He Went Away Sad

Jesus is setting off down a road when a man comes running after him and drops onto his knees in the dirt. Running was undignified for someone of standing, and this one, as we learn at the end, has a great deal of standing. He could have sent a servant to arrange a meeting, but he came himself, at speed, and knelt in the road. His question is about a price.

Good Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

He wants to know the cost, which is a fair thing to want to know, and he has always been able to meet costs, so nothing in the way he asks suggests he expects this one to come out beyond his reach.

Jesus does not answer, at least not yet. He picks up the compliment instead and asks why the man called him good, since no one is good except God alone. People have argued over that sentence for centuries and we will not settle it here. What we can see is a teacher who will not let a polite word stay polite.

Then he lists commandments the man already knows, the ones about how you treat other people: murder, adultery, theft, false witness, cheating, honoring your father and mother. Most of those come out of the ten. One of them does not. Do not cheat others belongs to a different part of the law, where God forbids holding back the wages of a poor hired worker overnight. Jesus has slid that one into a conversation with a wealthy man without pointing at it.

The man does not hear it. All these I have kept from my youth, he answers, and he seems to mean it. Then Mark writes the line that makes the rest of this so hard to read, which is that Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him:

There is one thing you lack: Go, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.

Not pity, and not exasperation. Everything he asks of the man grows out of the way he is looking at him, including the part that empties the house. And the invitation at the end of it, come and follow me, is what Simon and Andrew heard by the lake and what Levi heard at his tax booth. They got up and went.

He does not. He walks away grieving, and Mark supplies the reason in a handful of words: he had great wealth. The man who came at a run leaves without him, and what sends him away is everything he owns.