The Look of Love

THE LOOK OF LOVE

Mark 10:17-31

October 4, 2009 – Rev. Jerry Duggins

Preachers and scholars have been trying to make it more palatable to believers for a long time. We are told for instance that we should not take this text too literally. We are reassured that Jesus is not telling all of us to sell what we have and give it to the poor. The wealth isn’t the problem; it’s the attachment to wealth. So… a lot of Christians tell themselves and others: “Money isn’t that important to me.” Of course, if wealth is only a metaphor, then why are we talking about money? Shouldn’t we be focused on our particular attachment? Is it any easier for a person attached to pride, career or country to “enter the kingdom of heaven?” Should we feel more confident in faith because “money” isn’t important to us? Aren’t we just avoiding what the text may be saying to us with this kind of rationale?

Since most of us aren’t really wealthy, we probably would be much better off to be more literal with the text. Then we could just ignore it altogether. Unless… of course you listen to those who remind us how wealthy we Americans are next to the rest of the world. We are not standing around waiting for the relief trucks to arrive with our meal for the day. We eat until we’re full. We have a place to go to get out of the rain. We have more than the clothes on our back. We go to the movies or the symphony. We take vacations. We travel. Of course, it’s not our fault that we were born in this country. And, in any case, these things aren’t really important to us either. Like money, they’re just things.

However you may read this text, I know that I have a problem. You see, I like money and the things it can do for me. I wish I had more money. There are improvements I’d like to make to the house, things I’d like to add to the yard. I have a long list of places I’d like to visit, restaurants I’d like to sample, concerts I’d like to see, and a sand wedge for my golf bag would be nice too. Beyond that I have other attachments which I won’t go into that may present a problem for my entry into heaven.

I may not have been as good as this wealthy man in our story today, but I’ve tried to be a positive force in society. Loving my neighbor and God have been priorities for me for a long time now. But apparently there’s something else required for living in God’s kingdom.

For the rich man, his wealth or his attachment to wealth stood in the way. It doesn’t matter which way you read it as one commentator reminds us: we form attachments to the things we possess. The disciples get the point right away. “Who, then, can be saved?” they ask.

When Jesus tells the rich man that he lacks one thing, he places a task before him that will utterly transform who he is. If he accepts Jesus’ challenge, he will go from being a rich man, one whom the faith community would see as blessed by God, to being himself impoverished. Jesus places before the rich man, his own cross. The rich man becomes in Mark’s gospel an illustration of how the fear of death keeps one outside the gates of heaven. Hear in his challenge the call to take up the cross.

Let me repeat what this means for us. You will some day be asked to make a great sacrifice. Someone you love will need something from you that you are very reluctant to give up. You may have to swallow your pride, give of your time, or let go of some money.

The cross stands at the center of Mark’s gospel; not just the cross of Christ, but our own crosses. Mark calls his readers forth to die. There is no other way to live in the kingdom. Mark uses the story of the rich man as a reminder that he is not just being literal about this. His attack is directed more at the fear of death than at death itself. The truth is that we are afraid to become the people God calls us to be even though we (and the world) will be better for it. Why? Because it means sacrifice.

The gospel in Mark invites us to face our fear of death, our fear of change, our fear of becoming something other than the person we are. If you don’t like this version of the gospel, you will need to cut out the entire book of Mark. With the other gospels, you may get away with just blotting a few verses. They tend to look on the more positive aspect of things, but then they aren’t faced with the crisis of Mark’s readers. The times are still dangerous but not as dangerous. For Mark though, it’s the sort of time when people ask the question: “Who, then, can be saved?”

Before I talk about Jesus’ answer to this question, I want to make two observations about Jesus’ actions, for the second of which I am indebted to Nancy Husk.

First, Jesus does some “looking” in our text. This may not seem like such a big deal but Jesus doesn’t do a lot of looking before speaking. In fact two of the three mentions of looking here are left out in Matthew’s and Luke’s version of this story. So when Mark tells us that Jesus looked, we better pay closer attention, because something unexpected is coming.

The episode begins tamely enough. A man approaches Jesus with a question about inheriting eternal life, a phrase that occurs only in this story for Mark. Jesus, after a little snippiness gives a routine answer, “You know the commandments….” When the man replies that he’s kept these since his youth, Jesus, as though for the first time, looks at him. Remember, in this gospel, Jesus is in a hurry. But in the midst of his frantic pace, he pauses, and looks at this man. Is he evaluating the man’s claim? Is he stumped for an answer and stalling for time? In any case, we’re on notice that we have stepped out of the routine, and Jesus is fully engaged with the man. And that’s when he says, “You lack one thing….”

It’s personal, direct and costly. If he follows Jesus’ counsel, then he’s invited to join his group of disciples. It’s a specific invitation for the rich man to “take up his cross.” We are right to be cautious about translating this particular advice to our own lives. First, we must consider, “What does Jesus see, when he looks at us?” After his words to the rich man, do we even want Jesus to notice us?

Perhaps we can escape his notice, but the disciples do not. When the rich man leaves, Jesus looks around a second time. This time he engages the disciples. Does he see people who have left everything to follow him or people still attached to old ideas about wealth being evidence for God’s blessing? It’s not clear, but his words suggest that this incident should be an example to them, that there is something for them to learn. Whatever it is that they get, they are left wondering, “Who, then, can be saved?”

For the third time, Jesus looks, not around this time but “at” them; the same way he looked “at” the rich man. He goes a little deeper this time and basically tells them that they don’t have it in themselves to do it. Like the rich man, whatever Jesus tells them, they, too will have to go away in shock and grief. “For mortals it is impossible.”

No matter how much we talk about wanting to change, the reality is that no one chooses to die for the sake of another. We don’t easily let go of our attachments. We could never take up the cross by our own strength. But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus goes on to say, “… for God all things are possible.”

You will some day be asked to make a great sacrifice. Someone you love will need something from you that you are very reluctant to give up. You may have to swallow your pride, give of your time, or let go of some money. Your future will depend on taking up the task. It will not seem like it, but it will be a great opportunity, the opportunity to begin living in the kingdom of God. You will not be up to it. But “for God all things are possible.”

This brings me to the second observation, which Nancy made one evening at the Wednesday evening prayer meeting. The first time Jesus really looked at the rich man, Mark makes the observation that Jesus loved him. Surprisingly, the gospels don’t say this about Jesus very often. John tells us that Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus and in his farewell address Jesus charges the disciples to love one another as he “has loved them.” Beyond that there is reference to the “disciple whom Jesus loved”, again, in John’s gospel. But this is the only reference to Jesus loving someone in the Synoptics. Even Matthew’s and Luke’s version of this same story delete the reference to love.

What an odd comment for someone Jesus just met! “Jesus looking at him, loved him….” I don’t know what Mark was after in this comment, what point he intended to make, but I think it’s this “look of love” that makes things possible. Maybe the rich man missed it and that’s why he went away sad. Or maybe he saw it and went away sad because he was going to do just what Jesus was telling him to do. Or maybe he thought about it later, remembered the look, did what Jesus asked and became that “disciple whom Jesus loved.” It’s all speculation, but I do know that it’s love that changes us, love that instills the courage to make sacrifices, love that releases us from those unhealthy attachments. We are made for each other and love is the bond that enables us to live for each other. We will never take up our cross, unless we perceive and receive the “look of love.” As stingy as the gospels may be with it, I know that God is not and that is why so many impossible things happen every day.

We’ll be hearing from our Peace Prize winner in a few minutes and I don’t know what specific experiences have motivated her to do what she does for young people, but there’s love in that experience somewhere. People don’t make sacrifices without knowing love first.

The sacrament which we’ll share has Jesus’ look of love all over it. Christians around the world today will forget their differences and recall this love poured out for all. Christians in Palestine and Israel, in North and South Korea, in Cuba and here in the US.

You will have trouble seeing it as a great opportunity, but it is just that. How often do we have the opportunity to live in God’s kingdom? This is serious stuff. Don’t miss the look of love. It can make all the difference, bringing the impossible into your vocabulary, and promising riches unimaginable; not money, prestige or fame perhaps, but the kind of wealth that breathes new life into the world, into God’s world. Amen.