Mark 10:17-27 - What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life? - October 10, 2021

The individual we meet in these verses appeared to be in possession of the three secret ingredients necessary for human happiness. Mark tells us that he was wealthy (10:22). Luke tells us that he was powerful, a ruler (Luke 18:18). Matthew tells us that he was young (Matthew 19:20). To be young, rich and powerful – that’s what the world tells us will make us happy. His wealth and powerful position were likely inherited. In Jesus’ day, you didn’t ordinarily acquire wealth and power at a young age unless you inherited it. That’s why while his question might sound strange to us, it makes sense, given his circumstances: Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? It’s a good question. Actually, it’s more than that; it’s THE most important question anyone can ask.

There is something curious though: if this man already possessed everything necessary for human happiness, why was he here on his knees before Jesus? Well, why – as inhabitants of the wealthiest nation in human history – are so many Americans so terribly unhappy and depressed? Why do the wealthiest and most powerful people in our world – the Elon Musk’s, the Jeff Bezos’, the Richard Branson’s – spend billions of dollars rocketing off to space? He’s there because he still felt an emptiness, a hollowness, a lack of something that his money couldn’t buy and power couldn’t grab. Do you know what it was? An answer to his own mortality; an assurance that this life is not all there is. It’s no accident that what nagged at this young man’s heart nags at the heart of every human being. Ecclesiastes tells us that [God] has…put eternity in [our] hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We can try to deny it or ignore it, but we all sense that there’s something more, something bigger than us, something beyond our five senses.

There are a couple positive things that should be said about this rich young ruler. He’s not like the Pharisees and the experts in the Law who spent all of their time concocting ridiculous hypotheticals (Matthew 22:23-33) and trick questions to trap Jesus (Mark 10:2). He’s sincere. And he’s not messing around with foolish questions. He gets right to the heart of the human condition with the most important question that can ever be asked: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Now, he has an idea of what it might involve: what must I do… Doing something – that’s how you get eternal life. You also see this in how he addresses Jesus: Good teacher. He recognizes that Jesus is a wise teacher who might be able to tell him what good thing he can do to guarantee that he will get eternal life. But Jesus will have none of his flattery. Why do you call me good? No one is good except one – God. Why would Jesus respond this way? Two reasons. First, because, according to Scripture, no one is good. Everyone is conceived and born in sin (Psalm 51:5). Paul states it categorically: there is no one who does what is good; there is not even one (Romans 3:12). And second, because while this rich young ruler may have recognized that Jesus was a good teacher, he didn’t yet acknowledge him as his God and Savior. Only God is inherently good. To call Jesus “good,” you must first call him God.

But let’s take a closer look at his question: what must I do to inherit eternal life? How do you inherit something? Is there something you must do? I suppose you could try. Maybe you butter up a wealthy relative to ensure that your name finds its way into their will. But really inheriting something involves two things: 1) someone to freely decide to give you their stuff; and 2) that someone to die. That’s probably how this man became so rich and powerful at such a young age: someone, presumably his father, died and left him a fortune and a position of power. But this man wants to know what [he] must do. Questions shape answers. This is a law question – and so Jesus gives him a law answer. He tells this rich young ruler exactly what he must do: you shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother. There’s plenty to do there! Enough to keep you busy for a lifetime.

Though, apparently not enough for this guy: Teacher, I have kept all these since I was a child. This guy is like far too many people – even far too many Christians – today: he was sincere but inexcusably ignorant. Clearly he had never studied Luther’s Small Catechism. He seems not to have been there to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). If he had, he’d know that murder, adultery, theft, false testimony, fraud and insubordination live in every heart. You and I are guilty of these sins, even if we’ve never been charged with them in a criminal court. Neglecting a neighbor in need, racism, prejudice and hatred are murder. Merely thinking about adultery is adultery in God’s eyes (Matthew 5:28). False testimony is not only offered in a courtroom, it’s served up at the dinner table and spread on social media. Fraud includes “forgetting” to scan an item at the self-checkout or filing a shady tax return. As much as we may disagree, honoring father and mother includes public health officials.

Jesus’ response is fascinating, isn’t it? He doesn’t argue with him; he doesn’t give an encore of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus looked at him [and] loved him. This is what love looks like. And, for someone who is blind to their sin and speeding down the highway to hell, this is what love sounds like: one thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Jesus goes right to the heart of this rich young ruler that he loves. He sees his heart the way only God can (John 2:25), he sees a heart consumed by greed, enslaved by the idol called “Money.” He sees someone who has failed to keep the 1st and most important commandment: you shall have no other gods (Exodus 20:3).

Martin Luther summarized the essence of the First Commandment like this: we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. An idol is anything and everything we fear, love or trust more than God. The scary thing is that an idol doesn’t have to be a statue or live in a temple; most idols are invisible, they live in our hearts. Probably the most prevalent idol in our society is the idol of “Happiness.” Ask almost anyone what they want most today for themselves and their families and there’s a good chance you’ll hear: “I just want to be happy.” Are there any idols lurking in your heart? A good test for idols is to assess what makes you anxious, worried – what keeps you up at night. It’s been said that anxiety is the liturgy, the service, the sacrifice we offer to idols when they (inevitably) fail to deliver on their promises. We fear the loss of our health, we love our riches, we trust our power to control not only our lives but the lives of others as well. And when they fail, we worry, we get anxious. And yet, in the backlash that always results from idolatry, the blame ends up falling on us instead of the idols. We fear death and so we worship the idols that promise life and health – whether that involves wearing a mask, getting a shot or running dozens of miles each week and meticulously watching what we eat. But no matter how devoted we are – our bodies always end up breaking down, we end up getting sick and eventually dying. And who’s to blame: you are! You didn’t serve your idol with the right procedure, the right diet, enough exercise, etc. We love Money because money seems to be able to make life easier and happier. But then we realize that the more stuff we have the more problems come with it or that we never have enough money. And whose fault is it? Money doesn’t take the blame. It’s you. You didn’t buy the right thing, save enough, invest in the right way. One of the most prevalent idols in our world is named Power. We strive for power and when we have it we think we can control our lives and the lives of those around us. But then we try it. Especially as parents and grandparents, we try to use our power to convince our families to do the right thing; for example, making worship a priority. But they ignore our pleas. They stubbornly despise the means of grace. And Power says that the problem is that you weren’t persuasive, passionate or convincing enough. It leaves us anxious and empty. It exposes the idol living in our hearts. That’s the Law. The Law doesn’t take prisoners. The Law – especially as it is expressed in the 1st Commandment – only and always kills.

Jesus loved this rich young ruler. He wanted to give him the one thing he lacked. What he lacked was not poverty or sincerity. What he lacked was an understanding that he couldn’t earn eternal life; that he needed a Savior. And what got in his way was his wealth. And so Jesus gives him a law solution: give it all away. Give it away to the poor who need it far more than you do. Tear your heart away from the riches of this world – which will eventually rust and rot anyway – and place it on the riches of heaven which will never decay (Matthew 6:19-20). Would that have worked? If he had given everything away would he have earned a ticket to heaven? No. You could easily empty your bank account, quit your job, leave your family and society behind and go to live as a hermit somewhere – and still wind up in hell. Because while the Law can – and does – kill, it cannot give eternal life (Galatians 3:21).

Did you catch the real answer? It’s easy to miss. It’s just two words: follow me. The young man missed it. All he heard was Jesus’ command to sell all his stuff and give it to the poor – another commandment, more law – this time, law he hadn’t and couldn’t keep. But because his heart was still captive to money, he missed the answer. Mark tells us that the young man went away sad. Did he hear and believe? Did he go home and do what Jesus said? Did he look at all his stuff and say, “This isn’t worth it” and give it all away? Did he eventually repent and come back to Jesus to receive the inheritance of eternal life? There’s some speculation that this rich young ruler was actually Mark, the author of this Gospel. It’s an interesting thought, but the fact is that we just don’t know the rest of this man’s story. And that’s a good thing, because it forces us to examine our own hearts; to ask “what would I do?”

To be clear, the point of this text is not that money is evil or that rich people can’t be saved. The point is that no one, not even rich, young, powerful people – can earn eternal life. That’s what had the disciples so worried. That’s the point of Jesus’ image of trying to push a camel through the eye of a needle: it’s not merely hard; it’s impossible. What that young man hopefully realized what that it wasn’t really his wealth but his determination to earn his way into heaven that was preventing him from getting there. The real good news is that while we can’t earn eternal life – Jesus can and Jesus did. Jesus calls to us, just as he did to that young man, to follow him to the cross, to the tomb, to his resurrection to receive the gift of eternal life he has earned for us. He issued that invitation first to us in his Baptism and he does it daily through his Word. And remember that to follow Jesus does not mean to keep his rules, to follow his example, to ask what would Jesus do – and then do it. To follow Jesus means to trust that he has kept all the rules for you, that he has satisfied his Father’s demand for a perfectly good life, that he has suffered the punishment for your idolatry and greed so that you never will, that he died so that you might have eternal life.

In the end, this rich young ruler was so close to eternal life. He was right: eternal life is an inheritance. Someone else has to freely decide to give you their stuff and then that same someone has to die. And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He wrote you into his will before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-6). He sealed you as his heir in Baptism (Romans 6:1-5). He gives you a down-payment on your heavenly inheritance every time you eat his body and drink his blood in Holy Communion (Matthew 26:17-29). In his Word he gives promises that are infinitely better than anything any idol can promise – and the best part is that you do have to do anything to receive them. Don’t ask what you can or must do to earn eternal life, instead follow Jesus to heaven by grace through faith. And if there’s anything, any idol, anything at all that gets in between you and Jesus – well, then it just has to go. Compared to the riches of heaven Jesus has promised to you no idol is worth serving for even a minute. Don’t take my word for it, just ask that sad young man – or better yet, ask Jesus and then follow him to life. Amen.