The relationship between Christian obedience and material prosperity is broadly discussed in modern American Christianity. Certain prominent "evangelical" preachers have made a considerable windfall for themselves by telling people what they want to hear—that if they follow some sort of financial formula based upon "spiritual principles"--they will prosper financially. But the story of the rich man found in our reading for today directly challenges this "prosperity gospel." And at the same time it calls those who hear the call to follow Jesus to renounce earthly dependencies—including wealth—and live a life of "evangelical poverty."
St. Mark tells us that "as [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'" (10:17). As is so often the case in the gospels, we are not supplied with much background about this man. When Matthew tells the story, he informs us that Jesus' questioner is "young" as well as rich (Matt. 19:16-22). He is a nice Jewish lad who comes to Jesus the Great Rabbi, the New Moses, to seek advice as to how to live a life of perfect obedience to the Law. His youthfulness is central to the meaning of Matthew's story.
In Mark's gospel, however, we are not told anything about his age, except that it is implied by the words "from my youth" (v. 20) that he is no longer young. We have the sense that he is a mature man who is disillusioned by the search for certainty, and this gives his inquiry greater urgency. He chases Jesus down—in Mark's gospel Jesus is always in a hurry—and when he catches him, he presses upon him a life or death question: "Good Teacher, what must I do . . . ?"
Typically Jesus rejects any hint of flattery; "Why do you call me good?" he asks. This rebuff does not imply that Jesus has any particular awareness of his own sinfulness; at the end of Mark's Gospel Jesus is acknowledged as the sinless Son of God (15:39). Certainly from the Jewish point of view absolute goodness adheres to God alone (see Psalm 100:5), and it is an impiety to ascribe it elsewhere. But the real point of Jesus' negative response is to establish that the whole human pursuit of goodness is futile. St. Mark shares with St. Paul a firm conviction that human beings are helpless in the power of sin (see Romans 7:18), and the evangelist uses the story of the rich man to insist that what he seeks—eternal life—is not available through obedience, no matter how rigorous. Moral perfection is not even an option for human beings. Even if we were obedient to the Law of Moses in all its detail, we would still lack that which is most crucial for our salvation—renunciation of all that is worldly and acceptance of God's gift of grace on God's terms—by naked faith and blind trust.
This is not Matthew's way of telling the story, but there is a basic difference between the theologies of Matthew and Mark. Matthew's is a gospel of obedience—for him discipleship means obedience to the Spirit of Jesus, the Living Teacher of the Church. On the other hand, Mark's is a gospel of faith. His focus is trust, and he is largely indifferent to the Law of Moses and its commands, which Matthew affirms and upholds (Matthew 5:17-20).
So in Matthew when the "rich young man" asks what he still lacks in his search for perfection, Jesus gives him prescription for a more rigorous obedience that goes beyond the Law of Moses (Matthew 19:21). In Mark we are told that Jesus "looking at him, loved him" (10:21), and so he gives him an honest answer--there is nothing you can do that will save you. Righteousness is humanly impossible. Only faith, expressed in the rejection of all earthly dependencies, opens the door to eternal life—the life that alone deserves the name of life. And faith is exactly what the rich man in the story lacks, and cannot gain; he is "shocked" and goes "away grieving," still trusting ultimately in his "many possessions." The disciples are likewise "perplexed" by Jesus' answer.
Jews of Jesus' time—and many contemporary Christians—regard wealth as sign of God's approval—seal of divine approval. The Old Testament stories of Abraham and Job are often mustered in support this belief, which went unchallenged in Jesus' time. But this is yet another way in which the Christian Gospel turned the world up-side-down. Jesus taught that wealth makes those who possess it self-sufficient, and is therefore a danger to our relationship to God and a barrier to grace, rather than a by-product of righteousness. And inequality, far from being an expression of God's will, is a sign of sin and yet another symptom of creation gone tragically haywire.
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