Desire & Divided Hearts - Mark 10:17-31

preached by Joshua Taylor - 10/10/2021

Since the lockdown I haven’t been back to the gym. Before it I was enjoying a regular rhythm.

And so, with all the ups and downs I thought, I might look for some equipment at home.

I googled a few things to look online for some gear. The next thing I know my Facebook feed is full of ads about spin bikes, kettlebells and all manner of exercise gear.

It remined me of the powerful algorithms employed by social media companies to work out what we want and how to market to us individually.

We live in a world where we are constantly being sold something. Whole advertising campaigns are curated just for us, and our attention is consistently pulled in various directions.

Where once we may have driven past a billboard or walked past a poster on a local noticeboard, now the advertising industry has access to all of us all of the time through the devices many of us have in our pockets, our desks and our lounges.

The industry is huge.

And it’s not just about selling stuff, it is about cultivating desire in us to buy things that we don’t necessarily need.

Advertising doesn’t appeal to our rationality; it appeals to our desires.

And its desire which so often drives us – as one prominent Christian philosopher, James K. A. Smith puts it: “We are desiring creatures.”[1]

And today’s reading from the gospel speaks to us all about desire.

The rich young man comes to Jesus desiring to inherit eternal life, to enter the kingdom of God, and it turns out that in the mix are other conflicting desires which ultimately mix him up and turn him away.

So, let’s look together at this powerful and confronting story afresh and see how Jesus might challenge us in fresh ways today.

v17 – We meet the rich young man who comes to Jesus on the road and kneels before him asking what he can do to inherit eternal life.

Firstly, notice that the man isn’t given a name. Jesus will teach his disciples from this interaction with the man, and the anonymity of the man in some ways points to the fact that he could represent any one of us who are searching for God, for meaning, for fulfilment and eternal life.

The question about eternal life has a context.

There was an expectation in Jewish thinking of Jesus’ day that there was a new age coming. As Tom Wright puts it:

“Something would happen, they believed, which would make everything different. A great event would occur which would bring justice and peace, freedom for Israel, punishment for evildoers (whether Jews or Gentiles), a time of prosperity when all the prophecies would be fulfilled, all the righteous dead would be raised to new life, all the world would burst out into a new and endless spring.”[2]

And so, this man comes before Jesus and asks – how can I be part of this? How can I enter in to what God is doing? How can I be part of God’s rescue mission to redeem and heal this broken world?

This question is articulated elsewhere in the Bible as the question “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16)

v18 – 20 Jesus directs the man to the commandments

Jesus’ response to this man is to remind him of the commandments. He lists off some of the commandments to the man who proudly answers “All these I have kept from my youth.”

Notice that conspicuously missing from the commandments mentioned are the commandments to put God first and have no idols before Him. (We will come back to this point).

v21 Jesus looks at the man and loved him. (46)

What happens next is a beautiful detail in the story. We read that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. He has a tender heart for him and a deep compassion.

This look is important for us to notice.

Jesus doesn’t heap condemnation on this man.

He sees his search for the truth and it draws out Jesus’ compassion.

This is the same Jesus who will weep over Jerusalem when he sees the state that it is in. This Is the same Jesus who throughout the stories of the gospels consistently reaches out to the broken, the sick, and the sinner as the good doctor with a healing touch.

J C Ryle used a nice image to paint a picture of this scene when he said: “Just as we look with sorrow at some noble ruin, roofless and shattered, and unfit for man’s use, yet showing many a mark of the skill with which it was designed and reared at first, so we may suppose that Jesus looked with tender concern at this man’s soul.”

As 2 Peter 3:9 puts it: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

In his love for this man, Jesus draws the man’s eye toward where he will find true life and flourishing. There is “one thing he lacks.”

Jesus can see that this man’s ultimate concern and hope is placed in his wealth and instructs him, saying: “go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Jesus appeals to the man’s desire. “Come, follow me” he says.

Again, the philosopher James K. A. Smith puts it well saying:

“What do you want? That’s the question. It is the first, last, and most fundamental question of Christian discipleship….Will you come and follow me? Is anther version of, “What do you Want?”[3]

Jesus gives the invitation to the man.

He puts the ball in his court, and we read in verse 22 that he went away disheartened. The man is torn in two. His heart is divided.

A rare verb in the Greek is used to describe the man’s face as clouded – a mixture of anger and displeasure. This word elsewhere refers to an overcast sky.[4]

Here we see the absolute visceral power that idols have over our hearts. We are worshipping creatures, and if it isn’t God our creator that we worship, we can find plenty of things in God’s good creation to take His place.

St Augustine speaking about how idolatry works said:

“Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in Him.”[5]

This man faces a choice, and he is free to walk away from Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t run down the road after him softening the challenge. He knows that the change must come through repentance, through a change of heart.

And so, Jesus turns to his disciples and uses this interaction with the rich young man as a teachable moment to speak generally about wealth and affluence and its lure on our hearts.

In verses 23-24 Jesus points out how difficult it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.

The disciple are shocked!

Perhaps appalled like the rich young man itself.

This is a real challenge for us and for them.

Where it is a shock for Jesus’ disciples is perhaps in the background in common Jewish views about wealth and God’s blessing.

There was a thread running through Jewish belief that wealth and blessing was a sign of God’s pleasure. This is built on stories of God blessing righteous people. And so, there was an assumption certainly in many schools of thought that wealth = God’s blessing.

However, amongst this belief there is also a strong counter-narrative, particularly in the psalms and wisdom literature.

One instance that struck me recently is Psalm 49 which says:

5  Why should I fear in times of trouble,

when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,

6  those who trust in their wealth

and boast of the abundance of their riches?

7  Truly no man can ransom another,

or give to God the price of his life,

8  for the ransom of their life is costly

and can never suffice,

9  that he should live on forever

and never see the pit.

10  For he sees that even the wise die;

the fool and the stupid alike must perish

and leave their wealth to others.

11  Their graves are their homes forever,

their dwelling places to all generations,

though they called lands by their own names.

12  Man in his pomp will not remain;

he is like the beasts that perish…

…16  Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,

when the glory of his house increases.

17  For when he dies he will carry nothing away;

his glory will not go down after him.

18  For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed

—and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—

19  his soul will go to the generation of his fathers,

who will never again see light.

20  Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.”

This is just one powerful example of a pushback against simplistic thinking that riches equals God’s favour. Jesus, drawing on this wisdom tradition makes the claim that wealth can actually be a stumbling block.

He uses a funny example to make his point.

Jesus says that the rich person entering the kingdom of God is like a camel going through the eye of the needle

This saying is meant to be funny – it’s cartoonish, ridiculous and grabs our attention. Commentators can explain all they like but it needs nothing more than its shock factor!

The point is this – affluence can be a barrier. Why? Because it can be an idol we serve, an ultimate goal to which we attain, in place of love of God and neighbour.

The ultimate contrast actually comes in the form of the story before today’s reading, in the earlier section on Mark 10 in which Jesus challenges his disciples to receive the kingdom of heaven like little children. Notice again, the language is about receiving and entering the kingdom.

How is this done?

By approaching it like a child receiving a gift.

And if anyone knows how to receive gifts, its children right?

Open hands, open hearts, what we are reminded of by this picture is the fundamental nature of the world as gift.

Our existence, our very being is not of our own doing but rather it is all given to us.

All the way down to its very essence, this entire creation is gift.

Jesus tips the world of meritocracy, ladder climbing, and accumulation of wealth on its head.

And his disciples exclaim – What! Impossible! How can anyone be saved?

v26-27 – What! Impossible! Only possible with God. (24)

Jesus says – with man impossible, with God, all things are possible.

God’s gracious activity is at the heart of this whole story. Jesus looks with love upon the man who comes seeking eternal life, and he offers it freely. God makes it possible through Jesus that we can enter the kingdom, and we are called to respond.

Peter pipes up in response to Jesus.

He points out everything that disciples have given up to follow Jesus and Jesus reminds them of the rewards of the kingdom.

They will receive treasure in heaven. Treasure that no moth or rust will destroy.[6]

Jesus then finishes with one of his most famous sayings: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Again – Jesus turns upside down their and our expectations about those who are “winning at life.” Where we might be tempted to point at the rich and famous Jesus calls us to look rather at those who fully and quietly put their trust in God and seek first the kingdom.

And as the first hearers of Mark’s gospel heard this story they would be deeply encouraged.

Many of them would have been poor. In fact most of the early Christian community Mark wrote to would find themselves in this category – especially in contrast to today’s standards of living in the West.

Whereas when we read this passage – for many of us, we are likely to find ourselves deeply challenged. Perhaps even sympathizing with the rich man who wanted to keep hold of his things.

This passage is about what we love most.

And it is about not letting affluence and wealth get in the way of our following Jesus and entering the kingdom.

Coming back to the theme of advertising, writing in the 1970’s, in his book “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity”, Ronald Sider said:

“We need to make some dramatic, concrete moves to escape the materialism that seeps into our minds via diabolically clever and incessant advertising. We have been brainwashed to believe that bigger houses, more prosperous businesses, and more sophisticated gadgets are the way to joy and fulfillment. As a result, we are caught in an absurd, materialistic spiral. The more we make, the more we think we need in order to live decently and respectably. Somehow we have to break this cycle because it makes us sin against our needy brothers and sisters and, therefore, against our Lord. And it also destroys us. Sharing with others is the way to real joy.”

Sider muses about what is really fulfilling.

We truly forget this in the day to day grind, and sometimes it takes extreme circumstances to point us to the truth of the matter.

I remember shortly after the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch over a decade ago, going around with a crew of people to help clean up and fix houses. Despite the massive amount of damage, toppled chimneys and houses full of mud – everyone made some kind of variation of a comment along these lines: “It doesn’t really matter, it’s just stuff. What matters it that I am alive and the people I love are alive. It could have been a lot worse.”

It’s a shame that it takes such events to remind us of what truly matters.

Reading today’s gospel can shake us up and give us eyes to see.

To come back once more to James Smith, he says:

“Discipleship is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.”[7]

Let us hear the call to be attentive about what we love, for that was the challenge to the rich young man, and the challenge today to us. Amen.

[1] James K. A. Smith, “You are What You Love: the Spiritual Power of Habit.”

[2] Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone.

[3] James K. A. Smith, “You are What You Love: the Spiritual Power of Habit.”

[4] R T France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text.

[5] St Augustine, Confessions.

[6] Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount refers to this.

[7] James K. A. Smith, You are What you Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016), Kindle edition, Location 101.