Sermon - Year B, Proper 23, 2024 - Mark 10:17-22

If You Want to be Perfect (Christ and the Rich Young Man), Andrey Mironov, 2017

Forsaking every earthly treasure to follow Christ

1. Knowing Jesus and keeping the law is not enough

2. Following Christ means we must forsake all worldly goods

3. Greater Treasure in heaven awaits those who love the Lord alone

“He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Perhaps when you heard the readings this morning you were also filled with sorrow, because Jesus’ words are very challenging. “Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” For the rich young man these words were devastating, because he was now at a crossroads and must choose either to follow Christ and gain a heavenly treasure, or follow this world and keep his worldly treasures. Today Jesus places us at the same crossroad, and our Lord bids us to forsake every earthly treasure to follow Him.

The tempting thought for us though is that we can have both treasures: treasure on earth and treasure in heaven. This is what the rich young man thought he could do, too. We know he was rich, but we also see that he was a very pious man, seemingly filled with faith in Jesus. We notice this just in the manner he approached the Lord.

He ran up to Jesus. This was strange behavior for 1st century men. At that time men did not run in ordinary life, it was considered undignified and embarrassing for men, and particularly men of high standing. This man was rich, and therefore he would’ve been considered in a higher social standing, and as such would normally have never run. But on this day, when Jesus comes near to him, the man runs to Jesus. Kind of like a child he forgets the social conventions in his excitement, and becomes like a child and runs up to Jesus! Just like a son might run to his father when dad comes home, so does this rich man come running with eager excitement, willing to take some shame for the sake of Christ.

Then the man kneels before Jesus. Or maybe we could use the word genuflect, a liturgical term, to emphasize the fact that this rich man is kneeling before Jesus in worship. Normally others would kneel before the rich man, paying homage to him, but here the rich man knows that Jesus is much greater than him, and so the rich man bends the knee.

Finally, the rich young man calls Jesus “Good Teacher,” which is exceptionally strange! The normal title was Teacher, and the adjective good was normally not added to it. Like Jesus said: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus’ point isn’t that He isn’t God, but Jesus is pointing out to us that the rich young man believes Jesus is good, and therefore is also God! Wow! What faith this rich young man reveals! 

On top of all of that, it appears that this man was a devout Israelite. He says that he has kept the second table of the law from his youth. I don’t think we have a reason to doubt him, afterall, Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for lying about keeping the commandments. For all intents and purposes the rich young man was a devout Israelite and kept the law.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough that he knew Jesus is God, that he worshiped Jesus, or that he kept the law. For Jesus reveals that the rich young man is lacking one thing: “Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” Salvation requires more than outward behaviors from us, but it requires us to forsake all earthly idols and follow only Jesus.

The commandments which Jesus recited to the rich young man were from the second table of the law, referring to how we love our neighbor. But what the rich man was lacking was the first table of the law, specifically the first commandment: You shall have no other Gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. The instruction Jesus gave to the man, to sell all of his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, seems like work’s righteousness, but it’s not. Because the heart of Jesus’ commandment wasn’t about giving everything to the poor, but about forsaking all worldly goods and trusting in God alone.

This means that Jesus’ instructions to the rich young man don’t apply identically to you, but they do still apply to you. The commandment given isn’t that you need to sell all of your possessions and give it to the poor, but that you need to trust in God alone, forsaking hope and trust in all worldly treasures. It’s as Jesus says elsewhere: “No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon.” 

Martin Luther teaches in the Large Catechism that “to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts.” This means that we can break the first commandment by making all sorts of worldly goods into idols, into gods that we worship. If you think these things aren’t idols for you, then put that thought to the test Jesus gives, and sell them all and give the proceeds to others.

It turns out we have a lot of idols, don’t we. That nice house or cabin, the camper or the car, your savings accounts, IRAs, Pensions, CDs, Bonds, Stocks, the whole portfolio! And if you think you’re too poor for your earthly treasures to be an idol, how often do you wish that you had more? From my experience it seems people without much money do just as good of a job at making money into an idol as do the people with gobs of money. It’s an idol that we trust and hope in, thinking that if we have enough of it then we’ll be okay.

So one way to deal with this idol is to do what Jesus says, and to give it away! In a sense this is one reason to give money to church and to other worthy endeavors, it teaches you to love your money less and trust God more. Christians really aren’t required to give 10% to church, like the Jews were in the Old Testament. Christians are free in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to give as they are able. So this might mean Christians give more than 10%. But if we’re going to go with the idea of giving in order to teach us to love our money less, then it would be good to give so that it hurts a little bit. Not that your family is neglected because you give, but you give so that you can feel it and teach your heart to trust in the Lord instead of the money. In this way, your offering is properly understood as a form of worshiping God.

Because the Lord is worthy of our worship! He is the God who loves us and keeps us. Like the rich young man, we should be willing to appear foolish for Him, we should gladly kneel down before Him (that’s what the kneelers are for), we should clearly confess that He is God and He is good. Because He does give a heavenly treasure of far more lasting value. All of these worldly treasures we have don’t even compare to the heavenly treasures awaiting us in Christ.

If we think it’s a terrible sacrifice to give up some of our worldly goods, then consider all of the sacrifices which Christ has made on our behalf so that we might inherit heavenly goods. He who is King of kings and Lord of lords laid aside His divine powers and became man, born of the lowly virgin Mary, laid into a feeding trough among the filthy animals, lived among the ordinary folk, and died a cursed death with thieves and murderers. To Him belongs all glory and majesty, and yet in humility He set it aside to live and die as us and for us. 

Isn’t it beautiful that He who possesses all treasures both in heaven and on earth gave all of it up, so that in life He had nowhere to lay His head and in death was stripped naked, so that He might give to us who are truly poor the blessed treasures of heaven! So when He calls us to follow Him, He leads us into His poverty and the cross, so that as beggars we might receive eternal treasures from that same cross, which then gives us an eternal inheritance before the throne of heaven. If what I just said sounds too abstract, trust me it’s not, for when you kneel before the altar this morning, you come as a beggar with nothing to offer, and our crucified Lord places upon your tongue His own body and blood, the highest treasure known to man. One drop of His blood and one crumb of His body is worth more than an ocean of diamonds and a mountain of gold, and here He pours out for you.