Unburdened

Mark 10:17-31

“Good teacher, what must I do?” Jesus has been interrupted yet again by a supplicant, this time not a religious leader or a disabled person or a parent of a demon-wracked child. This time, the one who questions him is just a man. In other tellings of this same story by the other Gospel writers, the man is described variously as young, rich, well-positioned. But here, at first glance, he is just a man on his knees before Jesus. Suddenly, disruptively, this man runs up and throws himself in the path of the traveling preacher, a burning question on his lips. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We are assured that unlike those who would trick Jesus with their questions, this man is earnest. He calls Jesus rabbi, teacher, and more than that he calls him good teacher. He takes the humble posture of kneeling and addresses Jesus with respect, calling him a title he has earned with his knowledge of scripture and his wise teaching. Good teacher, what must I do?

Jesus responds to his question by reminding him of the goodness of God and the guidance that God has given for him to live. When the man responds, it is not with pride or self-importance. “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Teacher, I have done my best to do what God has asked of me. And yet. The man’s answer holds within it a deeper question. I have done all these things, I have followed the law and studied the scriptures and loved God as best I can, so why do I feel this way? Why do I still question? Why do I still feel lonely and anxious? Why do I still feel a yearning for something more? Something is missing, Good Teacher. What must I do to find it?

The man who interrupted Jesus on his journey to ask him this question is lost, begging to be found. We know that he has lived a pious life, following the commandments and seeking out teachers like Jesus. We know from the end of their conversation that he has many possessions, which is often interpreted to mean that he is wealthy. At the least, we know that he is not itinerant like Jesus and the disciples who have only the clothes on their backs and whatever food is shared with them by their supporters. He has much to lose, if he follows Jesus’s advice. If he is wealthy, it is safe to assume from what we know of him and his cultural context that this man has a very full life. And yet, he finds himself preoccupied. He has questions, he has a hole in his heart and he does not understand how to fill it. And so he goes to Jesus.

Jesus, looking at him, loved him. What a beautiful phrase. Jesus, looking at him, loved him. Not because the man called Jesus good. Not because he asked a clever question or even because he has lived a careful and pious life. Jesus looks at him with love, not because of who he is or what he’s done. Jesus loves, because that is who Jesus is. Jesus is able to look into the heart of the man before him and see that it is breaking. Good teacher, what must I do?

You lack one thing. Jesus sees the man’s piety, his earnestness, his need, and the diagnosis is that he is lacking only one thing. What this one thing is, Jesus never actually says. That lack is the diagnosis, and the prescription is outrageous. Go, sell all that you own, and give the money to the poor. Then, come follow me. What Jesus advises this man to do is not a requirement for every one of his followers, nor does he advise every wealthy person he meets to give up all their wealth. No, Jesus looks at this man and loves him, and knows what he needs in his particular life to fill the hole in his particular heart. Sell all that you own, and give the money to the poor. Then, come follow me. Jesus is calling this man to unburden himself, to make his life light enough for the journey. He is kneeling before God, and God is offering him the opportunity to go deeper, to walk further, to know the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ. You lack one thing, Jesus tells him. That one thing is the freedom to follow, so tied down he is by attachments and worldly possessions and secular notions of success. Jesus invites the man to see what it is to inherit eternal life, by helping God to build the kingdom of heaven on Earth. To do this work, he must become unburdened, his hands free to take up the cross. He goes away shocked and grieving, the sacrifice before him too great to bear.

We do not know if the man with many possessions ever unburdened himself and found Jesus again along the way. We don’t know how he came to own them in the first place, or what other ways he might have served the poor in his lifetime. We know that he went away grieving and shocked by the words of Jesus, because a call had been placed on his life and to answer it would not be easy. He is faced with the truth that all that he owns, all that he’s achieved and everything he’s built, is nothing in comparison with the Good News. His prosperity is not filling the cracks in his heart, and he grieves because for a moment, kneeling before Jesus, he felt whole. To embrace that wholeness and pursue the way of love will mean changing his entire life and every way that he measures it. It will be a hard road, a road that leads to the cross. We don’t know if he followed. I hope and pray that eventually, he found the strength.

Because it does take strength, and courage, to become unburdened. It takes a conscious choice, and a daily effort, to discern what Jesus is calling us to give up in order to more freely follow him. Sometimes, like the man who stopped Jesus on the way, it is our attachments to our worldly possessions that hold us back. The possessions we prize which receive so much of our care, money, and time that little is left for charitable and spiritual pursuits. The position we’ve earned in our company, the success of our career, the income we receive that might mean more to us than the graces of our baptism. Sometimes it is the pursuit of perfection which blinds us to the perfect love of God, occupied as we are by the image we present and the plans we create for ourselves and those around us. All too often, it is actually the lack of material comforts and basic necessities that prevents the children of God from following him. Perhaps that was part of Jesus’s point- the mouths fed and roofs built by the proceeds from the man’s possessions may have been enough to sow the seed of an even larger number of converts to the Good News of God, now freed from the burdens of poverty and strife. It is up to each of us, and to all of us, as families, as a parish, as a diocese, to discern together what burdens are ours to bear, and what chains Jesus would have us cast off. When we come into this space together, and when we make space for worship in our homes, we are encountering an opportunity to become unburdened. This is a place we can come to kneel before Jesus and ask him earnestly, what must we do? His answers may grieve us at first, they might even seem impossible. Keep coming back. For God all things are possible.