The rich young man          Mark 10:17-31     19th Sunday After Pentecost         October 15, 2006

 This story is interesting and unique. The rich young man finally found Jesus on his walk to Jerusalem. He greeted Jesus like my dogs when they run and jump into my lap and bark for my attention. "Good Teacher," he exclaimed, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" In his sincerity, the young man knelt when he asked the question.

Jesus "loved" the wealthy young man. This is the only place in Mark where Jesus is said to have "loved" someone. He was not like some Pharisees and Sadducees. He not trying to entrap or trick Jesus to build a case against him. He was a man who just wanted to know how to inherit eternal life, and knew Jesus could help him.

Before answering his question, Jesus did a character assessment. He asked him if he knew the commandments, and began to list the Ten Commandments. The young man interrupted before he could finish, "Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth." Have you ever known anyone like him?

A friend told me about a woman whose goodness, in every respect, matches that of this rich young man that met Jesus that day. Do not kill, the commandment warns. This woman gets upset when she has to swat a fly. Do not commit adultery. She has been married for thirty years without giving the current male heartthrobs of stage or screen so much as a fleeting thought. Do not steal? She would drive back to the store to return an extra penny the cashier gave her in change. Do not bear false witness? She might gossip a little over the backyard fence but never maliciously. And she would bite her tongue before telling a lie. Do not defraud. She would not think of cheating her friends when they played at dominoes or 42. Honor your father and mother? She worked hard at being a considerate daughter. In character, she is the rich young man’s identical twin, with one exception.

She is compassionate and generous to the poor and the sick. She is the kind of person that would give someone in need the shirt off her back. She would oppose anyone or any party that would take advantage of the powerless. That is where she and the rich young man part company. He would have drawn the line at that.

Jesus identified the young man’s problem. He knew he needed something else to inherit the kingdom, but his money stood in the way of his goal. Jesus said, "Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." The young man’s face fell. He had not expected such a difficult and uncompromising answer. He was sorry, but giving up his wealth was too much for him, so gave up on inheriting the kingdom.

The story done not tell us how he got his money, but listen to his question again. He asked how to inherit eternal life. I think he probably inherited his money, and everything he had. Now most of us can’t relate to the problem of being born rich, but I’m told that once you inherit money from your heirs, it can become a trap and a burden. I say this after considering the lives of rich families like Henry Ford, Sam Walton, and others.

Henry Ford became rich by making a car that everyone could afford by making the on an assembly line. The Model “T” and Model “A” Ford were priced low. Ford wanted his workers to be able to buy the cars he made, so he paid them well. When Henry Ford’s son and his family took over the company, he concentrated his efforts on products like the Edsel, the biggest flop in car making history.

As for the rich young man and his question, he already has inherited money, but he knows something is missing from his life. He needs to inherit eternal life that Jesus wants all of us to have. What Jesus prescribed for him would have set him free to inherit eternal life. He knew a life in Christ would set him free from living the lies of the world. He knew that Jesus could give him the peace and joy that the world could never give. But he could not let go, and that was why he went away in sorrow.

Most of us have not inherited wealth like him. But we live in a culture that encourages spending and debt. Too many people want to feel and look rich at the expense of high credit card debt and lack of savings for retirement. Someone recently said, “Today, too many people are buying things they don’t really need, with money they don’t have, trying to impress people they don’t even like.

We suffer from what a recent television show on PBS called affluenza. It is definded- Af-flu-en-za n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

Affluenza interferes with our desire to be who God wants us to be, inheritors of eternal life because it can make us forget our dependence upon God. It can cause a kind of amnesia that blots out memories of who we are, God’s children, a sheep in God’s pasture. It can transport us to an ivory tower where we live in unreality, out of touch with our neighbors, and the rest of the human race. We lose our capacity for caring so that our eyes no longer see the poor and our hearts get hard to their hearts. That could cause us to lose our inheritance to eternal life.

We know the story. In my last trip to the mega-store, they reminded me Christmas is coming, and soon they’ll be playing the Charles Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol.” Ebenezer Scrooge, that despicable, but somehow lovable, suffered from serious affluenza. Dickens describes his villain as "a tight fisted hand at the grindstone ... a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner... secret and self contained, and solitary as an oyster."

Even on Christmas Eve, when the holiday was being celebrated in the humblest home of England, Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse, dismal and morose despite his riches, and responding to Christmas greetings with a cynical, "Bah! Humbug!" He told everyone he did not celebrate Christmas Day, and could not afford to help idle people celebrate. It would be better, he sneered, that they die, and "decrease the surplus population."

In his youth, Scrooge, too, had been a person of high ideals and impeccable conduct. He may even have possessed a warmer heart than the rich young man. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ideals faded, and the tender heart turned to stone caused by affluenza.

Scrooge leaves work for his dreary lodgings on Christmas Eve. The miserable and lonely old man receives unexpected visitors who change his life. First appears the ghost of his old friend and business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley has an ominous warning for Scrooge. His spirit must wander sympathetically among humanity, in life, or be condemned to do so after death and witness what one "might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness."

Marley fades from view, and the Ghost of Christmas Past appears to guide Scrooge to the innocent scenes of his childhood and carefree youth. He sees himself in young manhood, and hears his sweetheart bid him farewell with the words, "Another idol has displaced me ... a golden one." That breaks Scrooge’s hard heart because he sees those days of love and are lost to him.

But then the Ghost of Christmas Present sends him to the home of his clerk, Bob Crachit. The poor family is having a wonderful Christmas. Even little Tiny Tim with crutches and withered hand, bubbles over joy.

Finally, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come guides him to a group a colleague’s death that of Scrooge himself with little sympathy and much disdain. Scrooge learns that Tiny Tim is residing elsewhere for treatment of his "incurable" condition. Finally, Scrooge stands at a fresh grave and sees his name upon the marker. "Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone," he cries. He pleads for a new chance at life with the words: "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

Then Scrooge wakes up and it all was a dream. But he is now a completely changed man, who gladly shares of himself and his substance out of a loving and grateful heart, and becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim, who does not die.

Jesus said it’s hard to redeem a rich person, but for God, anything is possible. The scriptures say the love of money is the root of all evil. If Scrooge can be redeemed, then all can be redeemed. “A Christmas Carol” is a parable of what the Holy Spirit, can do. The Spirit is what opens the brittle heart and sensitizes the conscience so that we become who God created us to be, humans made in God’s image. Jesus said for God, anything is possible.

In the gospel, for me the ultimate grace is that Jesus loved this man who was the walking epitome of a Scrooge and all who suffer from affluenza. He became poor and naked on the cross, has been raised to speak to us a word of forgiveness and God’s love for the whole human family. He looks at our hearts with or desire for wealth, and loves us. He bids we follow him, which will redirect our hearts away from the love of power and money to the love of the whole human family. Let us follow him all the days of our lives, and dwell in his house forever. Amen

Amen