Something More

Mark 10:17-31

The hardest thing to believe in the gospels may not actually be the story of the resurrection. 

It might be this.

It seems like nobody really believes Jesus when he tells us it’s basically impossible to enter the kingdom of God. That starts right in the original text of Mark’s gospel. As soon as Jesus says it’s tough for rich people to enter the kingdom, the disciples push right back. Jesus must be wrong about this somehow, because if the people obviously generously blessed and loved by God are out, then can anybody really be saved??

And nobody - including the dedicated disciples who believe they’ve already done this - really wants it to be true that we have to give everything away to get into God’s kingdom.  Even the most generous among us find it hard to get rid of all we have.  And the more we have, the easier it is to believe that being rich can’t really keep us from following Jesus.

So it’s no surprise that the tradition of preachers and scholars for centuries has been to adapt and manage this story, to blunt the sharp edges and make it easier.

An early biblical copyist slipped in the idea of trust in riches as the barrier to the kingdom - letting wealth itself off the hook. You’ll find that scribe’s work preserved in the King James translation of the Bible, though today’s translation goes back to the original statement that it’s simply hard for the rich to enter the kingdom.

Interpreters in the Middle Ages came up with the idea of a “Needle’s Eye” gate into Jerusalem narrow enough to force a camel to unload to get through. (The actual gate in Jerusalem now called the Needle’s Eye was built much later.) That makes the metaphor easier to handle - it’s about a temporary and practical unloading of possessions.

And more than a few preachers have read this as a challenge to the man’s heart, not his riches — so that you and I, in imitation, are challenged to find and clear away whatever is most in our way when it comes to entering the kingdom, not to literally give away all we own.

(That’s actually a good enough idea that if you’ll commit to the necessary soul-searching to truly clear your own way this week, I’ll give you a pass on the rest of this sermon.)

But the text itself is stubborn.

A blessed, faithful, committed man asks Jesus how to participate in eternal life,

is told to give everything he owns to people in need,

and leaves because this is too hard.

And he’s right - it is too hard.
After all, Jesus goes on to tell his shocked and perplexed disciples that it’s hard - very hard - for anyone to enter God’s kingdom, and effectively impossible for the rich.

This is bad news for us, because compared to Jesus’ first disciples, every one of us here is rich in possessions, no matter how poor we are by contemporary American standards.

It puzzles me, too, since through the rest of the gospel, Jesus seems to go out of his way to make God’s kingdom accessible - always challenging, but definitely accessible to you and me.

I can’t get comfortable with this story,

and in that way it reminds me of another story about giving all you have.

I first encountered Shel Silverstein’s story of The Giving Tree as a child, and enjoyed its abundant generosity and a sense of unconditional love.

But it bothered me a little even then, and I can’t get at all comfortable with it now.

Because as that tree gives everything she has,

it’s heartbreaking.

When the playful, joyful, companionable boy she loves becomes 

first a youth longing for money and its power,

then a man wishing for security,

and then for escape,

the tree gives her apples to be sold for cash,

her branches to build him a house,

and her trunk to make a boat to sail away.

And each time the tree is left lonely and without thanks.

Until the end, when the boy returns to her as a tired old man wanting only a place to sit and rest,

and the tree offers her barren stump, and is happy when he sits and stays.

It’s easy to see how the Boy’s desire for money, security, things, and their power pulls him away from the tree and makes him wish for whatever he doesn’t have; easy to see how he loses his joy in the relationship when possessions and riches gain his attention.

It’s a sharp metaphor for how money and things can draw us away from relationship with God.

But like any parable, it has sharp edges all around.

God is not a tree, depleted by giving us the things we desire —though God no doubt longs for that joyful relationship with us that the tree longs for with her boy.

If we’re heeding Jesus’ call to give away all we have, it’s the tree we might take for our model.

But it’s a heartbreaking one.

The tree becomes lonely by her giving, and less than she was.

And when her boy comes back for the last time, she’s heartbroken herself that she has nothing left to give. She offers the boy a litany of her regret that she has no apples, branches, or trunk - or anything - to give him any more.

But it turns out that after she’s given all that she can, she’s still not done.

When she truly has nothing left,

she still has something to give.

Her boy wants a resting place, and she gives her stump.

Silverstein’s story ends, but the giving doesn’t.

And I wonder if this is a part of what Jesus means when he says that it’s effectively impossible for those who have to enter God’s kingdom.

That even when you and I, like the tree, have given all we can, we still have something left.

That even when we truly have nothing left, there’s still something more to give.

We cannot earn our way into love, relationship, or eternal life by giving all we have,

because we will always have something left.

We cannot give our way into love, relationship, or God’s kingdom any more than a full-sized camel can get through a literal sewing needle’s eye, because when we are all done giving, there will still be something left to give.

That’s why Jesus has to tell us that while for us this is truly impossible, nothing is impossible with God.

We need to feel the pain of this story, need to feel its sharp edges, and let the truth of its impossibility break our hearts. Because the kingdom of God is just as accessible, and just as difficult as Jesus says. It’s nearby and open to every one of us, but only on the other side of impossibility, only — and gloriously — given to us when it’s patently impossible.

Because the impossible is God’s possible,

God’s delight.