The Dilemma of the Rich Young Ruler pt.1

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:21-22)

I have read many scriptures that trouble me, that "mow me down" to paraphrase my pastors words. But out of all of them, this one ranks near the top. The account of the rich young ruler is my thorn in the flesh. It is one that shakes all of my experiential and doctrinal assurances and causes me to question everything I know to be true about salvation. Why this passage? Because it documents one of the very few cases of a sincere fellow who came to the source of eternal life and was not qualified to enter. Shouldn't that trouble me? Shouldn't that trouble anyone? Indeed, those who were first to witness the event cried out (and you can sense their stammering despair)," Who then can be saved?". Long have I wrestled with Christ on this count, and to date I have gleaned more questions than answers. What follows are a few of my questions and reflections.

Christ told the rich young ruler bluntly: "One thing you lack." Is it thus true that we must meet specific requirements in order to be accepted of Christ? How then do we understand that "he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. (Titus 3:5)" ?Since this is so, how was it that the rich young ruler was required to undergo the righteous act of selling everything he had and giving to the poor to be acceptable to Christ? If someone tells me that it was rather a test of where the rulers heart was, might I ask how godly our hearts must be in order to be accepted? Since when did our hearts have to be in the right place in order to find salvation (Mt. 9:12-13)? If someone tells me that these requirements were to be met by him after he was saved by grace, I might point out that the ruler was given this requirement in response to his question: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?". I might also point out that rather than being given grace and then directed to the requirements, he walked away without eternal life.

Hermeneutical Hypocrisy

I am guilty of it; the selective ear that opens up all conduits for hearing the promises of God, the heart that savagely fights to defend the clear comforts of the Word, the mind that denies all reason to continue magnifying God in seasons of darkness. The selective ear that stems from a selective faith, the faith that avoids examining the side of God's wrath, the talk of Hell, the clear judgments of God throughout the whole counsel of scripture, the warnings, the threats and the decrees that knock all of our chateaus of peace and safety to the ground.

In a bout of temptation when the flesh and the foe entangle me with despair, I desperately quote psalm 121: "He will not let your foot slip, He who watches over you will not slumber!" And if the enemy calls into question the applicability of this promise, I defiantly boast," This is the eternal Word of God! Away with your historical-critical method! God didn't give us a stone age Sword that has become dull with time." I rush to defend the most antiquated of scriptures, the most hidden and forgotten portions of the text if they offer some shred of support or comfort. But if the text should say,"On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot" I am all to ready to start carbon dating the psalm and placing it amongst an assorted pile of things not-eternal and no longer applicable. Historical-critical method can really be just an intellectually swank way of avoiding the dire reality of God's anger. "Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel! (Isaiah 30:10-11)"

Why is it also that the blessed comforts of scriptures can be read and understood without commentary but the threats and warnings become "difficult passages", obscure, unclear, in need of a volume or two of patchwork and cover-up? Are we trying to push God out of the Bible? Jesus offers an apt diagnosis of the problem: "Why is my language unclear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your fathers desire. (John 8:43-44)"

Who will avoid this piercing word? I suspect that those who feel comfortable, out of the way of this statement have merely bought into the lie of self-righteousness. Hermeneutical hypocrisy, as in all forms of wickedness, comes from us because we belong to our father, the devil. It is hear that we must step up to the gospel once more and believe on Christ. He alone can heal us.

The triumph of hope.

"From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death; I have suffered your terrors and am in despair." -Psalm 88

This quotation is extracted from the only psalm in the Bible that concludes with not a shred of spoken hope. In it we find the zeal and faithfulness of a man who devoted himself to God, received no answers in return and spent his youth in darkness. If we probe the depths of the psalm we discover a lostness that goes far deeper than the grain of todays narcissistic 'emo' pop culture. This is the lostness of a wise man, a man of God, who contends with the forces of God's wrath, the encompassing of death, hatred among friends and the final prospect of damnation to the cold and black realm of Sheol and Abbadon. Note that his string of prayers and supplications throughout the psalm avail him no answer or change in situation; and from his position God will never answer.

Naturally this psalm offers us great encouragement. Note that though this man never received his answer from God, God took note of him enough to have his name (recorded as Heman the Ezrahite) and his prayer included in the canon to be remembered forever. God remembered him. Secondly, as the church affirms the inspiredness of the Psalter, it is worth noting that God's very Spirit breathed life into these words and made them the Word. This argues a closeness and intimacy that Heman may not have realized. Finally, we must conclude that as our lives draw near to the fires of Hell, as God's wrath lies forcefully on us and our prayers avail nothing...they avail everything. The hope and promise of God's grace, according to this psalm is completely independant of our experience and our life. We, like William Cowper the hymnist, can spend the length of our days in utter despair and never recover...and God remembers us. God records our name and our prayer, listing us as those who fear Him (Malachi 3:16).

"They will be mine," says the Lord Almighty,"in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." (Malachi 3:17-18)

A short eulogy for professor John Mcrae.

I do believe God was eternally impacted by our prayers, pleas and petitions, and yet we must

relinquish ourselves to the wise and perfect will of our Father. I hope we can find joy and comfort in how much more awesome God's plan is that He called John home....perhaps many will be sanctified and saved to the glory of Christ and the utter delight of John.Since John and I were both avid dilletantes in philosophy, I was jokingly able to tell him in the hospital," Looks like you are in for an ontological promotion John." He chuckled and mulled over the comment before saying," either way you are right."

I had a dream this morning that he was trucking into the Galatians class full of vigor and life. He was healthy and sharp, full of his unusual wit and candor. When we asked him about pancreatic cancer, he looked annoyed, baffled and professional all at once, as if cancer was merely an aggravating mathematical equation that he had to work through. Then he went on to tell his bizarre and hilarious stories, as he would always do for five minutes before circling back to some profound point he wanted to make.

In many ways this dream signifies his, mine and God's indignation that cancer should by any means rob John of of life. I do believe, without a speck of sentimentality, that John can still say-now more than ever- with a straight face and furrowed brow, one arm waving in the air and the other rubbing his buzz cut," I have been crucified with Christ! And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me!"

A Sonnet For Good Friday

Much is made of the strength that erects,
artifices of bronze and iron and steel,
amidst steadfast citadels we scarce can feel,
or contemplate, but only assign great defect,
to hands that absorb the iron we perfect,
hands that caress wood over zeal,
wooden, leaning tower and shame to seal,
a contract left for the grave and the earth to direct,
a few deluded whores and fishermen to mourn,
a contract made on forgotten stakes,
beneficiaries of ointment and worms,
just flames licking the subject of criminal scorn,
Who would assume such weakness makes,
The redemption of man on immutable terms?

The oddity of the way of Christ.

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." -Colossians 1:16

Such has indeed been the creedal confession of the church from the 1st century onwards: that the Christ we serve is also before all things, and responsible for all things. But let that doctrinal truth sink into the pores of the intellect for awhile.... brood on it, and then examine the way of discipleship this self-same Lord and King calls us to. Examine, for instance the British Columbian horizon; buttressed with the natural fortification of the coastal mountain range. Every morning these mountains are flecked with rich colors of pink , blue or dark green by the presence of the rising sun. Dew once more settles across every square foot of every couloir, penetrating the top layer of soil and stone that can bundle over the crust of the earth for square miles at a time. Thick stratocumulus clouds drape over the peaks and curl their way down over the treeline in a hidden dance, an aromatic artwork of fragrance and colors, wetness and life and silence. The floors of such lively slopes are blanketed each day by a fresh supply of citrusy needles, cones and leaves. Higher up, alpine meadows flourish with every sort of wildflower displaying their beauty for a hidden audience; honey bees never lacking in nectar. The ptarmigans cluck and preen their greyish mantle in a thick copse of bush and alderwood. Strawberries, blueberries and salmonberries glisten in the morning sun. The waxing of eloquence over one mountain scene could go on perpetually. There is no end to the richness of this daily vista, which we as Christians dutifully wind up in our profession of faith in "one Lord Jesus...by whom all things were made... (from the Nicene creed)." It is humbling, awesome and faith-stirring to ascribe all of this glory to the humble man of Nazareth. But far more baffling is the simultaneous call we hear from our Lord's lips even as He goes about His mighty work of sustaining the universe: "...any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple (Lk.14:33)" or "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God (Lk.6:20).

In Christ we are buffeted on every side by suffering, persecution, fears from within. We partake of His sufferings, His crucifixion. We battle long bouts of temptation, the weight of the world, sorrow, an enemy who in all seriousness wishes to damn us. The cost of discipleship overwhelms us because it demands all of us. This odd tension between crucifixion and glory would make little sense to me unless the history of the world ended in the resurrection. In the meantime, the treasures of the earth and the fullness thereof seem (if not doctrinally, experientially) off limits until the sons of God should be revealed. Not that we do not have access to every good thing, but that every good thing stands in the midst of a battle for the salvation of of the human soul. No soldier climbs out of the trench to exploit a fruit tree standing near by... not when bullets whizz overhead! Do we not experience similar things in our Christian life?

On Prayer

My uncle and Aunt have been without a job and proper finances for years now. They live in the suburbs of a major South African city, where unemployment holds little promise. A month back my grandparents joined me here in British Columbia and we carried on the work of persistently asking God's hand of favor over our relatives. In two short spurts, quite out of nowhere they landed on a spacious home and property on a hill for ridiculously low pricing, and my uncle got a job under Sun Microsystems as territory manager for West Africa. This all simultaneously with the increased weight of our corporate prayer. This brilliant blessing on behalf of our loving Father has caused me to ask a few questions on prayer.

1. How often have I lacked good things because I failed to ask of God?

2. If Jesus has secured Lordship over the universe and bids us approach with requests, why are my requests of meagre proportion?

3. How often has God said no to my requests, not because I lacked faith or because they were evil, but because I did not ask often?

4. When Esther approached King Xerxes, he looked on her with favor and said," What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you." If a pagan king could make such pledges-presumptuous or no- to his bride, is it not logical that the Lord of Truth could make much more to His?

5. If God has been busy tending to a storm the size of three earths for three hundred years on Jupiter, does He lack power or attention to handle the requests of one of his children?

Merely some thoughts to ponder.