A sermon on Matthew 19:16-22.
Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
It would be so much easier, this life of faith, this walk of Christian discipleship, if it were only—or even primarily—about following rules.
On some level, I think we instinctively know that, because too often, in too many cases, the church tries to convince us that if you just act a certain way, or do certain things, all will be well, and you can call yourself good. And we do so love to call ourselves good.
Just like the rich man, we are constantly seeking to justify ourselves before God, before others, and certainly before ourselves. We work very hard to convince the world that we are good people, doing good things. And we boil our Christian faith down to these good actions.
But, as this text makes clear, a life of discipleship is not so much about what is written down on paper, but what God has written on our hearts. God is not content to have just our actions, just our external ways of being in the world. God wants it all, and so God will have our heart. Because God knows the truth that we try to hide from ourselves: whatever we hold most dear, is what we value, what we worship. As Martin Luther says in his explication of the first commandment, “Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.” And in this space, God will abide no competition.
This parable is sometimes called the parable of the rich young ruler, and that is because his wealth is his defining characteristic: wealth is what he values, wealth is his orientation on life. So of course, following the commandments are no challenge to him because they do not ask him to make a choice whereby he would have to displace his core identity as “rich” with “follower of Jesus.” Like most of us, he would like to be a disciple, as long as it doesn’t cost too much, as long as Jesus doesn’t ask for too much. The point of this parable, then, has less to do with wealth and more to do with “treasure,” with idolatry, actually—whatever that looks like for me and you.
Let’s be clear: money is important in this parable, it is just not the main point. Yes, the love of money is a great sin, and it is a cause for much suffering and injustice in the world. Love of money and the power, privilege, and prestige that the world accords to those with money, definitely can be an obstacle to a faithful life of discipleship. But this is not because of the money itself, but the misplaced love, and the ultimate allegiance to something other than Jesus Christ.
And this has ramifications for all of us—even those of us who have chosen a profession that will never make us rich, at least by US standards.
The fact is, we are all guilty of the tendency to displace love and misalign worship. The human capacity to make idols out of even the best impulses, relationships, or objects is breathtaking.
This parable, then, invites each one of us into prayerful self-reflection, asking, as one of my colleagues said in his sermon last Thursday, “What’s on your altar?”
Imagine yourself standing before Jesus like this rich man, eager for Jesus’ approbation, which you are confident he will grant. What might you have stashed—a bit smugly, truth be told—in your back pocket, that you are eager to pull out and share with Jesus: “Look what I have done. Look how good I have been.” I go to church every Sunday. I read every assignment my professors give me, even the ones on the recommended list! I don’t yell at the guy who cuts me off in traffic—at least, usually I don’t. I call my mom most weeks. I listen very patiently to my spouse, even when her stories are a little long and boring. Where do you say, with the rich man, “I have followed every rule. What more do I lack?”
It is clear from the question that the man expects Jesus to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the kingdom.” And he is quite surprised and crestfallen when he learns that in spite of all his careful rule-following, he has missed the mark. In spite of all his work, he has not been able to earn a “good enough” from Jesus.
We Lutherans should not be surprised by that, because we know that missing the mark is kind of what we do. But, we Lutherans should not lose heart, either, because we also know that our missing the mark doesn’t have the last word. Because while there is nothing we can do to make ourselves good enough, there is nothing we must do to make ourselves good enough, either. Let me say that again: there is nothing we can do to make ourselves good enough, and there is nothing we must do to make ourselves good enough. God’s grace and love and mercy and forgiveness already have done that. All rule-following aside, we are good enough, just as we are, because God has declared us so.
The good news in this parable is that Jesus rejects the kind of ledger-keeping that too often dominates our thinking; he rejects it for us and he rejects it for God. God is not a bookkeeper, and so we are not to be bookkeepers, either—not for ourselves, and not for others.
Maybe you have heard this quote from Robert Farrar Capon: “The human race is positively addicted to keeping records and remembering scores. What we call our “life” is, for the most part, simply the juggling of accounts in our heads. And yet, if God has announced anything in Jesus, it is that [God] has pensioned off the bookkeeping department permanently.”
The rich man goes away sad because Jesus has just made clear that his detailed ledger counts for nothing. The one thing Jesus asks for, the one thing that really counts, his heart and his devotion, he is not willing to surrender. And, siblings in Christ, for those who have eyes to see, this is very good news. Christ invites us to throw away the ledger permanently; such record-keeping is exhausting, poisonous, and fruitless anyway. It turns out that for a life of discipleship, love is enough: God’s love, your love, our love. Throw away the calculator, toss the accounts, sweep the altar; simply come, as you are, and follow Jesus.
