate scale spoken about here, though, makes me feel uncomfortable rather than reassured. I know that even my best intentions are ambiguous, compromised and problematic, so to stand in the presence of the God “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden” is embarrassing at best! I also resent it, to the extent that it uncovers the games I play to keep me from having to confront myself.

This is the experience that the rich man has with Jesus. His intentions appear good to himself. He sees in himself the genuine desire to be careful – scrupulous – about keeping the commandments. Yet Jesus’ response is to tell him: “There’s still something missing. Go and sell what you own, give the money to the poor and then come back and join me on my journey” (v21). Jesus sees his heart. He is not yet ready to follow Jesus on this particular journey – the way of the cross. His possessions are in the way. And so Jesus’ response is to say, “You need to be ruthless. Your wealth is the eye that needs plucking out; the hand or the foot that needs amputation!” The man is shocked. He looks at Jesus, willing Jesus not to be serious … or to relent … or to compromise .. or to negotiate. Anything that will let him off the hook. You can sense from Mark’s narrative the hushed expectancy of the crowd – including the disciples! This is totally unreasonable of Jesus! Why does he ask this of this good man, when he has made no similar demand before?

Losing the world and gaining the kingdom: the problem of wealth
Jesus turns to his hearers – the crowds – and, rather than putting them at ease, confirms the shock value of what has just happened. Then he takes the disciples aside and explains further. He is unequivocal. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”. The characters in this gospel story aren’t the only ones to have had their world rocked by this statement! He is using a humorous illustration: camels don’t go through the eyes of needles, and rich people don’t enter the kingdom! The history of exegesis is littered with attempts to make Jesus say less than he clearly means. Remember the medieval exegesis about a narrow, low gate in the Jerusalem city wall, called “The eye of the needle”? A camel can only go through this on its knees, the exegetes said! Well, if Jesus’ point is only that it is difficult for rich people, the reaction of disciples is curious.

The disciples are “perplexed” (v24) and “greatly astounded” (v26). Remember the opening question: “What must I do in order to inherit eternal life?” The logic of what Jesus says means, indeed, “Who on earth can be saved?” It is, indeed, impossible!

Jesus clearly sees wealth as a particular problem. It has a uniquely pernicious power to keep people from the kingdom. Why? Look again at Jesus’ response to the original question. Isn’t it striking that he cites the Decalogue but misses out the first commandment? And isn’t it striking that he inserts the expansion of the prohibition against theft, but omits the second commandment to love neighbour as self? When the lawyer in Luke 10:25ff asks the same question, both he and Jesus agree that the Law is summarised by the twin commandment to love. The point here seems to be that Jesus wants to emphasise the very things that he has deliberately omitted. Precisely by omitting them, the reader is forced to recall them and puzzle over them.

Jesus sees a direct, causal connection between wealth (ie having more than we need) and poverty (ie having less than we need). There’s a zero-sum equation at work in Jesus’ thinking: there is enough to go round, but not enough for everyone to have much more than they need. There’s enough daily bread for everyone, but not enough for some to gorge themselves on it. Some people have less than they need because others have more than they need. The wealthy have their own share – and the shares of the poor, too!

In other words, the accumulation of wealth produces a ruthlessness to acquire at the expense of others that kills compassion. It stifles love of neighbour. If we truly loved our neighbours as ourselves, we would not countenance seeing them in need while we could do anything about it. Poverty, for Jesus, is the irrefutable evidence of the hard-heartedness of the wealthy.

That’s how the world is. We’ve made it that way. But the kingdom is different. The community that Jesus is calling into being is the community of the cross – the community that is selflessly generous in its provision of need and tireless in its vigilance on behalf of others – particularly the for “the last”. This is a kingdom of sharing and mutual care.

Shockingly, to those of us in a consumer society, Jesus is not a capitalist. Not only that, but he actively thinks that it’s a thoroughly bad, inhumane system that keeps people from the kingdom. Does that mean Jesus is a Communist? Of course it does! That doesn’t make him a Marxist. As the Marxist theologian Jose Miranda remarked, “Marxism is a mere episode in the history of the communist project” … begun by Jesus! Communism – the “community of goods” – is indeed the “project” begun by Jesus and which he called the kingdom of God! The uncomfortable truth is that the Marxist expression wasn’t radical enough in its attempts to make the communist vision a reality. It was a betrayal and failure of the communist vision – but it was still far, far closer in intention (that word again!) to Jesus than our baptised capitalism! We use “communism” as some sort of antithesis to Christianity. Remember the words of Dom Helder Camarra? “When I ask for bread for the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no bread, they call me a Communist!”

Of course, good western capitalist Christians have sought to deflect the moral power of the communist vision by pointing out that Marxism was atheistic. Yet, as Moltmann pointed out, atheism is a protest against a particular conception of God. Karl Marx saw the sort of Christianity which taught that the wealth of the owners and the poverty of the workers was God-ordained as “the opiate of the masses” – the means of keeping people quiet in conditions that were a living hell. He didn’t want anything to do with that sort of God. And neither does Jesus! This is precisely the point of conflict here, and which so shocks his hearers: Jesus is denying that wealth can be seen as a sign of blessing from God! God is not the God who orders that some dwell in castles, while others live in terminal poverty at the castle gates, hoping for a few scraps that will enable them to exist for another 24 hours.

The Make Poverty History campaign was predicated on fact that the eradication of global poverty is easy. At least, it’s not expensive! 1% of the global product will do the trick! It’s not lack of money that’s the problem: it’s lack of love and compassion! Our deep resistance to the plain sense of what Jesus says is an indication of the truth that Jesus expresses: wealth and possessions have remarkable spiritual power. They have the power to blunt and extinguish the passionate love for neighbour that will not let us rest while we can do anything to alleviate their need.

Jesus loves rich people!
Here’s the thing: even though Jesus can see straight into our hearts, he is, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “utterly sympathetic to our weaknesses”. He’s been here. He understands. He recognises the chains that bind us. He knows the paralysing power that wealth and possessions exert over us. He wants to free us from it. He looks at the rich man and loves him. It isn’t only the man who goes away grieving: we ought to sense Jesus’ grief. Jesus doesn’t say that the kingdom isn’t for rich people. Remember, he invites the rich man to follow him! This is a gospel call – an invitation to discipleship. And it is genuinely extended.

The point we ought to note – and that Jesus’ hearers fail to “get” – is that this is the same gospel call as Jesus offers to lepers, prostitutes and beggars. It just sounds different! It is no less loving and gracious. The difference is in the material circumstances of the hearers. The poor hear the invitation as pure gift. As Dylan says, “When you ain’t got nuthin’, you got nuthin’ to lose” (mind you, he also said, “When you think that you’ve lost ev’rything/you find that you can always lose a little bit more”!). All they have to do is respond. But the way of the cross is about loss. It’s about losing everything in order to gain even more! Yet that loss is hard, the more that one has to lose.

How are rich people saved? (Mark 10:23ff/Job 23: 1-9; 16-17/Psalm 22)
The Book of Job is connected with today’s gospel in the form of a contrast. In the gospel passage, the rich man is invited to give up his riches because God is a God of love. Job has all his possessions wrenched from him by a God whose ways he finds utterly inscrutable and unfair! In today’s passage, Job is the example of a rich, righteous man. He is faithful to God. Satan is the one who prosecutes the Jesus-like case here: “Take away his possessions and then we’ll see how much Job loves Yahweh!”

Job is the flip side of the theological coin in today’s gospel: not only is wealth not to be viewed as evidence of God’s blessing; neither should suffering be viewed as sign of God’s punishment. Job’s friends are as shocked and as offended as Jesus’ disciples. Neither Jesus nor Job share the “gaze” of their friends and hearers. God “looks” very different! Now the Book of Job is an astonishing portrayal of human bewilderment in the face of God’s inscrutability. Job longs to argue with God – but God isn’t playing! Job remains faithful despite fearing that God may in fact turn out to be some sort of cosmic sadist who delights in toying with us creatures. And, as the disciples are promised that they will receive more than they have given up, Job ends up better off than before. Psalm 22 could well be a psalm on the mouth of Job. Read the whole Psalm through – the movement from feeling abandoned, through a stubborn holding on to faith, and on to life and restoration.

What the gospel and Hebrews tells us is that God is a loving God, who wills Life and not death. God is not a harsh deity, but has shared the darkness, despair and bewilderment of humanity in Jesus Christ. The way of the cross – the way of loss – is not a one-way ticket to crushing oblivion, but an invitation to the very life of God. It is extended to all humanity – rich and poor alike.

Yet the gospel is always contextual. It addresses the lives of people, rather than speaking in spiritualised generalities. Jesus is calling into being a community. He starts with the least first. They’re in. They’re the basis of the community. That means the participation of the poor is non-negotiable. But it further means that if the rich are to become part of that community, and if their wealth is the cause of the poverty of the poor, then that has to be sorted out. You can’t create a community of love; a community centred around the Good News, when part of that community is directly responsible for the Bad News that governs the lives of the people. Something concrete needs doing for genuine community to happen. And that “something” is the community of goods that Jesus calls his followers to – a community based on an entirely different set of economic criteria and power that shares rather than exploits.

Riches enslave. They blunt compassion and they distract from following. The rich man has too much to keep him at home. He has business to attend to – business that will keep him from following Jesus and poor people from enjoying the life for which they were created. If he is to follow, he will have to find the strength to break free of the chains that bind him to his world. He will need to be ruthless. More importantly, he will need to be loving. He will need to allow God in Christ to open his eyes to the need and suffering of others, and to draw the necessary strength from that compassion. And, in giving to the poor – in using what he has to give life to others – he will share in the work and blessings of the kingdom. It will be hard. Humanly, it’s impossible. But it is possible with God because God’s love is more powerful than the chains that bind him … if only he will let it do its work.

Amen.