‘What Must I do to Inherit Eternal Life?’ - Sermon by Rev. Dr. Elise Feyerherm, Oct. 13th, 2024
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
The Jesuit scholars John Donahue and Daniel Harrington wrote about our gospel passage today that it is “the longest sustained treatment of any ethical issue in the gospel.” That means that in the gospel of Mark, Jesus spends the most time talking not about abortion, or sexuality, but about money, and the place of money in the life of a disciple. If we look at the other gospels, we’ll find that the same thing is true. Jesus is far more preoccupied with wealth and its impact on our spiritual and ethical lives than just about anything else. That alone should make us sit up and pay special attention.
Our relationship with wealth, whether in terms of money or possessions, is one of the most fraught relationships humans have. It is fraught in so many ways – because it is the means by which we ensure our literal survival, having to buy food and shelter and clothing and medical care; and fraught also because it becomes the way in which we measure our status and worth relative to the people around us. Will we be okay? Will our children be okay? Do we have value in the eyes of our society? In the past, people have even seen wealth as a measure of their value in the eyes of God; material success was seen as proof of God’s favor, and poverty a sign of God’s condemnation.
So there is a lot tied up in this idea of material wealth – throughout human history, and especially now in a capitalist economy, we have staked our entire identity and worth on it. Our security and our status are built on acquiring and accumulating money and possessions. Which is why Jesus’s response to the rich man is so striking. Notice that Jesus says first that the man lacks one thing, but that the answer to this deficiency is not to acquire anything; rather it is to give away everything. The answer to emptiness is more emptiness. That in and of itself is really interesting, and important.
Recently a student of mine at Boston University reflected on the difference between what he called “gifts of fortune” and “gifts of grace.” Gifts of fortune are those things we have that can be taken away at any moment: money, possessions, jobs, status, physical health, mental ability, etc. These are things in our lives that can be stolen or destroyed – by thieves, hurricanes, stock market crashes, illness, and other misfortune. Even the people closest to us are in a sense gifts of fortune – those we love move away, fall sick, and die. It is not in our power to hold on to them. Gifts of grace are gifts that cannot be taken away – compassion, love, vocation, joy, given to us by Christ. These gifts are ours by the grace and love of God.
My student was reflecting that our relationships to gifts of fortune and gifts of grace are different, or at least they need to be. Gifts of fortune have to be held lightly; we have to be ready to let go of them at any moment. They are not central to who we are in God, but gifts of grace are. To attach ourselves to gifts of fortune is to make them into gods, when only God is worthy of our devotion and praise.
The man who came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to inherit eternal life went away shocked and grieving because he was not willing to let go of his wealth, his gifts of fortune. He chose things that could at any moment be ripped away from him instead of the God who by grace would never abandon him. Jesus was asking him to join the movement, to be ready to pivot and do whatever was needed to spread the good news. Jesus knew that great wealth, and all the responsibilities and cares that came with it, would prevent him from giving God his full allegiance, and being present to all who needed him. The man’s attachment to gifts of fortune kept him from embracing Jesus’ gifts of grace.
We think of material security as what gives us freedom. Freedom to choose where we live, what we eat and wear, how we spend our free time, even freedom to give gifts to others. But this kind of freedom is a gift of fortune; it is pleasurable, most of the time, but at any moment it can diminish or disappear. Once we experience this kind of material freedom, it is easy to become dependent on it for our happiness, and when it is threatened or lost, we are terrified. Beyond the level of having enough to survive, these gifts of fortune do not bestow freedom at all; on the contrary, we find ourselves imprisoned by them.
It is said that in some places, people catch monkeys by hollowing out a gourd, with a hole at the top just big enough for the monkey’s hand. They put a nut or piece of fruit inside; when the monkey reaches in and grabs it, its fist is too big to withdraw without letting go of the food. And so the monkey is trapped. Is this us? Is our refusal to let go of gifts of fortune keeping us, like this rich man before Jesus, from knowing the freedom of the kingdom of God?
I identify with this man. The hold his possessions had on him was a prison he could not escape, a weight he could not bring himself to release. I know what that is like. Although by some standards I am not a wealthy person, what I do have has a hold on me. My household goods, my clothes, my books, the pictures on my walls, many of them have emotional and even spiritual value – they remind me of people I love, places I have been, experiences that enriched me. In my mind, these things represent my identity. In response to the command to let all of them go, I think I too would be shocked and go away grieving. My fist, tightly wrapped around what I think is important, is trapped inside the gourd. What I think is freedom is actually captivity.
If all that I possessed disappeared today, none of the gifts of grace to which they are linked would disappear with them. People go away, or die, but the love remains. Pictures and souvenirs may be washed away by a flood or destroyed in a fire, but the joy cannot be taken away. Ultimately, none of this, compared to God’s good news of love, matters.
Jesus offers this man a different kind of freedom, the freedom that comes from giving one’s life not to gifts of fortune but to gifts of grace. The freedom that Jesus offers is rooted in gifts that cannot be taken away from us: love, joy, and hope, received in surrendering our lives to God who is the source of all blessings. When we are not bound by the things we possess or the fear of losing them, we are truly free.
What might be possible if we devoted our lives to asking God, what do I have to give away in order to be truly free to be a disciple? What if we asked God what we needed to let go of, or at least not grip so tightly? What freedom might we discover in releasing the thing, and choosing Jesus not with closed fists but empty hands? To this question I hear Jesus answer, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” All things are possible, for one simple reason – whether our hands are clenched tight or open wide, Jesus looks at us with love, just as he did with the rich man who went away grieving. That love is without condition, without requirement. And it makes all things possible. This is surely good news.