Life with a big 'L'

We learn more about people from the questions they ask than the answers they give, Voltaire once said.

7 days of people watching at the General Assembly confirmed that for me last week. After just a few of the debates you could tell which commissioners were asking questions because they were genuinely interested, and which were up on their hind legs because they just liked the sound of their own voice.

The questions we ask say a lot about us.

Today’s story revolves around a question and a questioner, and versions of this story are found in three of the four gospels, each of them supplying a little more of the detail.

Matthew tells us that this rich man who came to see Jesus was young, and Luke tells us he was a ruler, so the story’s often called the story of the Rich Young Ruler.

And we know very little about him, other than what we read in these few verses. Some commentators reckon he was something of a show-off, trying to impress Jesus with his clean record, and others think he was genuine – seriously trying to work out what life is all about.

And I tend to think he was genuine. If he wanted to blow his own trumpet he could have asked his question when there were lots of people around to hear; he wouldn’t have waited ‘til Jesus was on his way out of the city.

My guess is that he’d probably spent ages hanging around nervously, as you do in these situations, watching and waiting for an opportunity to go up and speak to Jesus. That’s what folk do around famous people, when they’re looking for an autograph or a conversation.

But he spent so long trying to screw up his courage, that he nearly missed his chance. Jesus was heading off again, so in desperation the young man runs up, kneels before him, and blurts out his question:“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”.

Now it’d be much easier to understand the sense of that question if you’d actually been there.

How did those words tumble out of his mouth? How did he look when he said them? Was this about self-aggrandisement? Or was there an edge of desperation in his voice because he’d been down every avenue he could think of and he still couldn’t find the answer.

Well, again, I think it’s the latter. This could have been an extravagant show designed to flatter Jesus, but I think it’s genuine. Christ was no fool, and Mark tells us that having looked at this young man, and heard his question, he loved him.

“Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?”

Now for us to hear and understand that question correctly, we need a bit of background.

Because when you and I hear the phrase ‘eternal life’, straight away we think about the afterlife, as though this young man were asking how he could get to heaven.

But in the context of the time, he’d have meant something completely different. The Jews had little concept of life after death, or heaven as the final destination for our spirits. Those ideas are rarely spoken of in the Old Testament.

In Jewish understanding, the consummation of all things comes not when we go to heaven, but when God comes to us; when the quality of life God enjoys finally infuses and suffuses the earth once and for all, and the kingdom finally comes.

So for the Jewish mind of the day, ‘eternal life’ wasn’t a synonym for heaven. It’s that quality of life that’s characteristic of God, and which those who love God aspire to for themselves and for the world. It’s life with a capital L – real Life, true Life, God’s Life, breaking through in the here and now.

So when this young man asks about ‘eternal life’ he’s really saying “How can I be more in touch with God? How can I experience more of his life within me?”

And I’m intrigued by what Jesus has to say next. Surely this is the cue to launch out on a big discourse about prayer and worship and synagogue attendance and meditating on the scriptures? All the things you and I would have been saying if we’d been asked.

But he doesn’t do that. Instead he says:

“Well, you know the commandments. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery, don’t steal; don’t make false accusations; don’t cheat; respect your father and your mother”.

And you can almost hear the young man’s disappointment at that reply. “Teacher, I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young”

I’ve done all of that, he says, and it doesn’t work. It hasn’t brought me any closer to God. There has to be more to it than this.

And of course, there is.

Jesus has been setting him up. And he’s been setting us up too, because he wants us to learn the same lesson.

Listen to that list of commandments again. “Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery, don’t steal; don’t make false accusations; don’t cheat; respect your father and your mother”.

Do you notice anything strange about that list? I have to confess, I’ve known this passage for years and it’s only in the past wee while that the penny’s dropped with me.

What I’d completely overlooked is that in this list Jesus only mentions about half of the ten commandments – the ones that speak about our relationships with other people.

The ones he doesn’t mention are the first four. The ones that speak about our relationship with God. “You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not bow down to any other God. You shall honour God’s name. You shall not worship things your hands have made”

They’re all missing. But the young man doesn’t notice. And neither do we, if we’re honest. And that’s exactly the point.

The way of religion is always to reduce faith from a living relationship with the God who made us, to a dry moral code that tells us how to behave. But that can’t satisfy anyone. That’s why this young man’s heart was empty. Maybe that’s why many of our churches are empty too.

One of the sad truths about today’s world is that people looking to connect with God often don’t see the church as the place where that happens. And that’s a travesty.

The very heart of our faith is the I-Thou relationship that’s expressed in the first four commandments; God calling you and me to reckless, self-abandoning love for him.

Without that relationship, our hearts will be as unfulfilled as that of the rich young ruler, who came to Jesus with an impeccable moral record, but knew full well that he hadn’t really tasted eternal life. Life with a capital L.

In the latter chapters of John’s gospel, as Jesus speaks with his disciples, he spells out for them exactly what eternal life is. Praying for them, knowing full well that the next day he would be crucified, this is what he says:

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Maybe being a Christian is just this – wakening up to the reality that God doesn’t want your mere obedience. He wants you, with a passion. And he wants to give you life. With a capital L.

Once you’ve realised that, you’re on your way.

The Irish poet and theologian John O’Donohue says this: “once the soul awakens you can never go back. From then on you’re inflamed with a special longing which will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfilment. The eternal makes you urgent”.

There’s a question to mull over today. Is there an urgency in your heart about the things of God?

Or is that desire, such as it is, being stifled by other things?

That was certainly the case with the rich young man, and Christ knew it. His wealth was choking him. It had become an idol.

“You need only one thing” Jesus said. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor; and then come and follow me”

Only one thing,, maybe, but the one thing he found hardest to do.

Now don’t get distracted by the business of him giving up his money. This isn’t a black and white statement that rich is bad and poor is good. Jesus knew plenty of people who had money and he didn’t ask them to give all their wealth away.

This part of their discussion isn’t really about riches. It’s about idolatry. It’s about getting rid of whatever pushes God from his rightful place in our lives.

For this young man, it was wealth. Wealth had become an idol for him, and he hadn’t even realised it. For you and me, it could be a host of other things, some of them ignoble, but some of them noble. An idol isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It might be a good thing that we’re relating to in the wrong way.

One of the phrases that’s used a lot at mealtimes in our house at the moment is ‘don’t fill yourself up with that’. The kids tend to dive in and gulp down their water and scoff their bread before they get into the meal proper.

Here’s a question that might help reveal some of our idols. What do we tend to ‘fill up on’, other than God. What are the things that in subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. tend to crowd God out of our lives?

Work can become an idol for some of us. We work hard; long hours often, and it seems hard to find room for God in the middle of all of that. But is there a little part of us that quite likes it that way? Does that help to keep God at a safe distance?

Do we need to work quite so hard? Do we really need those things that we’re working so hard to be able to afford?

Maybe our pastimes have become an idol. We can’t make time to read or pray or get to church regularly, but there are other things that never seem to fall out of the diary. We make unbreakable commitments to our pleasures.

And on a deeper level, some of us make idols of our feelings. Our bitterness, our lust, our envy, our frustrations. They can take over us and end up dominating the way we think about ourselves and relate to others. God takes second place to our concerns and desires rather than helping us to befriend them and put them into some kind of order.

Well all have our idols. And God knows only too well what they are.

Mark tells us that Jesus looked straight at the young man with love and said “You need only do this one thing. Give up your riches”.

Is there one thing God’s asking you to give up today? One thing which, if you’re honest with yourself, you know takes a higher priority than he does?

It won’t be easy. It’s hard giving up your idols. But if Jesus is right, it’s even harder to enter the Kingdom of heaven while you’re still holding onto them.

Did this young man enter the Kingdom and begin to experience eternal life? Well, Mark doesn’t tell us. All we know is that he left Jesus’ company with a heavy heart and a lot to think about that day.

But right at the end of Mark’s gospel, there’s a strange incident that might give us an answer.

In his account of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark gives us a little piece of detail that none of the other gospel writers include. He tells us that “a young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When (the soldiers) seized him, he fled, naked leaving his garment behind. Mark 14:51.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists have a field day with that one, involving as it does the spicy elements of youth, nakedness and violence. But one plausible suggestion for that strange story is that this is the rich young man, finally come to show Jesus that he’s done what he’d been asked to do. That he’d given away everything but the clothes he was standing up in.

Rightly understood, the gospel of Jesus Christ demands everything of us. Everything. Self, wealth, relationships, career, time, energy. Everything we are, everything we possess, must come under his Lordship.

But, says Christ, those who respond with passion and urgency will receive far more in return – they will begin to experience the kind of life that replenishes the heart. Life that’s real. Life that’s Eternal. Life with a big L- both now and hereafter.