In our psalm for this morning, there is a plea for God to “satisfy us by your steadfast love in the morning.” This verse echoed in my mind as I was reading through the Gospel text from Mark 10, because when we meet the young man in that story, it is clear that he runs up and kneels before Jesus because he is not satisfied. Even though he has many possessions, and even though he has kept all the commandments since his youth, there is a sense of emptiness there, of something missing.
Jesus, seeing the young man’s earnestness and longing, somehow manages to cut right to the heart of things. “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.”
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| Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash |
This is not what the young man was expecting. Though his many possessions left him feeling empty and unsatisfied, he could not bring himself to even consider selling them. And so he went away, shocked and grieving.
The disciples, too, are astonished and perplexed. What Jesus was saying didn’t make any sense. Riches and possessions were, after all, signs of God’s favor and blessing, weren’t they? And if someone was wealthy, it was because God wanted them to be...right? But if the wealthy who are, presumably, especially favored by God can’t easily enter the kingdom of God, what does that say about the rest of them? Who then can be saved?
Ah, yes - isn’t that the question?!
I wonder if part of why the young man went away grieving was because he began to realize that he had bought into a lie. The road he was on - his quest to save himself through wealth and perceived independence - it was an impossible path. It would not save him. All his focus had been on accumulating wealth, and it was there, in his many possessions, that he placed his trust and found his identity. His wealth determined his place in the world in a clear-cut way; it showed him where he stood and conveyed his status to others. It provided a comfortable living. And yet, it could not satisfy him - there would always be more to accumulate, more to pursue, and other wealthy people to whom he might not measure up. Somehow, the full would always feel empty.
Though we might not think of ourselves as wealthy, I think we can relate to the disciples’ astonishment and the young man’s grief. We, too, are surrounded by many possessions, and constantly bombarded by messaging that we should not be satisfied with what we have. There are always new models with updated features; bigger, better, faster, quieter. And yet, somehow, it is never enough.
We, too, buy into the lie that more stuff must mean more blessing and favor from God. We delude ourselves into thinking that more is better, that “more” is holy. We, too, place our fear, love, and trust into things that are not God; things that are fleeting, and can never fully satisfy us.
When Jesus looked at the searching, unsatisfied young man kneeling before him, he saw someone who had placed his fear, love, and trust not in God, but in his possessions and his wealth. And yet, before telling him what he lacked, Jesus looked on him with love. Jesus looked on him with love, and because of that love, called the young man to the difficult but fulfilling life of discipleship. It would be a life filled with community, and hidden abundance, wealth of different kinds, and following Jesus.
This promise, this call is for us, too. It is indeed hard to enter the dominion of God - our stuff won’t do it, nor will our wealth, our status, or our goodness. But God - God has done the impossible! God has looked on us with love and saved us not by what we have, or by what we do, but by grace. It is here, in Jesus, that we can place our trust and find our identity. Claimed as children of God in the waters of baptism, we are God’s own. Our value does not come from the possessions we hold, but from the God who holds us. This God calls us away from the things that hold us captive, and satisfies us with steadfast love each new day.
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