Why would Jesus not welcome this potential recruit with open arms? He is eager, virtuous and rich enough to fund Jesus’ fragile movement. Wouldn’t you want him in your church? But Jesus sees through him. He is keen to be ‘good’, and so obtain eternal life. But only God is good. The very thought that he can ‘do’ anything to obtain eternal life is a joke.

Jesus’ response to this man could seem harsh were it not for one short sentence: ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him’ (v 21). Is it really loving to demand so much of him? When my daughter was going travelling, she asked me to check her rucksack. As I set aside item after item, she cried, ‘Dad, I can’t do without that!’ On her return, she said she wished I’d been even more ruthless! ‘I had so many things I didn’t need. They just weighed me down.’  

The disciples may not have been as virtuous as this man, but they had ‘left everything’ to follow Jesus. They left their families but gained a new family; they left fields, but had become more fruitful (with persecution thrown in). Jesus still looks for more than respect and zealous attempts to lead a good life. He’s all or nothing.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise; / thou mine inheritance now and always. / Thou and thou only, the first in my heart, / Ruler of heaven, my treasure thou art.’¹

We have just read that we can only enter God’s kingdom as people without wealth or status, as people acknowledging that we are dependent entirely upon the Father. Now Mark inserts immediately the account of a young man whose identity was completely bound up in his own status and wealth. Here was a good person, someone who had spent his whole life earnestly striving to follow God in the only way his culture taught him, by sincere adherence to the Law. Jesus ‘looked at him and loved him’ (v 21), showing that he believed him, accepting the genuineness of his devotion. However, this young man’s wealth and status stood between him and true discipleship. He turned away from Jesus and, in so doing, oriented himself yet again to the values which would finally fail him. I have often wondered if he later found God through Jesus, as so many did, and turned from all that held him back. 

Those of us who think we are not important or wealthy must not dismiss this story, falling into the grave error of thinking it does not concern us. We are all called to radical sacrifice. We can all be held back from true discipleship by those things which matter too much to us: work, leisure, reputation, community activities, academic prestige, job promotion, prized possessions, consumer goods. Not all of us are called to relinquish all these things, but we must surrender whatever stands between us and following Jesus. We must never forget that the whole point of this story was finding the path to eternal life. As Jesus said at another time, there is no value or merit in gaining all the world has to offer and, in the process, losing all that finally matters.²

Jesus, Lord of all that I am and own, I yield it all to you. May nothing of myself stop me from following you on the path to eternal life.

¹ Gaelic 8th century, tr ME Byrne, versified EH Hull, ‘Be thou my vision’  ² Mark 8:36