The Right Priorities
Mark 10:17-31
Is there room in your life for following Jesus, or are you weighed down by too much stuff?
The Doolittle Raid, America’s response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. The aircraft used – B-25 Mitchells – were actually land-based bombers not designed for taking off and landing on the short runway of an aircraft carrier. They were capable of making the short take off, but they really didn’t have the range to make it to Japan, even from an aircraft carrier, because they needed to launch from the carrier outside of Japan’s air defense radar range.
So they had to be heavily modified to increase their range, making them lighter while also adding fuel capacity so that they could reach their target and fulfill their mission. Much of the weaponry was removed, as was the radio equipment. Light wooden broomsticks actually replaced the twin tail guns to confuse any Japanese planes they might encounter, hopefully leading them to believe there were guns back there when there weren’t.
These lean, mean, B-25s – stripped down to the bare minimum to make room for the necessary extra fuel they would need and flown by volunteer flight crews, accomplished their mission and then headed for China where the most of the planes crash landed and the crews were eventually recovered with minimal losses. They had to do this because they couldn’t carry enough fuel to get them back to the carrier after they delivered their payload.
In many ways, following Jesus here in America, and in other western societies, is a lot like flying one of those unmodified bombers. We’re carrying too much stuff around to accomplish the mission. Our lives are cluttered and overloaded, and we’re so busy, we have little time to listen to Jesus and respond to what he is saying to us through his Word, through others, and in prayer. Because of that, we tend to live vicariously through the spiritual vitality of others instead of developing our own living relationship with Jesus.
Following Jesus requires us to lighten the load. Turn with me to Mark 10:17-31.
Jesus is getting ready for the next leg of his journey to Jerusalem and his betrayal and the cross, and a young man comes up to him and asks a question. Actually, he runs up to him, like he’s afraid he’ll miss his chance to talk to Jesus, or he’s really excited to get the chance to talk with him.
Either way, this nameless young man has a lot of respect for Jesus. He approaches Jesus either eagerly or expectantly, by running up to him, making sure he gets his chance, he kneels before Jesus, and he addresses Jesus formally as “Good Teacher.” Clearly he genuinely respects Jesus and is very serious in asking his question. He really wants to know: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Interesting word there – “DO.” “What must I DO?” Like most people, he assumes that whatever has to happen for him to enter the Kingdom of God, it is something that HE has to DO. And he wants to make sure that he has done enough. And Jesus draws his attention to the Ten Commandments by quoting five of them. The Ten Commandments can be divided into two sections: one emphasizing our relationship with God (1-3), and one emphasizing our relationships with other people (4-10).
When the Pharisees asked Jesus which, of all of the commandments in the Law of Moses, was the greatest commandment, he slyly included all Ten Commandments when he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 23:36-37). They’re two sides of the same coin: Love God and love neighbor. If you love God, you’ll love your neighbor. As you love your neighbor, you are showing your love for God. You can’t have one without the other.
When this young man heard the answer Jesus gave, he must have been ecstatic, because he’d been keeping the commandments since his youth. He figured he was sitting pretty. He’d just received the assurance he was looking for. But Jesus wasn’t done. Mark tells us, and remember, Mark is seeing this through the eyes of Peter, who was there, that Jesus looked at the young man, and loved him. The word translated as “looking at him” means more than just “looked in his direction.” It means that Jesus looked deeply into him, into his soul. And the word for love is “agape.” Jesus loved him perfectly and unconditionally. Jesus saw him truly and loved him deeply.
And BECAUSE of his intimate knowledge of this man and his deep love for him, he is willing to challenge him. He doesn’t try to avoid offending him or spare his feelings. He gently but candidly speaks the truth. Look at V. 21. That’s great friend. But there’s still something missing. Go, sell everything you have, and join me in my journey to the cross. If this man did that, what would happen? He would go from being wealthy and important in this world’s eyes to being a poor nobody at the drop of a hat. And what would he have to do then? He would have to really, truly, TRUST Jesus.
Following Jesus is a life of trust. And the thing that gets in the way of that trust, the thing that stunts it and keeps it from growing and blossoming, the thing that kills it, is our sense of security in our own resources. Twice Jesus spoke to massive crowds out in the wilderness where there was no chance of there being enough food to feed all of the people, and then he asked his disciples to feed them. And they were like, “Really Jesus? How? There’s nothing out here, and the tiny village isn’t anywhere near big enough to have enough food to feed this crowd.” He did that because he wanted them to realize that in him they had everything they needed. He wants us to learn to trust him.
And when we have everything we think we need – money in the bank, food in the cupboard, clothes in the closet, we can fool ourselves into thinking that WE can handle anything that comes our way on our own. As American Christ-followers, we may SAY that we trust Jesus, but the truth is, we trust no one but ourselves. And the evidence of that is the stress and anxiety we feel when the balance in the bank gets a little bit lower than usual.
This young man has been trusting in HIS goodness, in HIS ability to keep the law of Moses, and he’s feeling pretty good about things. And that’s what’s getting in the way of his coming into God’s kingdom. Compared to other people, he sees himself as being in pretty good shape.
If you compare yourself to me, chances are you’re going to feel pretty good about yourself because I’m an idiot and don’t always, or sometimes usually, follow Christ very well. But the standard we have to compare ourselves to isn’t one another, as if God grades on a curve. The problem is I’m not the standard. You aren’t the standard. Other human beings aren’t the standard of holiness. God is. And no matter how good we are, none of us can reach that standard.
Every human effort to enter God’s kingdom by effort or merit is utterly, hopelessly futile. And Jesus, because he sees us truly and loves us deeply, wants us to realize that. He wants us to realize that even if we think we have this world in the palm of our hands and things look pretty good, before God we are still helpless. Our goodness means nothing. And our wealth, our striving and stressing and earning, our intellect and talent mean nothing. In this world, wealth tends to lead to power and control and influence. But it’s all a façade. And this man needs to understand that truth.
So Jesus, in love, challenges him to see that. And his words cut to the quick. Jesus doesn’t focus on all that he has. He points out his lack. “You lack one thing.” He lacks the ability to trust Jesus, because his trust in himself, in his wealth and the security and influence it seems to provide, is getting in the way. “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Learn to trust me.
Our resources keep us from learning to fully trust God because we don’t really have to. I don’t have to trust God to provide my daily bread if my cupboards are full. I don’t have to trust God to be faithful if my bank account couldn’t possibly be drained by anything that might happen.
Jesus has drawn a line in the sand. Are you going to trust in your apparent goodness and wealth, or are you going to trust me. Because in God’s kingdom, your goodness and wealth are useless. In fact, they’re getting in the way of trusting me. And Mark tells us that “Disheartened by the saying he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
This world tells us to get a good education, so that we can get a good job, so that we can have a nice home and lots of stuff and then we’ll be successful (whatever that means) and happy and secure. Truth is, more is never enough. No matter what people’s income level is, research tells us that pretty much everyone thinks they need to earn about 10% more than they already do, and that if they can earn that 10% more, their stress, worry, and feelings of insecurity will go away and they’ll finally have “enough.” Thing is, if they do increase their income, they still believe they need “just 10% more.” And that dynamic is true whether they earn $40,000 a year or $400,000 a year.
In a series of articles on the nature of greed, Christian blogger Ted Scofield writes:
When I ask people “What is greed?” typically the first concept articulated involves the notion of abundance. Greed is when you have too much stuff (which only money can buy), or place too much importance on stuff, or spend too much time pursuing or wanting or envying stuff.
A college student told me, “When people are sleeping on the street and you have a Mercedes and four empty bedrooms in your McMansion, then you are greedy.” The late comedian George Carlin might agree: “That’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it? Trying to find a place for your stuff … That’s all your house is – a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Sometimes you’ve got to move, you’ve got to get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff!”
Sure enough, we Americans are not filling our houses with people. In 1950, the average home size was 983 square feet and 3.37 people lived in it. By 2009, the average home’s square footage has ballooned to 2,700 with only 2.57 occupants. In 59 years, the average American home grew by 175% while the average family size shrunk by 24%.[i]
Now, look at Vv. 23-31. After the man leaves disheartened and sad, because he was too attached to his wealth to give it up and learn to follow Jesus, Jesus really zeroes in on the way in which wealth makes it a challenge for people to receive God’s kingdom. You see, our resources give us a false sense of security because we place our trust in our insurance policies and the balance in our bank account to bail us out of anything that might happen, and we never really learn to trust Jesus because we think we can handle anything that comes our way on our own. For many of us, that means that we won’t even think we need Jesus. We’re good enough. And if we do give our lives to Christ and receive his death on our behalf, our trust in him goes no further, because we don’t really need to rely on him day to day. At least, we don’t think we do.
Now, Jesus ISN’T saying that the wealthy CANNOT enter the Kingdom of God. The early church was often hosted in the larger homes of the wealthy. And therein lies the difference. Those early, wealthy home church hosts weren’t holding onto their wealth for all they’re worth. They were risking losing everything – their businesses and income, their security, even their lives, to follow Jesus. It isn’t an issue of wealth. It’s an issue of priority, and when we have great wealth, it has a real tendency to get in the way.
You see, while Jesus isn’t saying that the wealthy cannot enter the Kingdom of God, but He IS saying that wealth can make it much more challenging because we tend to trust it, rather than him. Wealth convinces us that we don’t need him, and if he gets us past that one, it steals the joy, adventure, and impact from our lives in Christ because we spend most of our time worrying about our wealth, earning more, and makes us afraid to risk any of it and we never really learn just how trustworthy Jesus really is, and our faith never grows. It’s stunted, and we never accomplish all that we might accomplish for Christ.
Now, most of us don’t consider ourselves wealthy. Most of us, even those who are really well off, with million dollar homes and expensive cars, draw the line of wealth somewhere just past where our own income level sits. So let’s get real here for a minute. If you’re in this room, you live, at least right now, in the United States of America, the wealthiest country in human history. Yes, we have a poverty line, under which living well according to our standard and cost of living is almost impossible. And there are plenty of people in this country who, sadly, have nothing. At least by our standards.
So listen to this prayer spoken by William Boice: Dear Lord, I have been re-reading the record of the Rich Young Ruler and his obviously wrong choice. But it has set me thinking. No matter how much wealth he had, he could not ride in a car, have any surgery, turn on a light, buy penicillin, hear a pipe organ, watch TV, wash dishes in running water, type a letter, mow a lawn, fly in an airplane, sleep on an innerspring mattress, or talk on the phone. If he was rich, then what am I?[ii]
Annie Dillard tells the story of the Franklin expedition to the Arctic in 1845, an expedition that turned out to be an epic, deadly failure. The preparations made by the officers on the two ships were more suited to a British Royal Navy officer’s club than to the harsh, frigid conditions of the Arctic. They made sure there was room on their ships for a large, lavish library, a hand organ, fine china place settings, cut-glass wine goblets, and sterling silver flatware, instead of making room for extra coal for their steam engines. Each officer had a unique set of ornate silver flatware engraved with his initials and family crest. It would seem that they truly spared no expense … in areas that didn’t matter in the harsh arctic conditions they would soon face.
Search parties later found clumps of bodies of men who walked across the ice seeking help when their supplies ran out. One skeleton still lay there wearing the thin, fine blue cloth uniform edged with silk braid worn by the officers. A stunning uniform? Yes. But not suited to the frigid temperatures the man wearing it encountered as he walked. Another lay there still clutching the sterling silver flatware bearing engravings of his initials and family crest.
It’s easy to say, “Wow, what a bunch of idiots.” But I can assure you that as they lay there dying, freezing to death on that Arctic wasteland, none of them said, “You know, I wish I had brought more place settings.” Tragically, they learned far too late just how foolish they were. How completely unvaluable their cherished riches and possessions were in this environment.
What do you need to offload? What’s getting in the way of you growing in your ability to trust Jesus? What’s getting in the way, distracting you, keeping you from the full impact God wants your life to have for his kingdom? Let’s pray.
[i] Ted Scofield, “Everybody Else’s Biggest Problem, Pt. 3: How Much Is Too Much?” Mockingbird (8-11-15)
[ii] Source: William Boice, Phoenix, Arizona in The Christian Standard. Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 4.
