Mark 10:17–31
David A. Davis
October 11, 2015

Back in the summer I was standing inside one of the galleries in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City pondering several canvases of Monet’s “Water Lilies.” Two very long canvases hung on opposite walls of the room. The relatively small room was, of course, full of people. Some sitting on benches. Others moving around. Some just standing two or three deep in front of the paintings. I was standing next to Noel Werner, our Director of Music. In something of a stage whisper, with an excitement you would expect from Noel if he were sharing an analysis of a Bach Chorale, Noel shared with me an unsolicited commentary on Monet’s “Water Lilies,” Impressionism, the large number of water lily paintings, and the harsh criticism of Monet in the early years. It was like I rented a set of headphones except they were standing there beside me. I am teasing Noel a bit but I learned quite a lot in those few minutes. Stuff I didn’t know. A few days later I was in a much larger room in the Metropolitan Museum looking at several more “Water Lily” paintings. I picked up a pamphlet that provided background and commentary and smiled a bit since most of what I read Noel had already taught me.

But there was one more tidbit, one takeaway that didn’t come from Noel, one new observation for me about Monet and his “Water Lilies.” In the written material one scholar suggested that Monet transformed how a viewer encounters a painting. The traditional boundaries of canvas and frame and completeness were upended by how the lilies were not always in the center, were redefined by Monet’s focus and perspective. One of his greatest skills was that the paintings didn’t seem to end at the edge. The viewer keeps looking for more. Monet shattered the distinction between observer and canvas. Rather than standing there looking at a framed painting on the wall from a distance, the commentary concluded, one has the sense that the iconic “water lilies” draw you inside the painting, blurring all distinctiveness, until it is just you and the lilies over and over again.

Tradition labels the encounter with Jesus in this morning’s scripture passage as “The Rich Young Ruler.” It is one of those iconic biblical scenes that tags several compelling topics: eternal life, riches, possessions, the poor entering the kingdom of heaven, the eye of the needle, salvation, first and last. This gospel word-painting comes with a kind of ubiquitous familiarity to it. The rich young ruler. For some, from the earliest days of Sunday School. For others, from a college dorm room Bible study. Maybe from a memorable sermon back in the day. Or from your own reading of the gospel. No one ever forgets the rich young ruler. “What must I do to inherit eternal life? I have kept the commandments since my youth. You lack one thing. Sell all that you have and give to the poor. The man went way shocked and sorrowful for he had much. How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It’s easier for camel to to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Who can be saved? For mortals it is impossible but not for God; for God all things are possible.” In the gallery halls of the Bible, Jesus and the rich young ruler, the encounter never goes away. It hangs there in a sort of unrelenting way.

And when you stand there and look at it, Jesus and the rich young ruler, preachers and teachers and scholars and armchair Bible experts come up to you in a stage whisper to offer thoughts on how to make it better, how to make it more palatable, how to ease the awkward tension, how to keep the encounter at a nice, safe, museum-like distance. Wealth and riches — it’s a metaphor for all that keeps us away from God. When you look at that iconic image, the meaning is much more spiritual and much less about all your stuff. Or, it’s exactly about your stuff, sell it all and give it away; as if an extreme, almost unreal literalism solves the challenge of the text. Or, the eye of the needle is a reference to a gate in the city walls. It’s not as much about trying to thread a sewing needle; it’s about a life-size camel just ducking a bit to get through the gate. Whew! That’s better. Or, the man went away shocked and grieving because he had much but the Bible never says whether he followed through or not. There is a tradition of an apocryphal ending that he was sad but he still sold and gave and followed. Or, the rich young man is a singular and unique example of Jesus knowing about the one thing for that one man. Sell and give. That was for him. The one thing for others could be any slew of things when it comes to a relationship with God. Don’t worry about the poor so much as discern Jesus’ one thing for you. And the followers of Jesus stand a few paces back tilting their heads and folding their arms, looking upon the portrait of Jesus and the rich young ruler.

Early this week I was with the peer group of Presbyterian pastors that gets together a few times a year. We were in Denver and on Tuesday we went up into the mountains to the Highlands Presbyterian Camp where we had lunch and spent the afternoon. A young camp staffer gave us a brief orientation and explained some options for the afternoon: a low ropes course, a labyrinth, a nature walk, a few different hikes. She described each hike and labeled one as very difficult, only about an hour, but pretty much straight up from where we were at 8,300 feet to just shy of 9,000. But the view, she said, was unbelievable and worth it. Soon after lunch, seven of us, confident in our hiking shape and ready to enjoy the sunshine and pretty sure she was overstating the difficulty due to our age, set off together to find the that trail. Within a few minutes, someone commented on the difference the altitude makes. After a while, someone, lamenting the lack of switchbacks, said, “Wow, she wasn’t kidding about ‘straight up.’” Then it started to rain. The clouds moved in. As we reached the top exactly an hour later with no view at all due to the weather, and we were drenched in rain and sweat and huffing and puffing. Before anyone exclaimed, “We did it!” or, “Would you look at that,” someone said, “Well, I guess she was right.” She may have been right about the view but we couldn’t see a thing. The reference was to how she was right about it being difficult.

When you find yourself standing there in the Bible’s hallowed halls pondering the rich young ruler and Jesus, someone ought to saddle up alongside of you, nudge you with an elbow, and with eyes all focused on the gospel scene, just say, “You know, it’s really difficult.” That’s all that needs to be said. Instead of offering an explanation, or softening the gospel’s discipleship blow, or trying to alleviate the lingering tension, can we just affirm how hard this is? Jesus and his instruction to the rich young man, his teaching about wealth, and helping the poor, and God’s impossible salvation, and the promise of a kingdom family, and the threat of persecution, and the promise of eternal life, and the first last, and the last first. Jesus on “Go, come, and follow.” Can someone just say, “It’s really difficult”?

If we were really looking at a painting together this morning instead of a text, can you imagine what it might look like, Mark’s version of the painting? Mark is the only one of the three who tells the reader that Jesus loved the man. I wonder what that love looks like on the face of Jesus. After the man tells Jesus that he has kept all these commandments since his youth, Mark writes, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing.’” Jesus loved him. Here in Mark, Jesus loved him. In the Greek it is an “agape” love. It’s not a condescending, have-pity-on-him, “oh, you, young, young man, who thinks you kept the commandments,” a patting-him-on-the-head kind of love. He loved him. It’s not an admiration of his faithfulness in commandment-keeping. Therefore you have earned my respect and my love. It is an agape kind of love. He loved him. As our own Professor Clifton Black puts it, “Jesus looks the man in the eye with love.” He loved him and said, “You lack one thing.”

It’s really difficult. Can somebody just say it? This life of discipleship, figuring out how to live faithfully in the day to day. Trying to live as God intends and as Jesus teaches. Attempting to balance the demands of a life in Christ with the world’s pushback. Yearning to be a doer of the word and not just a hearer only. It’s really difficult. It ought to be difficult. Or to put another way, if there isn’t a growing edge to your faith, a place where the gospel is rubbing against your life, rubbing it raw, maybe you ought to look again. No one ever forgets Jesus and the rich young ruler. “What must I do to inherit eternal life? I have kept the commandments since my youth. You lack one thing. Sell all that you have and give to the poor. The man went way shocked and sorrowful for he had much. How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It’s easier for camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Who can be saved? For mortals it is impossible but not for God; for God all things are possible. The first last and the last first.” Can I get a “My, my, my! That’s really hard!”

Jesus and the rich young ruler. In the mercy and mystery of God, it’s not only difficult, it’s transformative. In all the power of the scripture as a living word, the Living Word of God, there is not only challenge but there is promise. In the mighty movement of God’s grace, the gospel convicts and the gospel saves. In the wonder of the Holy Spirit, God works to erase the distance. The traditional boundaries of text and scripture and the old, old world of the Bible are upended. You just can’t keep standing back and looking. With a divine artistry, the Word draws you in and blurs all the distinctiveness until it is just you and Jesus over and over again. Until it’s Jesus looking you in the eye with love.

There comes a time for all of us in this life of faith to which we have been called, this “Go, come, and follow” life with Jesus, there will come a time when all of us, every single one of us, huffing and puffing and sweating and sighing and clinching and shaking, when you are going to have to say, “Well, I guess he was right.” And his love will never be more powerful, more transformative, more saving, than right then. Exactly then. When you and I know, really know, how difficult this really is.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

II Kings 5:19–27
David A. Davis
October 4, 2015

Before I offer the scripture lesson from the second half of the 5^th chapter of II Kings, let me tell you the story of Naaman one more time. Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram. That’s Syria. As it is told in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament, Naaman was great man and held in the highest esteem by the king. He was a mighty warrior but he suffered from leprosy. The writer of II Kings tells that tt was because of Naaaman that the Lord had given a victory to Aram. It is way too easy for the reader to gloss over that point—that Yahweh would be at work in the military affairs of a foreign country, a country other than Israel. That God would bring about a victory for some OTHER nation.

In one of their conquests, the Arameans captured a young girl from Israel and forced her into the service of Naaman’s wife. The young girl was foreign to Naaman’s land and household. She never has a name in the story. She is little more than OTHER. Knowing how the mighty warrior suffered from leprosy, one day the young girl said, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He could cure him of his leprosy.” Her reference was to Elisha the prophet in Israel. If Naaman could only go and present himself to Elisha. Naaman told his king what the young girl had said and the king sent him off with his permission, telling him he would write a letter to the king of Israel on Naaman’s behalf. Naaman, a man of wealth and power, who could buy or trade or conquer just about anybody or anything, loaded up for the trip with silver and gold and garments. He was expecting to buy his health or at the very least to pay handsomely for the services of the Hebrew prophet.

At this point as the narrative unfolds, the two kings do what kings and leaders and politicians so often do. They thought that this was going to be all about them. Never mentioning Elisha the prophet of God in his letter, the king of Aram writes to the king of Israel that, “I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” The king of Israel was immediately convinced that the foreign king was trying to trick him or embarrass him, asking him to do something that was clearly impossible. He tore his clothes in lament and consternation. “Am I God, to give death or life, that his man, this king, sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy?” The king of Israel was sure that the OTHER king was just looking for a fight.

From somewhere offstage in this brief, self-absorbed, royal drama, Elisha overhears the king of Israel and says, “Why tear your clothes? Let the man come to me so that he may learn there is a prophet in Israel.” The king must have told Naaman the address for Elisha’s house because the mighty military leader—with his whole procession of horses and men and all his stuff—shows up outside Elisha’s door. The prophet, with a remarkable lack of flair and little response to the display outside the house, simply sends a message that instructs Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be made clean. That’s when Naaman hit the roof. “Does he not know who I am” was the gist of his reaction. Naaman screams that he thought at least the prophet would come out and wave his hands and call on the name of his God. The rivers in Damascus are better, cleaner, wider, and deeper than all the waters of Israel! And he turns and stomps off in a rage.

Once again wisdom and calmer heads come from the nameless and the lowly. Naaman’s servants talk some sense into him, saying, “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? So if all he said was, ‘Wash, and be made clean,’ why not do it?” So Naaman headed over the Jordan and dipped himself seven times. According to the word of the man of God, according to Elisha, the prophet’s word, Naaman’s flesh was restored. He was made clean. He had the flesh of a young boy. Like that of a young boy, which of course brings the reader’s mind back to the young girl whose idea the whole thing was in the first place.

Naaman returns to Elisha and affirms the God of Israel as the one true God. He tries to pay Elisha for his services, but Elisha steadfastly refuses. Naaman asks for some dirt from the land of Israel so he can create an appropriate place back in Aram to offer sacrifices to the Lord. But he asks one more favor from the prophet. “If my boss, the king, needs my help to enter the house of Rimmon—as he bows down to the gods of Baal for worship—when I bow down with him because he is after all the king, may the Lord pardon your servant on just this one count, this one little bowing down to a foreign god thing, this little pickle of being a warrior who acknowledges the one God of Israel while still serving a foreign king who worships other gods. And in a rather stunning Old Testament nod to the OTHER, Elisha says “Go in peace.”

II Kings 5:19–27

Gehazi. That’s not a name from the Bible you hear very often. Gehazi. Most likely a name from the Bible you’ve never heard before, period! To be honest, I never paid attention to a the servant named Gehazi until last Monday morning. Gehazi. The servant of Elijah who was convinced that Naaman should have given something for the healing, that Elijah and his household deserved something for all the effort, that at the very least, Elisha should have taken what the foreign soldier offered. Gehazi. The one who set out after the healed and transformed Naaman determined to get something out of him. The one who flat out lied and took advantage of Naaman’s willingness to give. The one who thought he deserved a little something-something. Gehazi, the only named servant in the story. The servant of the man of God who then bears the leper’s mark as the foreign mighty man, a prototypical OTHER, rides away clean and restored. That clinging leprosy here in the last act of the one-chapter drama reads less like some kind of judgment of God and more like an unforgettable Shakespearian-like twist. Gehazi. It’s a name to remember.

Not surprisingly scholars and commentators don’t spend much time with Gehazi either. In his commentary on I and II Kings Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann subtitles this last section of chapter 5 as, “the Infection of Greedy Gehazi.” According to Brueggemann, the mischievous servant’s role in the story offers the faithful a lasting warning about greed and covetousness in the consumer-driven, the one-who-acquires-the-most-wins culture we live in. Another Bible scholar, Terence Fretheim, argues however that the issue at stake in the prophet’s indictment of Gehazi is, “more than deception or greed.” The sin, Fretheim concludes, is a theological one that “endangers the very nature of faith and obscures the gracious work of God.”

The story of Naaman is full of boundary twisting and crossing. Yahweh brings victory to a foreign king. The servant girl from Israel offers the healing word in Naaman’s Aramean house. The prophet Elijah gives a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to Naaman, who knows he will have to bow down to the gods of Baal when he helps the king of Aram into the house of Rimmon. And Naaman, who was a mighty man of valor—but he was a leper, but he was a foreigner—received the healing, restorative, transformative power of God at the word of the prophet of God without any charge, or cost, or gift. It was, as we say in Reformed theological circles, a taste of the unmerited grace of God. And in Fretheim’s view, Gehazi’s action, his sin, was exactly that post-healing demand for a gift that threatened to “obscure the gracious work of God” by offering even a hint that Naaman had to engage in a transaction, offer a gift, pay for the healing and his newfound faith. As a result, Gehazi, the servant in the prophet’s house, receives the curse of leprosy and the OTHER is restored and has faith. The foreigner has become the insider. The one inside ends up as the shunned and unclean other. As Fretheim concludes, “The boundary lines of the community of faith are less clear then the insiders often suggest.”

Last month I was invited to participate on an interfaith panel at a large Hindu conference up in Edison. They said there were 1,000 people there. The panel included a rabbi, a Buddhist priest, a Hindu leader, a Sikh, a Jainist monk, and me representing the entire Christian tradition. After each panelist presented on beliefs or doctrines that can bring us together and that which can drive us further apart, the floor was opened for questions. A young Hindu student came to the microphone and said, “This question is for the rabbi and the pastor. I apologize for being blunt and naming the elephant in the room, but after death, when you are heaven, will you expect to see me there?” I graciously let the rabbi answer first. Rabbi Justus Baird from Auburn Seminary in New York City explained that if there were six rabbis up on stage instead of the interfaith group and the same question were posed, the rabbis would argue amongst themselves, avoid a firm answer, and everyone including them would leave frustrated. Because in the Jewish faith, he said, we’re sort of ambiguous about heaven.

It was my turn to answer. I said that if the panel included six Christian pastors, I was pretty confident that five or even 5.5 of them would look that young man in the face and tell him, no, they would not expect to see him in heaven. And then I told him that that I am more and more convinced that Christians underweigh or even neglect the radical nature of the boundary-shattering nature of what Jesus did in his ministry: his touch, his healing, his hospitality, his embrace, his eating with sinners and tax collectors, his conversation with the Samaritan woman, and on and on. It’s easier to lift a quote from Jesus’ teaching than to be humbled and brought to your knees by how he lived. And I finished by telling the room that I long ago committed to a preaching ministry and a theological understanding that left such decisions about heaven to God and God alone. After all, God’s love and mercy and grace have to be so greater, so much greater, than the doctrines we create and cling to. Or as the professor wrote, “The boundary lines of the community of faith are less clear then the insiders often suggest.” Isn’t that right, Gehazi?

Gehazi. He must represent the person of faith who insists that the love and mercy of God can go no further than the boundaries we create, can never go beyond the doctrine we hold dear, or must always come with the price and expectation we define. Gehazi must be the forebearer of that follower of Jesus who, if she is honest, really does think God’s grace is something you have to earn by your piety or by the formula of your prayer. Or that grandpa in the family who holds so firm to his convictions and believes that even right there in his own family that Jesus must decide to shut the door on some who will never enjoy eternity’s banquet. More truthfully, grandpa sort of decides for Jesus, right? Or those really public Christian voices who so easily accept the mercy of God for themselves and try to withhold it from others. Gehazi. If you will excuse the expression, he is a kind of patron saint for all those who act like and believe that God’s favor is theirs to dole out and theirs to collect on, that they ought to get a little something-something for the effort. For Gehazi, Jesus would be more like a political candidate whose platform agrees with everything he thinks, thus earning his vote, and thereafter Gehazi would expect Jesus to work for him, to please him, to answer to him. Undermining the gospel at every turn. Undermining the gracious work of God.

“People will gather from east and west and north and south and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” Those are the first words of the Table Liturgy on World Communion Sunday. A first thought for you and me every time we come to this Table. And the overwhelming thought for those of us who take the name of Christ, instead of who is here and who is not, who can be here and can not, who is in and who is not, here and at the banquet table in glory—instead of all that, your first thought ought to be, “I can’t believe Jesus invited me to this party!”

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.