In the name of God, Earth Maker, Pain Bearer and Spirit of life.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all record the story of the man who came to Jesus to ask him how to inherit eternal life. All three say he was rich, Matthew says he was young, Matthew says he was young and Luke says he was a ruler, so the story is often called the story of the rich young ruler. Although we don't know his name, we do know some more about him. We know that he was sincere; Mark says he came running to Jesus and knelt at his feet. Here was a man with serious question to ask.
We know he was a good man of faith, for it appears that he had kept the Ten Commandments carefully. And he was confident. He was young, rich and a ruler in Israel - a success by any measure. What was his problem, then, why did he come to Jesus?
The obvious clue is his response to Jesus' answer. When Jesus told him that he could not have both wealth and eternal life he became sad. Mark says, "His countenance fell and he went away sorrowful."
He became sad because Jesus had asked him to change the focus of his life. This talented young man had, by working hard, gathered money and possessions and power and he wanted to possess eternal life as well, almost as if it could be worked for or even bought.
Jesus' answer is that he must give it all away and trust God. "Give away all you have, and follow me." The man was sorrowful because he trusted the power of his wealth so much that he could not choose to trust in the power of God. The disciples asked Jesus, "Who can be saved?" Jesus answered, "What is impossible for mortals is possible for God." Nobody can earn or buy eternal life - eternal life comes as a gift from God.
St Luke was obviously very much impressed by this part of Jesus' teaching. He recorded parables and stories which the other writers did not. In each one Jesus taught that God honours those who are humble and trusting rather than those who are rich and powerful. The Prodigal Son, the Rich man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the story of Zacchaeus - these are examples.
We need to understand that Jesus is not critical of wealth or power - these are not bad things in themselves. Wealth and power only become a problem when we start worshipping them. The rich young ruler could not let go of his wealth and power - they were far too important to him - he worshipped them. He may have kept the commandments quoted by Jesus, but he had broken the first and greatest of all, "You shall have no other gods before me."
It is interesting that Matthew, Mark and Luke all record another question that Jesus was asked, this time by a lawyer. The question, according to Matthew and Mark, was, "What is the greatest commandment of all?" but Luke records that the lawyer asked the same question as the rich young ruler, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life." And Jesus' answer was this, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself."
And this was exactly the problem the rich young ruler had - because of his love for his wealth and power he could not love God whole-heartedly, nor could he love his neighbour - no wonder he went away sorrowfully.
But his predicament should ring warning bells for us. Is it possible that there is something more important to us in our lives than God or the lives of those around us? Maybe not, but it will always be a struggle for us to keep our eyes on God, when there is so much out there to attract our attention. Almost everywhere you go there is advertising - telling us what we must do to have bigger and better cars, or houses, or holidays; telling us how to get fitter bodies or telling us what to wear - billions of dollars is spent on the big advertising agents telling us what to do to get more wealth and power.
I hope that, as Christians, our sights are not set on these things, but the kingdom of God. And God does not employ big advertising agents to attract attention. Instead God uses people to advertise his love, and God wants those people to be as effective as possible in their task. We are those people, we are God's advertisement for how to inherit eternal life, and, for myself, I want to be the best possible advertisement. I hope you do, too.
After church today there will be thirty people from our community filling out a questionnaire for the Natural Church Development Process. It sounds rather business-like and contrived, but in fact what we are trying to do is to see how effective we are in loving God and loving our neighbour. It is one way of saying, as a community of faith, we want to trust God and love God with all that we are and all that we have, and we want to love other people in the same way. The Natural Church Development Process will only work if that is what we believe and want to do. Our church community is something beautiful that God is doing here. Let us pray that we may be willing and eager to work with God, to set aside all that distracts us, and to be true followers of Jesus.