Year B Proper 23 Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Psalm 22:1-15 Mark 10:17-31

Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning …

God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me…

Job sits on an ash heap, bereft of children and wealth, covered by painful sores and surrounded by three “friends” who tell him that it’s all his fault. But Job knows that his suffering is not his fault, that he is blameless. Because of this he is not only in physical pain, but in spiritual misery, feeling bereft, not able to find God no matter how hard he searches for Him. Job’s friends put the blame on him because they believe that suffering is always the result of sin, and so they are trying to find some hidden sin in this innocent man to protect themselves from the threat of the chaos that has engulfed him.

How heartless these so-called friends seem, until we realize we too are sometimes guilty of this process – looking for reasons that end up blaming the suffering individual for the misfortune that has befallen them. When we can’t find a sensible explanation, we make up reasons. They built too close to the volcano/flood plain/fault line. They chose the wrong school/neighborhood/friends. We want to assign blame so that we feel that we ourselves are safe from a similar disastrous fate, assuring ourselves that we have made wiser and safer choices and decisions.

Amazingly – despite his suffering, as we learned last week, Job never truly lets go of God, never breaks his covenant with his Creator. In his suffering he speaks to God, and thus holds on to God even in the depths of misery. And in that holding on, something like hope is made possible. Job dwells in the depths of misery, but in the midst of that misery he does not despair. He addresses God; he demands that God answer him; he holds on to God; and in that holding on, a fierce hope is indeed born.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? *

The words from today’s Psalm found their way onto Jesus’ lips as he hung from the cross. And so we ask, did Jesus despair? We know that despair is a total lack of faith in God. Surely Jesus never felt that way, though that is what it sounds like to us, hearing those words today.

Jesus, as we know, was a Jew – and many of the things He is quoted as saying come from Hebrew Scripture. The Jews who stood at the foot of His cross and heard what He said, heard Him quote from Psalm 22, instead of hearing the despair we think we hear, recognized the words from the Psalm used in the todah sacrifice, a Jewish ceremony. How does Psalm 22 end? With a celebration of the todah meal. The afflicted eat and are satisfied, God is praised in the midst of his congregation, and future generations praise God for His deliverance.

Jesus is not despairing—He’s offering the todah sacrifice, which we can see reflected in our service of Holy Communion. We are the afflicted ones who are invited to partake in the todah sacrifice to thank God for delivering us from death and sin. Jesus words do not express despair, but are an offering of Himself, for us, to God.

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus is setting out on the road to Jerusalem, the road to Calvary. Before He can get underway, a young man appears with a burning question. He is a well-mannered, well-educated, and well-off Jewish man. He is sincere, honest, and seemingly above reproach, and Jesus certainly found him likable, for He, who was about to set out on His way to the cross, took the time to speak with this young man.

From what the young man has said, he was looking for an inheritance – not a gift or a payment or an allowance or a reward – but an inheritance. The Greek word quoted by Mark seems to convey exactly what it does to us. Did the man with many possessions see himself as a child of God who was due a birthright like one might expect from a parent? His conversation with Jesus would indicate otherwise, but whatever the case, he wanted Jesus to tell him how to secure the benefits of God’s most fundamental values – and to find the key to a meaningful, contented, and fulfilling life.

But before even beginning to answer the young man’s question, Jesus deals with the reverential term the man has used to address him. “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God.” Is the young man merely trying to flatter Jesus, probably, or does he know to whom he is speaking? We aren’t told. Yet, Jesus goes to the trouble to call attention to the word, to emphasize that no one is truly good except God.

Then our Lord addresses the question He has been asked. Referring to the Ten Commandments, He offers a list of what the man has to do to qualify. But when the man with many possessions testifies to his lifelong practice of following the commandments, Jesus seeks to provoke in him, as he provokes in us, a whole new level of understanding about eternal life in God. With love for him, our Lord said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

When the young man he heard Jesus say this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

This information is shocking indeed, as much to us as to the young man. Jesus doesn’t even say, “Give to your synagogue, or your favourite charity” but “give to the poor”. Imagine being told to take all that makes us feel secure, all those things that we feel are extensions of our personalities, and sell them, and then, without any fanfare or recognition of our generousity, give all our wealth away to the poor. Is Jesus serious? Yes, He is.

To better understand what Jesus is telling us, we need to ask ourselves what our relationship is to everything we own. How much do we depend on our knick knacks, the interior and exterior furnishing of our home, the house itself, our wardrobe, our technology and gadgets, our bank account? In 1929 when the Stock Market crashed, people committed suicide because they had “lost everything”. But what they didn’t seem to notice as they took what belongs to God, their lives, was the most important thing they had lost. They had lost their faith in God. How would respond if we too had “lost everything”? Would we despaired?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is about to set out on the road to Calvary, to suffering and death – and He knows. He knows what is coming. It is an offering and a sacrifice He will make freely. But He takes the time, before leaving, to advise someone young on how to be free of the world, how to belong to God – only to have that young person turn away in disappointment. Are we also disappointed when we hear Jesus’ words? Just how attached are we to earthly things?

It seems ironic that the man with many possessions asked about “inheriting” eternal life. The truth is, he had already inherited it – as a child of God. The God-within-him existed as a part of the created order – because he, like each of us, was created in the image and likeness of God. He had already inherited God’s spirit – he just didn’t know it. Jesus tried to open him to understanding that reality – to instruct him how to break through what blocked him from recognizing the Spirit of God that he only had to put before all else in his life.

The crisis for the man with many possessions was not how much he owned, but that the property owned him, blocking his way to unity with God, and it cautions us to look at how we relate to things of this world, and to take steps to detach ourselves from or reprioritize anything we prize more highly than our Lord.

All of us have been blessed, yes, blessed, by having food and clothes and shelter. Compared to the truly poor in our world, we are wealthy.

But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”

We are, and by our very human nature, attached to worldly things. We cannot imagine being without all the many things that make us feel secure, yet we know we need to let go of this form of security. How can we be saved?

Earlier in our Gospel, Jesus took time to explain to a young man, and to us, that God is good. Now, we, who are so very wealthy, wait for what Jesus will say next.

Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

God is good, which means we need never despair. Instead we must desire God above all worldly things. Like Job we must always keep the lines of communication open in prayer. Like Jesus, we are called to offer up our suffering. Then, the source of all Love will help us to set our priorities straight. We cannot become holy people without God’s help, but with God’s help, the Kingdom of Heaven is ours.

Let us pray:

Lord God, You know our weakness and failings, and our attachments to worldly things. You know that without Your help we can accomplish nothing good for ourselves or for others. Grant us therefore the help of Your grace. Enable us to seek You first, to do Your will set before us in the daily routine of our lives, and to let nothing stand between us and You, that we may follow You all our days. In Jesus’ Name – Amen.