by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Gospel Reading: Mark 10:17-31
For Sunday, October 14, 2012 Year B—Ordinary 28
What must I do to inherit eternal life? asks the rich man.
This text always makes me roll my eyes a little bit. Because isn’t that just like a spoiled rich kid to think that he’s entitled to an awesome inheritance? In this case, eternal life.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life,” he asks. Which is a little weird since in family, anyway, the big thing you have to do regarding inheritance is to basically try to still be alive when the other guy dies.
Anything Else?
The rich young ruler says: I’ve already done the keeping of the commandments thing. But what ELSE should I do?
This guy is sheltered in his oasis of his entitlement and comfort and confidence in his ability to obey commandments when he comes and says to Jesus: If you could just give me a personal salvation management program, that’d be awesome. Lay a little life coaching on me and I’ll take it from there.
So Jesus looks at him, loves him and then totally freaks him out. Ok, sell what you have and give it to the poor. Shocking.
So There!
This is a cherished verse among progressive Christians. We love to throw it in the face of wealthy conservative Christians who claim to be living morally superior “Biblical” lives—meaning that they follow the rules God gave us in the Bible.
Except this one.
Selling what you have and giving it to the poor is a Biblical guideline that is easy to hold up to the wealthy with whom we disagree and say see? What about THIS verse, huh?
All of the sudden we become biblical literalists. But only for Mitt Romney? Only for the millionaires? When in fact—we are the rich. Point blank. We are. Any American above the poverty line (a line higher than what most of the world would consider rich) are the rich.
How Hard It Is.
How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God says Jesus. How hard it is for we who are self-reliant and smug to accept how utterly dependent we are on God. How hard it is for those of us who don’t actually need God to see God. How hard it is for us for who comfort—material, financial and physical—insulates us from the kind daily bread detachment that flows from genuine faith in our Creator.
So, who can enter the Kingdom on their own? Who among us has done the hard things necessary to inherit eternal life?
The Hardest Question
If we try to read the discipleship texts from Mark as a personal salvation manual, for us or for others—whether in a conservative-personal-morality sense or a progressive-social-justice sense—then we imagine that we ourselves must cut off our hands and feet, gouge out our own eyes, give away all our possessions and shrink our camel-sized selves down to needle eye size.
But here’s the question: If these things are impossible for us yet possible for God, why should any of us bother trying at all?
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. Nobody really believes she’s an ordained pastor in the ELCA. Maybe it’s the sleeve tattoos or the fact that she swears like a truck driver. Either way…she’s fine with it. Nadia lives in Denver with her family of four. She is the author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television (Seabury, 2008) and blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber . Connect with Nadia’s latest project, animate | FAITH, by going to http://www.facebook.com/AnimateSeries
