Selling All His Stuff Would Not Have Been the Last Law

"The rich, young ruler already has Eternal Life as a gift. It's standing in front of him."

It’s the very nature of the law that if the rich, young ruler had gone and sold all his stuff and given the money to the poor, he would’ve discovered there was yet one more thing for him to do.

Unless, of course, he realized that standing before him was the God at the End of all those commandments.

The lectionary Gospel passage this Sunday is Mark 10.17-31.

You know the story.

This blue-blooded, honor roll brat asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit the Kingdom of heaven?”

After replying to Jesus that he’s kept all the commandments since his youth— he’s kept them all since his youth, okay— Jesus tries to bring the well-heeled kid to his knees.

“Go,” Jesus says, “Liquidate all your assets. Empty out the attic. Sell the timeshare. Get rid of it all. Give the money to the poor and then come follow me.”

I once preached on this text for a baccalaureate service after which, during the reception in the fellowship hall, the father of one of the graduating seniors approached me nervously.

“Let me get one thing straight, preacher,” he said, smacking cake frosting in his mouth.

“Sure thing,” I said, “What’s on your mind?”

“Jesus only said that to the one guy, right? He only said ‘sell everything you own’ the one time, right? To that one guy? He didn’t, like, say that to everybody did he?”

There’s an even more remarkable feature in the text than the one to which the nervous father pointed; namely, Jesus does not reject the premise of the rich guy’s question.

Jesus does not reject the premise of the rich guy’s question.

Though you can only inherit a gift, Jesus nonetheless gives him something to do.