Hebrews 4.12-end; Mark 10.17-31
“Why do you call me good?” In the name of the Father…
I want to say something, this morning, about our relationship to goodness, and the way in which we can make even God into an idol.
There are many different kinds of things that we call good in the world. We talk about having a good job or a good friend. We can describe a piece of music or a great work of art as good. Or we might have a favourite pair of shoes or a preferred bottle of whisky that we regard as particularly good. What unites all these different kinds of good things, is that they all involve a relationship of desire. If something is good, I desire it. I seek to experience its goodness for myself in some way.
Now, the Christian tradition has had a very mixed history when it comes to desire. It is quite obvious that human desires can go very badly wrong if not ordered in the right ways. But desire itself has often been regarded as intrinsically wrong in itself. Something that we need to avoid if we can. At its worst, this can manifest itself as an extreme rejection of the world and any goodness that it might contain. In this case, the goods of the world are seen simply as temptations that distract us from God, as if God and the world were in competition for our attention.
This can be one way of reading the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man in today’s gospel. After all, Jesus tells him to sell everything he has, and give the money to the poor, for only then will he be able follow Jesus and inherit the life of the age to come. Are we to conclude that the radical call to discipleship means that we must utterly forsake worldly goods in this way? Well, as ever, context is everything, and in this particular situation, as in many others, Jesus is speaking in riddles, and not without a degree of mischief too.
First, the rich man calls Jesus, “Good Teacher”, to which he gets the response, “Why do you call me good? No one but the one God is good.” Some sceptics have claimed that this is proof that Jesus did not claim to be God. But I think there is a more tongue-in-cheek sense to what is being said here. As if Jesus is saying, with a glint in his eye, “yes, I am good, and do you fully understand what that means?”
Similarly, Jesus then lists off a number of the Ten Commandments, but fails to mention a few key ones? He lists all the commandments that fall under the theme of loving your neighbour, except those about coveting! And, there is no mention of those commandments that concern the love of God and idolatry… can the rich man see what Jesus is playfully trying to imply? It would seem not, because he responds only in order to defend himself. And this is the point where Jesus tells him to sell everything, give to the poor, and follow him. But this is not a straightforward condemnation of desire for worldly goods.
We must always remember that all the goodness that we encounter in the world is a gift from God. The goods of food and drink, relationships and reputation, money and power, all of these are given by God because he is goodness itself, and longs to share his goodness with us. But if we are to truly receive these gifts, then they must always retain their gift-character. That means that they can only truly be enjoyed, as they are shared and given away to others.
Take power, for example. We are often suspicious of powerful people, because of the ways in which we often see power abused. But power in the hands of a just and wise person can be a wonderful blessing, because it can be a gift by which other people are empowered. And so, it is no bad thing to desire such good things, if our desire is for that goodness to be shared and not hoarded.
The problem that the rich young man has is that he is seeking a goodness that he wants to possess purely for himself. This is an acquisitive form of desire that leads to the inequalities of rich and poor that we see in the world. In other words, his desire has become idolatrous. It treats the good things of the world as if they only have reference to him and and his own personal satisfaction. When that kind of desire comes face-to-face with God incarnate the only response it will get is, stop playing that game altogether, give it up.
Jesus says to this man, “Why do you call me good?” In other words, the living Word of God pierces between the spirit and soul of this man, and exposes the intentions of his heart. It is as if he is posing the question, what kind of goodness are you seeking? If your desire for the kingdom is just another form of possessive desire, then you’re looking in the wrong place. What Jesus is offering is not another object for our possessive desire to seek after. Not a good that is in competition with earthly goods, which must be desired above all else. Instead, what it means to follow Jesus is to live with a vision of the world where the structure of our desire is radically transformed.
All too often we can be tempted into turning Jesus into an idol. We might think that to be really committed to him, we must simply shift all of our desires for earthly goods into a desire for Jesus. It’s the kind of attitude you encounter in those presentations of the gospel which emphasise how we can never be fulfilled by the things of this world, because there is a hole in each of our hearts that only God can fill. Money, fame, success – are these not working? Well, why don’t you try Jesus instead. This is to reduce the Lord of all creation into a self-help programme, and it makes the Church’s mission look like a sales pitch.
Yes, of course, we must come to God’s throne of grace, to receive mercy, grace, peace, love and joy. But one of the greatest gifts that God has to offer each one of us is a vision of the world in which we can give up the fantasy that we are the centre of attention. We are liberated from our old patterns of desire, where everything and everyone, including God, is simply a means to our own satisfaction. Where, instead, we desire the hungry to be fed, the poor to be raised up out of poverty, and the last to be first.
In other words, our faith is not about reducing Jesus down to fit our pre-conceived needs. Instead, it is about being drawn out of ourselves, into the mystery of the word made flesh, so that we might be enveloped in the ministry of our great high priest, who has ascended far above the heavens, to hold together all the fractured goodness of this world, and to offer it to his Father for healing.
In this liturgy we participate in this dramatic action, as we offer the good gifts of God’s creation, and share them with one another, so that Christ may dwell in us, and we in him.