October 10, 2021
Mark 10:17-31
A Prescription for Generosity
Lectionary 28B – Thanksgiving Sunday – October 10, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I have known lots of people who look like the man who comes to Jesus this morning.
The person whose life looks great on the outside.
The person who looks like they’ve got it all together.
That is that person: this guy is likely highly respected because he’s followed the rules and
done what’s expected of him and, let’s face it, because he’s wealthy.
He’s probably also extremely good-looking!
He looks like he has it all.
You get the picture: he’s a dream guy.
Probably a good catch. Some readers of Mark’s Gospel probably wondered if he was single.
However, there is something else going in this man’s life.
Something important: he has a big question for Jesus.
And the question is: Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Apparently, all is not as it seems in the man’s life.
Apparently, he doesn’t feel as if he’s living his life to the fullest.
See: “eternal life” is a tricky thing to translate in Greek: zoe aionion.
It means, “fullness of life.” It means lots of good quality life, now and always.
It’s not just about a quantity of life after death; it means quality life, now and always.
It means “really livin’.”
It means the man’s big question is really this: how can I really live in a meaningful way?
To the man, this is really a matter of life and death.
Notice the details in the story:
the man comes to Jesus and kneels before Jesus, looking for blessing.
Every other person who comes to Jesus in this way in Mark’s Gospel is sick.
They are people looking for healing.
And in every other case in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells them to go with some kind of medicine,
the thing that will make them well.
Well, you know how when you were a kid the medicine that was best for you tasted the worst?
This morning, the man receives from Jesus what is to him a bitter, bitter medicine.
“Go,” says Jesus: here is the medicine for what ails you:
“Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.”
Oh dear.
Mark tells us the man was shocked and went away grieving.
No kidding.
Jesus dignified the man’s big question with a correspondingly big answer.
The man was shocked by this answer and most of the people listening would have been too.
Even the disciples are shocked: like, Jesus: if this guy isn’t blessed already, who is?
In the Old Testament, riches are frequently thought of as a sign of God’s blessing.
But never to Jesus; Jesus knows the truth and is not afraid to to state it baldly:
our money and our attitude towards it is a hindrance to the life God desires us to live.
It takes up a lot of brain space for us and is the cause of much of our anxiety and worry.
It gets in the way of the fullness of life we were made for.
This is what Jesus is telling the man this morning.
So where is the good news in this story?
It begins with noticing that Jesus doesn’t scold the man or condemn the man or judge the man.
He looks at him.
Only, it doesn’t quite say that.
The Greek word here isn’t just a glancing look.
The word here means to look intently, it means to bore into a person’s soul,
it means the look you give when you want to see right inside the other person.
It means to gaze – and this is a gaze that is filled with love.
Mark writes: Gazing at him, Jesus loved him.
This is one of the most beautiful things in all scripture, right?
Jesus, looking right inside this guy, sees what he is capable of,
sees what he is capable of becoming, sees all the hope and possibility there,
and Jesus loves what he sees!
And he knows a small answer to a big question is not going to bring about the man’s healing,
the man’s transformation.
And so he gives him the big answer – the answer that drives the man away! Oops.
Well, that is how much God loves us: God loves us enough to give us the big answer.
The man is sick: and what is the prescription Jesus gives?
Jesus gives the man a prescription for the medicine of generosity.
The good news is that Jesus loves us.
The good news is that Jesus sees so much more in us than we think we are capable of.
Jesus sees that we are capable of generosity, openness, and love.
The good news is that Jesus has lots and lots of hope in us – even when it is hard to feel that for ourselves.
I don’t know what happens to the man in the story.
Sure: he goes away.
But maybe he goes away to think, and ponder what Jesus has said.
Jesus graciously gives him the freedom to do that – it’s the same freedom he gives to us.
And maybe the man comes back and says, “Okay, Jesus: I’m willing to give it a try.”
See, Mark never ties things up in a neat bow for us.
The first line of the Gospel says that what he has written is just the beginning of the good news story,
just the beginning of what God is doing.
And the end of the Gospel is that wonderful incomplete sentence that means the story isn’t over with
Jesus’ death and resurrection – it is just beginning.
This means that God’s world and our lives are full of possibility.
The fact that a dead man has been raised to life means anything can happen.
Today’s story is not the end of the story for the man.
Today is not the end of the story for you.
And this pandemic is not the end of the story for the possibilities God still has in mind for our world.
Jesus says God can do things that seem impossible for us.
Like releasing us from our worries, and freeing us from our insatiable material appetites,
and guiding us into new lives of generosity and gratitude and justice and mercy.
Thanksgiving is a good place to start, and I am always grateful when we get this story on Thanksgiving Sunday.
Because it is thanksgiving that opens the door to generosity.
Thanksgiving opens our eyes to what God is doing day by day by day.
Thanksgiving opens our hearts to know that God is a generous giver – and that God will always ensure there is enough.
And if we are able to gaze at others and the world God has made, we will see that.
This past week I went to see my wonderful optometrist – Dr. Carmen!
She takes good care of me so that I can see as well as I can.
My eyesight has never really been very good, and I told her about something a previous optometrist had told me.
We were doing the usual tests and at the end she asked me if everything was okay.
I said, Yah, but everything could be crisper, like: I could still be seeing better than I am.
She just looked at me – maybe like Jesus gazes at the man this morning, and she said,
“You know, considering what you’re starting with, you see pretty well.”
Ah: she was inviting me into thanksgiving.
She was inviting me to look around, and see what God has already done.
My physical sight was better when I left, but it was my spiritual sight that had really improved that day.
Jesus gazes at us with love and because he loves us, he dignifies our big questions with big answers.
As the man knows, what Jesus asks is hard.
But the medicine Jesus prescribes is so much easier to take when it is taken with thanksgiving.
With thanksgiving for what we have.
With thanksgiving for the love Jesus has for us.
With thanksgiving for those we can help with our generosity.
Let us be full of thanksgiving, let us be people of generosity, and together let us say, “Amen.”
Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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