Rich Young Ruler

So the other day my BrickFriend wrote a post in which he mused about Jesus' command to a rich young man to "sell everything" and follow Him. You should read the post because it's quite good and there are several comments after it which are also good. They led me to do a lot of thinking. And then I went back to the text and did some reading because I wanted to read the story again and see just what was going on, who was Jesus talking to and what exactly did He say to him. It's in the Gospel according to Mark (chapter 10) and it's pretty short ... so here it is:

17As 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. 19You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother."
20"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."
21Jesus 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."
22At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
24The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
26The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"
27Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."
28Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"
29"I tell you the truth," 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 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields�and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

You know, I'm sorry, but Jesus comes off sounding sort of like a mystical lunatic in this passage. If we're really honest here, this is not a passage where Jesus sounds particularly sane or makes a lot of sense to our Western, 20th century ears. And I love Him. I really do.

I struggle with this. Because it looks like Jesus is saying, "Sell everything and follow me. That's how you do the Christian thing." And there are certainly some people who do that. Catholic priests, nuns, monks and others like that come to mind. But after having walked this Christian walk for some 15 years now, I'm not certain Jesus was laying down a command here. I've got several reasons for this.

First, the few times that Jesus laid down commands, he was very clear about it. He said things like, "This command I give to you ..." And then the command he gave was fairly broadly brushed. Things like love God and your neighbor. He wasn't into narrow brushes. Which isn't to say his commands are easy. They are difficult. Have you ever tried to love your neighbor as yourself? HONESTLY now. Have you? It's hard and if you're truly honest you've got some kind of pyramid scheme going in your head, where you and your family are at the top and get the best stuff and then maybe your extended family and your bestest friends and then the pyramid extends down from there ... and where does your "neighbor" fit into that scheme? Shouldn't everyone get the best stuff? Why should it be ranked and reserved for you and yours? See what I mean? We all do it ... that's human nature and it's what Jesus was asking us to work against when he lay down that commandment ... but I digress.

Second, if you read the story above again, you'll notice something about the rich young man. He was rich. That's really the only thing we know about him. We can surmise some things about him from that statement. Primarily from that we know he loved "stuff." Jesus knew what he loved and Jesus knew that that "stuff" was going to get in the way of the young man's relationship with Him. That the "stuff" was going to prevent the young man from following Him. There are some people who can have stuff and it doesn't tie them down, because they don't particularly care about it ... they hold it loosely. There are others for whom it is an anchor.

So I finally realized that "stuff" wasn't really the issue in this story. Nor were riches, or parents, or children, or camels, or needles. Altho they all could be. What Jesus was really saying and it took me so long to get was that we need to drop the things (whatever they may be) that keep us from following after Him. And we need to do it in a bold way. For the rich, young ruler in this story that meant selling his stuff and giving the money to the poor ... for that guy, that was a shock, but it might not be a shock to the next guy (and it obviously wasn't a shock to the disciples ... they were pretty pious about it, don't you think?). So I now have the job of figuring out what's keeping me back, what's tying me down. How do I drop it? How do we all?