Century Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)

1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor:  Rev. Jim Westmoreland

How To Get Eternal Life
Mark 10:17-31
by Jim Westmoreland

Imagine that it is the BBQ festival in Owensboro. Cooking teams have been working all night, and the air is filled with the smell of fresh BBQ. The food booths and merchant vendors are all set up from one end to the other on the blocked off streets downtown.. Our church has decided to sponsor a booth, and we are right beside an area of tables and chairs, which is very near many of the food booths. Our booth is decorated with pictures of the church, activities we have done, members are in the booth and others are milling around in the area. We have a banner on the front of the booth that reads, "How To Get Eternal Life."

We had people coming by the booth while we were giving away bottled water, symbolic of the Living Water that Jesus offered the woman at the well. But, since we ran out of water, not many people have stopped. The truth is that we find many reasons to put off thinking about eternal life. Sometimes, we don't like the way that other people talk about eternal life and salvation, even though we, ourselves, are uncomfortable talking about it. In our day it is not politically correct to talk about things like that because they imply that not everyone will have eternal life.

But then we read this passage from Mark. It is found in the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, but not in John. Most of us know this story as the story of the "rich young ruler," although Mark is the only one who suggests he is rich, Matthew is the only one who says he is young, and Luke is the only one who calls him a ruler.

Jesus has set out on his journey to Jerusalem. In just a few weeks He will be killed. Now, an eager young man approaches him. He kneels before Jesus and asks, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Finally, here appears to be an ideal candidate to be a disciple of Jesus.

His respect for Jesus and his interest in spiritual, eternal matters are reflected in his question to Jesus. His idea is that he can "inherit" eternal life.

Instead of directly answering this man's question, Jesus first focuses on that reference to "goodness." He replies, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.? Then Jesus listed some of the Ten Commandments and this man quickly insists, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth" (v. 20).

Here was a man who had found the emptiness of success. He had the very things that most of us think will bring us happiness. Most of us dream all our lives for the very things this man enjoyed.

First of all, he had a lot of money. How many of us faithfully buy our lottery tickets hoping that the miracle will be for us, and we sit around day-dreaming about how we would spend our millions if we could just win the lottery?

But here is a man who had all that, and his life was still empty. How many times has that story been repeated? How many entertainers, athletes and business successes who had all the money imaginable, but were miserable all the same?

This young man is also respected for his religious devotion. But, he proves that even obedience to the law leaves life empty and meaningless. He has kept all the commandments from his youth, but he still has not found eternal life.

Most of us think that wealth and obedience will bring us happiness because we don't have either one. But here is a man with both, and he has found the emptiness of such efforts. He is still searching, so he comes to Jesus looking for answers and for real meaning in life.

That's when Mark gives us a touching picture of Jesus who really understood this man. Mark likes to add comments about how Jesus' saw others and what He was feeling at the time. With just a few words, mark says, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him?"

Jesus loves this young man because he can instantly tell he is serious about his quest. No wonder Jesus loves him. He is ripe. He is ready for God. He has come to the end of what he can do for himself, to the end of what money can do for him, and to the end of what the law can do for him. Jesus knew he would make an excellent disciple, but he lacked one thing.

While Jesus states that the man lacks "one thing," he actually gives him two commands. First, he is to go, sell what he has and give it all to the poor. Second, he is to come and follow Jesus, a path that will lead him to the eternal life he seeks.

In Barbara Brown Taylor's fine sermon on this text, she writes this wonderful paragraph:

"It is a rich prescription for a rich man, designed to melt the lump in his throat and the knot in his stomach by dissolving the burden on his back, the hump that keeps banging into the lintel on the doorway to God. It is an invitation to become smaller and more agile by closing his accounts on earth and opening one in heaven so that his treasure is drawing interest inside that tiny gate instead of keeping him outside of it. It is a dare to him to become a new creature, defined in a new way, to trade in all the words that have described him up to now -- wealthy, committed, cultured, responsible, educated, powerful, obedient -- to trade them all in on one radically different word, which is free."⁽¹⁾

You see, the opposite of rich is not poor. The opposite of rich is free. He was not free to take the hand of Jesus because his hand was too full of his things and his love of things. He might as well have had a ball and chain around his leg. He was not free to follow Jesus.

In fact, the meaning of "rich" may have less to do with how much money one has as it does with what our attitude is about the money we have. Some people have a lot of money but they are not enslaved by it; others have very little but they cling to it with desperation.

The rich young ruler is not merely rich, he is also good. He is spiritually ambitious as well as materially well off. He is what each of us aspires to be, and that is not good enough . . . The point of the story is that he lacked sufficient trust in either himself or in Jesus to follow his heart. He was, as they would say in business school, "risk averse," and thus he lost the big one. "You lack one thing," says Jesus. "Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

He was not invited to become a philanthropist, although the poor would have benefitted from his divestment. He was invited to discipleship, and it was that invitation to discipleship that he was afraid to accept. It would have been easier to give away his possessions. It was the ultimate difficulty to give away himself. And so he went away, sorrowful, with all his possessions and with nothing that he sought for or needed or wanted, because he knew that he had made the wrong decision, he had done the wrong thing, the dumb thing: it is not the road not taken, it is the wrong road.⁽²⁾

Have you ever been to the park and watched a group of children playing on a slide. In the midst of all the energy and excitement there we've all seen that one little boy who held back. He was reluctant to go down the slide. The others were encouraging him to try. All of a sudden you could see the look of determination on his face and he boldly marched to the slide.

Step by step he climbed the ladder. But when he reached the top and his young eyes saw how far it was to the end of the slide, his resolve crumbled. You could see the fear and disappointment on his face and in his shaky knees as he slowly made his way back down the ladder. He stood on the brink of a momentous decision and was unable to take the last step.

This passage is about decision making, commitment, and separation from God. It's wrapped around wealth and a rich young man's struggle. But at the same time it calls into question the things, attitudes, and practices in our lives that keep us from total commitment. Jesus doesn't want lives that are all show. Jesus wants lives that are all His, heart and soul.

This passage is about ending the separation between us and God by giving up whatever it is that is the barrier in that separation. But mostly this passage is about taking that last step, the step of showing that God is first in our lives. It is the step to finding eternal life. Like the young boy on the slide, like the rich young man, we all stand on the brink of a momentous decision. We can receive eternal life.    . . . They both turned away but we don't have to.⁽³⁾ Amen.

Century Christian Church, October 15, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org

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1. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, Cowley Publications, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p.121-126.

2. Peter J. Gomes, Sundays at Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2001, pp. 43-48.