A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on October 17, 2021 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Mark 10:23-31. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to St. Mark, the 10th chapter:
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Mark 10, verse 23 picks up right after last week's reading where the rich young man comes to Jesus and says, Lord, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus looking at him, loved him, and said, Obey the law. And the man said, Lord, all the commandments I have kept from my youth, and Jesus looks at him and says, Then one thing you have left to do, sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me. And the young man goes away sad because he had great possessions.
Today, we find out Jesus continues his teaching to his apostles. He continues this teaching saying how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter into the kingdom of God. We have to admit that in America, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, all of us are more wealthy than any of the apostles gathered here in our text. We are even more wealthy than anything Jesus had. We are probably even more wealthy than the young man in the text. That should frighten us quite a bit because, if we have great wealth, Jesus says it will be difficult for us to enter into the kingdom of God.
Now, this passage has been abused in so many ways. Jesus here is not speaking about the evils of wealth or the evils of possessions. That's not what he's saying at all. Instead, what he's truly saying, if you see what he's teaching here, is wealth so often gets in the way of you following him. After all, what happened to this young man? He goes away sad. I mean, Jesus said, Come follow me. If I were this man, I would have fought Jesus. Why do I have to do that? Where is that in the Law? I would have put up a fight. But the young man goes away, not even bothering to argue, because he loves his wealth more than eternal life.
The end of this man’s story doesn’t happen here; it’s actually a pleasant end, passed down in Church tradition. This young man was named John Mark, and he did go and sell all his possessions. The only thing he left to himself was a small loincloth. He went and followed Jesus, even into the Garden of Gethsemane, where, scared, he ran off, leaving the loincloth behind. However, he would come back and follow after Peter as he went preaching throughout the land, writing down everything Peter said, and putting it all in a book, a book we call the Gospel of St. Mark.
John Mark was affected by the law preached by Jesus that day. He was affected by it and he followed through. Jesus said, Give up your love of your wealth and come and follow me. And John Mark did. Jesus, however does not say that to us today. Jesus is nowhere speaking to any of you saying, Give up everything that you own, sell it, give it to the poor, and come and follow me. He said that to a particular man in a particular instance. But, what Jesus does say to us is that, if we have wealth, it is difficult, and later on says almost impossible, for a person to enter into the kingdom of God. In fact, he says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a person with great possessions to enter the kingdom of heaven.
I don't know about you, but I have enough difficulty getting a thread through the eye of a needle, much less a camel. So imagine that it is impossible to do. You cannot get a camel through the eye of a needle. It just doesn't work. And if we are looking to be saved and we have things that stand between us and the salvation of God, if we have other God's, other idols of our making, then we can not enter the kingdom of God.
And that is a truism. It is again a scary thought because we must be honest. We must hear the word of God and admit readily to ourselves that we have broken each and every single one of the commandments, which truly is a breaking of the first commandment, that you shall have no other gods aside from this one, true God; you can have no other God before him. He will abide no other false god in his presence, but instead will strike them down and their worshipers, sending them to the place prepared for the devil and his angels.
That is terrifying because now Jesus is saying that if this is true for you, if you have a false God, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. We know we know what the law is there to do. It's there to show us what we are to do, what we are not to do. It is there to show us who we are as sinners. And it shows us that, in fact, we are so depraved that no matter how hard we try, we cannot achieve righteousness and righteousness is what is required to go into the kingdom of heaven. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven as a sinner. There is no sin allowed in the presence of God. So what do we do?
Well, we can be like this rich young man and go away sad. We're looking not just at our possessions, but at our desires, at our inclinations, at all of the ways that we live in this world, we can look at all these things and we can go away sad because there's nothing else for us to do. Or like the disciples, we can sit there and wonder at the words of Jesus and question who then can be saved. You have to wonder if the disciples are sitting around at this moment, You know, I've got that fishing business up in Galilee. Is Jesus saying I gotta sell that? You know, my father is a priest and we stand to inherit when he dies a little bit of money. Are we also now excluded from entering the kingdom of God? I mean, we've been following after Jesus for the better part of a year, at least now, are we going to enter the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus says, well, it's easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle than for you to come in.
It's easy for us to jump straight into the Gospel because we all know what the end result is. It is that promise of God, despite your sinfulness: you will enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't jump there yet. Sit in this accusation of the law, sit and wonder how is it that no matter how hard I work, I can't gain the righteousness that I owe to God. What am I supposed to do after all? If you are sitting here as an apostle this day, as Jesus would speak to them, you have not seen the cross. You have not seen the resurrection. You have not seen the Ascension. You have not seen the coming of the spirit on Pentecost, declaring all things and all people clean in Jesus Christ. You sit here dirty and that's enough, because if you can sit there for a moment and say, I am filthy, my works are, before the eyes of God, worse than the most disgusting things that clean up the most disgusting things, right? Those rags, those towels that you use to clean up the dog vomit. My works are worse than that. That's where Jesus needs you first. That's the accusation of the law spitting at you and saying, you are disgusting. The question then is, who then shall be saved? The question then is how Lord, may I be saved? How, Lord, may I enter this kingdom of heaven that you preach about? How, Lord, may I go to the place that you've prepared for me, that you've promised to me?
Jesus says to you, that according to the work and striving of man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. This is another instance of where I love Peter because Peter is an absolute idiot. Peter opens his big fat mouth and shoves that size 14 foot in there and says, Well, Lord, we've left everything behind. We've done exactly what you've asked. And this shows that Peter is a wonderful exerciser of missing the point. The point is not leave it all behind. The point is that God has saved you in Jesus Christ, that God uses the most horrible thing ever concocted to kill somebody to bring you to life. And on top of that, by the very death and resurrection of Jesus, he promises you that whatever it is that you do give up in this world, whether it is land, whether it is family, whether it is friends, whether it is your possessions, whether it is your honor, whether it is your good reputation, whether it is the entire world thinking well of you, he promises, you will gain it back a hundred fold in this life, with persecution, and even more so in the life to come.
When we do give up that which is in the way of us following after Jesus, when we give up the idols of our heart in repentance, when we find the forgiveness of sins, we expect the persecution to come, we expect the world to hate us. Persecution will come for us because we will not look like the world. We steadfastly refuse to bow the knee to what the world demands. Still, no matter what it is that we give up, we gain it back. But we do it through this persecution. Jesus is calling this good. Persecution, the judgment of this world, is a gift from God. You may not see it as a gift, but Jesus calls it a gift. And by faith we trust in this. By faith, we accept this as a promise of Christ, that the persecution that he sends to us is a gift leading us into everlasting life. And there, in that life, is persecution no longer, but only the benefit of God in absolutely everything that we do.
When we give up the idols, the false gods, the things that stand in the way of us looking to the one, true God and his salvation, when we repent of our sins, we find the forgiveness of God, which is better than anything that you could possibly imagine giving up. If you had to walk through the streets of Milwaukee naked and freezing in the middle of the chilliest winter, you can imagine you still have more than anyone else in this world because you have the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
And you have the promise of everlasting life. Peter doesn't get it yet, but he will. When he sees his Jesus standing in that room after the resurrection, and he says, to Thomas, put your hand in my side, put your hand here, touch me and see that I live, Peter begins finally to understand what it is that Jesus has done for him, because Jesus speaks to him and says, Peace be with you. In the death and resurrection of Chris, there is peace. And when we are able then to repent of our sins, there's peace because there we have Jesus, and where Jesus is, there is always peace.
All of the people in this world who put themselves first, all of the people who gain all the wealth of the world and put themselves first, we find them last, not entering the kingdom of God for the gates are closed to them. This is not because they have stuff, wealth, but because they have not Jesus. Again, you can abuse this passage and say, well, be poor. Give it all up. Just follow Jesus. Instead, Jesus isn't saying, get rid of all of your wealth. He's saying don't let the wealth that you have stand in the way of me bringing my peace to you. And that is a marvelous picture because Jesus is speaking that very thing to you today, that you will enter into the kingdom of God, not by your works, which are impossible, but by the work of God, upon the cross, all things are possible, even your salvation. And you have this promise from Jesus Christ this day, and you have this promise forever. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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