For a rich man, he puts on no airs. In fact there is a puppy-ish eagerness about him, in the anticipatory way he rides up (on a white horse, no less), tosses his reins to a servant and strides forward with a smile that looks almost shy. Used to having his way, but well brought up, plainly dressed but shot through with quality, he nods at the disciples with only a trace of condescension and raises a hand in blessing to the Master.
“Good teacher,” he says. “Thank you for meeting with me. I have a question to ask you.”
“Am I good?” the Master asks in return. “Is not God alone good?”
“Well . . .”
“What is your question?”
“Only this.” The winning smile reappears. “I’ve heard you speak of the kingdom of God, whose subjects live with the Blessed One. My heart is stirred. So tell me please, how may I enter this kingdom?”
The disciples, naturally suspicious of the rich, can’t help but feel their hearts warm to this guileless young man. So they are relieved to hear a straight answer instead of a story.
“You know the commandments,” their teacher replies. “Do not commit adultery, murder, theft, false witness? Honor your father and mother?”
The young man is nodding. ‘Yes. Yes. All these I’ve kept all my life.” And he’s not lying. There he stands, his parents’ pride and joy–handsome, obedient, pious, everything a prince of Israel should be. Commandment five: check. Six: check. Seven: ditto. Eight: likewise. Nine: absolutely. Ten: what’s to covet?
“There’s one thing you lack,” the teacher says. The young man leans forward. Yes, this is exactly what he came for, to hear this one thing:
“Sell everything you have and distribute it among the poor. This will be your deposit on the kingdom. Then come and follow me.”
After the young man departs—and he didn’t argue, just mumbled something about thinking it over–the teacher stares after him for a long while. What was he thinking? Mark tells us that “Jesus looked upon [the young man] and loved him,” even before answering his question. Even before the young man turned away from him because he didn’t love enough. All the commandments he had indeed kept from his youth.
Except the first one.
Meanwhile, the disciples had been discussing the matter among themselves, and have plenty of their own questions. That was a nice kid in spite of all his wealth. So much more pliable than the usual entitled crowd. Wouldn’t he have been an asset to the kingdom? Shouldn’t he have been encouraged? If you had asked him to follow you first, and then sell his possessions, he could have contributed at least some of his means to the enterprise, couldn’t he?
(Something else that bothers them—the teacher never tells any two people the same thing. Sell everything, sell nothing, come follow, stay where you are, tell others about me, don’t tell anybody about me—what about consistency?)
He breaks into their arguments: “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom!”
What? Why can’t a rich man be saved? Isn’t wealth a sign of God’s blessing? If the wealthy can’t get through the door, who can?
“What is impossible for man is possible for God.”
Peter catches on—or so he thinks. “We did just what you told that man to do—we left everything and followed you?! It wasn’t much, but–”
“Whatever you leave for the sake of the kingdom,” Jesus told him, “will be yours again many times over: house, family, possessions. Your father is rich.”
He turns away and contemplates the road ahead of him. “But you won’t always see it.”
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I have always had questions about this passage. It seems to be the only place where it says Jesus loved someone He did not save. But how do we know the rich young ruler was not saved? It does not say what he did after he left sad. Sometimes it is hard to obey even though we truly want to and is it always wrong to be sad and still do the right thing? Can’t we be sad and still obey cheerfully. Could it be that he thought he was loving until Jesus showed him where he lacked? Could it mean when Jesus says, “what is impossible with man is possible with God” that He changed the rich young rulers heart? I have always thought the lesson here is just that – man cannot save himself by doing good works but God changes our selfish hearts to want to obey Him when He saves us. I can’t help but think that Abraham would have been sad to carry out the command to slay Isaac but would still have cheerfully obeyed God. Could the rich young ruler have left sad because he then realized just how unloving he was and had sorrow over his sin? It does say he was sorrowful. We always assume he left sad because he did not want to part with his riches. Say I inherited my mother’s greatest treasure that was very valuable that I thought I would treasure the rest of my life because it made me happy to have something that was so very special to her – it made me feel so connected to her. Then someone came into my life that had a great financial need and I knew I had to sell the treasure and give them the money. I think I would be sad and happy at the same time – sad to lose my mother’s treasure and happy to have the means to help someone who truly needed it.