“What are you looking for?” It’s the middle of the afternoon, and a Saturday. You have wandered into the kitchen, you have opened the pantry door, and you are staring at what is in there. Another family member may see you standing there and ask, “what are you looking for?” You do not know exactly what you are looking for. Something sweet, something salty, something crunchy?
You probably are hungry, you might be bored too. Nothing stands out. “What are you looking for” is a good question to present to people in the world we live in today. What answers might you hear to this question?
“I’m looking for happiness, I’m looking for excitement, love, a place to belong, purpose, a good time or an escape from the routine. One way or another we are looking for something that makes us come alive.
In our gospel lesson we are introduced to a man who is seeking something from Jesus. Kneeling before the Lord, he asks “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.”
The man seems to be seeking an easy solution to life. “What can I do to earn my way to paradise?” He must have felt that something was missing, why else would he have gone up to Jesus with this sense of urgency and kneel down before Him to ask this question.
In fact something is missing in his attitude and approach to Jesus. He tries to flatter Jesus by saying “Good teacher.” In the scripture those who desire to follow Jesus consistently call him Lord. Those who wish to test him or those who have confused motives call him ‘teacher’.
He is not seeking Jesus’ company, he is seeking information, to him Jesus represents a means to an end- someone he can consult and afterward be on track to stay in God’s favor. Jesus rebukes this address as ‘good teacher’ “Why do you call me good, no one is good except God alone.”
Is Jesus denying that he is himself good, or denying that he is God? Obviously not. Jesus can tell that this man only sees Jesus as a teacher of the law and does not recognize him as Lord and God. He is pointing out the man’s inconsistency in selling short the Lord of all standing before him. “If you don’t recognize me as God, then don’t use the word good in addressing me.”
The man asked Jesus a contradictory question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” What is inherited is a gift and is not earned. God’s gift of salvation does not in any way involve the question of ‘what must I do’. Instead of developing a trusting relationship with God, the man is seeking a short list of how to make himself passable to God.
Jesus recognizes that the man sees him as only a teacher of the law. Accordingly, Jesus gives a teacher of the law type of response- he summarizes the commandments that touch on our relationship with one another. The man answers “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”
Perhaps he was not satisfied with what Jesus says as he reports he has kept these laws since his youth. If he were satisfied with what Jesus said he might have responded in thanksgiving or asked about how he could keep the commandments better. Could it be that he was communicating, ‘teacher, what else can you tell me? Is that all ya got to say?’
Jesus looking at him loved him. Jesus loved him enough to say something that would cut through his transactional approach to Jesus, his ‘what can you tell me that will make me in better standing attitude.’
“You lack one thing; go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.” Was Jesus giving him an extra piece of information about keeping the law that the casual religious person might easily miss?
No, Jesus was not instructing that if you really want to keep the law well you need to give to the poor. Jesus was breaking the man’s trust in himself and his attitude of trying to treat God’s Law as a ‘to do list’, without a loving and grateful relationship with God.
We now learn that this man had great possessions. He was secure in life with material provisions and he came to Jesus and addressed him as teacher so that he could secure some spiritual provisions as the icing on the cake of his foundation of material provisions. Does it sound like his priorities were mixed up?
But what about a relationship with God? Does this man want to walk with God, or is he only seeking to comply with God’s rules and get his reward?
So that takes us back to my initial question, “What are you seeking?” Are you seeking a God who is just icing on the cake for the life you have secured for yourself? Is Sunday morning one last thing you try and do before the weekend is over, or is it the beginning of your week- your foundation?
The man in the gospel lesson was disheartened by Jesus’ instructions. He might have been ok if Jesus said give 10% of what you have and follow me once a week, or whenever I am in your region next. But to give all he had to the poor and leave everything that gave him security and follow Jesus? This was not in his range of expectations for life.
To the son of Adam living in the fallen world we live in, self sacrifice and blind trust in following Jesus is not appealing at all. Our sinful nature rebels against giving up control. Our sinful nature sees our possessions as essential to the point where in a manner of speaking our possessions posses and own us. We do so much in our life toward the effort to maintain them and grow in our economic security.
In Psalm 90, a psalm of Moses, written no doubt after many years of learning from the LORD, Moses writes: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” The rich man lacked wisdom. He had the opportunity to follow Jesus and experience a freedom from the hold his possessions had over him. Instead- he calculated the cost, and went away troubled and with all his possessions.
Can you see yourself in this man’s shoes? Have you ever wanted to find a short cut to how your faith applies to your life, so that you can give up as little as possible? When you think this way, the sacrifices of the Christian life seem hard.
In the next chapter of Mark, chapter 11 we have the beginning of the events of Jesus’ crucifixion in the form of the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The choices we need to make in life to give up things don’t seem so hard compared to the betrayal, and crucifixion Jesus set his face toward without looking back.
And Jesus did this so that we would live as those who are redeemed by Him. Jesus did this so that we would know Jesus not as a teacher who shows us an easy way, but as a Savior who walks with us all the way to the hour of death and beyond.
What are you seeking in life? God is seeking so much more for us than we can find ourselves. We heard in our Old Testament Reading: “Seek the Lord and live, Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts will be with you.” Jesus alone is able to give us this life. John 10:10 “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
With the new life we have in Christ, earthly treasures mean a different thing. As we live in thanksgiving to the Lord for all that we have, giving to others is a joy. As we grow in our awareness of heavenly treasures, material possessions just don’t mean the same thing.
He comes to us today and invites us to seek our life in Him, with the promise that we will find it. Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.”
Jesus comes to us as we hear the words of Absolution following our confession of sins. Jesus comes as we hear the gospel communicated in our scripture readings and the sermon. Jesus comes to us when we receive His very presence to us in the Lord’s Supper.
As we seek Jesus and find him, we are able to see people rightly, not for what they can do for us, but as people who receive God’s love and who can receive our love. Often we don’t really know what we are seeking, but we do know that God has found us in Jesus so that we might seek and know him.
God has found us. And in a world of people who don’t really know what they are looking for, we relish this opportunity to seek the God who sought us and to seek the good of others, so that they too might know the love of our God through us. May God grant this abundantly in us through His mercies which are new every morning. Amen.