Nigel "Incubator" Jones, whose best friend is a tree and in his spare time he's a stock broker. (This is one of the contestants in the Upper Class Twit of the Year Show skit...)
I'm watching Monty Python's Flying Circus as I sprint forward for the last stretch of deadline. I've got to layout all the pages for this next issue, including placing the ads that have come in. I am choosing Deliverance's Weapons of our Warfare and Mortal's Fathom albums as our two "Classic Moments" albums for this issue. I have to pen those and organize the Hard News "bullets."
And now for something completely different.
Ah, and there's even a tie-in between this next passage of Mark and the random headline I chose. In fact, in the new Monty Python Translation of the New Testament, coming out next month in my imagination and available everywhere, it has the heading for this parable listed as "The Upper Class Twit of the Year" (instead of "The Rich Young Ruler").
You see, a rich young man approached Jesus and said, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus replied at first by asking, "Why do you call me good? No one is good -- except God alone." It's as if He is affirming His deity once again. Kind of like saying, "You said it, not Me." I think it's also interesting that this young guy used the word "inherit" instead of "earn" or the simpler "get." Inheritance infers the death of someone and is a gift, most likely from someone greater to someone lesser.
Jesus then goes over some of the basics: "You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"
The young man interjects: "Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy." What it says next is quite curious:
Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Wow, that's an amazing statement. "One thing you lack," He said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
He didn't ask him to give all the proceeds to the poor, but simply to give to the poor. In a practical sense, if he had done what Jesus instructed, he would have had some provision to get by from day to day; and that would have been quite the adventure. He might've even been one of the founding members of the church in Jerusalem later. Instead, of course, we know that "At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!'
The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus said again, 'Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, 'Who then can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."
That's a good thing for us in the West to hear. As you may have heard, the average person in America is ranked in the upper 1% of wealth in the world. The non-Western countries in the world are so poor compared to us that we are in the upper, upper echelons of the world's wealth. So, anyone reading this (it's likely that having internet access equals wealth in that context) cannot look down their nose at this rich young ruler and think, 'What a twit! I'm glad I'm not rich like that.' We are very, very rich here in the West, in comparison to our neighbors around the world. So, while it might seem easy to disconnect or dismiss this parable as not applying to us; we would do well to be wary of the deceitfulness of riches and the "worries of this world."
I have a friend who seems to have built a doctrine on this parable, pointing to it to sort of define his conviction that total obedience to Jesus and His Word is the path to Heaven. While it's hard to argue against obedience to God (for that is the role we as believers are supposed to have towards our God), the doctrines and style of faith that roost on this verse are somehow out of whack with the balance of Scripture. It seems to ignore one of the core lessons of another parable -- that of the Prodigal Son. You know, Jesus kind of explained with this story that the older brother, who did everything he was told, seemed to have missed the point. He had his father's good pleasure and acceptance. He could have been throwing parties all the time, celebrating his father's love, but instead he somehow felt like he had to "slave away" for his taskmaster of a father to win approval. It seems that God's love is not built upon behavior and conditional -- only given if we are faithful. That's what's so amazing about grace.
"Peter said to Him, 'We have left everything to follow You!'
"'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields -- and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"
It's interesting how "children and fields" are brought up here, since that is what was lost (and destroyed by the devil) in the story of Job. According to this quote, we also might see Peter in a lesser (or last in prominence) role in Heaven. Who knows?
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 20, 2008 11:53 AM