Bible Reading: Mark 10:17-31
Dear Friends,
So this man in Mark 10: 17-31 comes to Jesus because he’s sick, abundant life choked out by his many possessions, such that even a righteous life doesn’t satisfy but still leaves him feeling empty. And Jesus, out of love for this man, tells him to give away what he has. Except he doesn’t just tell him to give away what he has. He tells him to give it to the poor. Which means
that, according to Jesus, our life is inextricably bound up with that of others. We have difficulty receiving abundant life without committing ourselves to the wellbeing of others.
Can we imagine that? That our wellbeing is intimately tied to the wellbeing of others? This is not the imagination that animates our culture. We live in
a world shaped by an imagination of scarcity where there is never enough and all of life therefore becomes a kind of never-ending competition. It is social Darwinism where only the fittest survive by accumulating and controlling scare resources. Yet when this man asks how he might inherit eternal life, Jesus points him 180 degrees away from a model of scarcity
and invites him to delight in his wealth by giving it to those who are poor. This isn’t, I think, simply divestment of riches or a call to a simpler life or even a warning about the love of money. This is a call to recognize that we all of us are in this together. That God cares for all of us. That we are, truly, brother and sister to one another and that our happiness and joy is therefore bound part and parcel with that of those around us.
Riches, countless recent studies have shown, tend to isolate us from those who are poor, insulate us from their conditions and need, and, over time, make us less sensitive to their pain and even their humanity. When we
give what we have freely, joyfully, sacrificially to those in need we don’t only help them, we help ourselves by entering into the fuller humanity that God created us to enjoy together. So this man comes to Jesus because he’s
sick, abundant life choked out by his many possessions, such that even a righteous life doesn’t satisfy but still leaves him feeling empty. And Jesus, out of love for this man, tells him to give away what he has to the poor, for
only as he joins himself in solidarity to those around him can he, indeed, inherit abundant and eternal life.
Solomzi