One of my favorite professors during the three years I spent at Concordia Theological Seminary was Dr. Naomichi Masaki. Dr. Masaki was born in Japan, the son of a Lutheran pastor and seminary instructor. He is proficient in something like six languages – and English is sometimes difficult for him to pronounce. So when he’s going to say something, he often pauses for a few seconds to make sure that what we hear him say is actually what he wants us to hear.
His style of teaching might strike you as being somewhat unusual, but it’s incredibly effective. Often when a student asks a question, Dr. Masaki will break into a smile and respond with just two words: “Wrong question.” He’s a very gentle and kindly man, so you’re never upset when he tells you that you’ve asked the wrong question – because after seeing him in action, you know what he’s going to do next. At this point he carefully leads the entire class through a discussion to understand why the question is wrong. By the time he’s done, the person who asked the wrong question is ready to ask the right question. And everyone in the class has a far better understanding of the topic we’ve studying.
In today’s Gospel lesson, a man approaches Jesus and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It seems like a pretty simple question, doesn’t it? But as we quickly learn, it’s the wrong question.
At first glance, the young man of our Gospel lesson would seem to have everything going for him. Matthew, Mark and Luke all write of this event, and from their collective accounts we learn that he is young – he is a ruler in the synagogue – and he is rich. He sounds like an outstanding young man, a pillar of the community, a pious leader of his congregation, someone of high moral character, and the type of son who would make any parent proud.
So he approaches our Lord and shows great respect by kneeling before Jesus. His question is carefully phrased, and his first words again show respect for Jesus by calling him “Good Teacher.” And then this simple question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life.”
Wrong question! Wrong in a lot of ways. Wrong in his thinking. Wrong in his understanding. Wrong in his flawed, imperfect and incorrect concept of who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing.
We notice that Jesus responds to the rich young man’s question by asking him a question: “Why do you call me good?” Now it’s possible and even likely that the young man was simply showing respect. People often referred to Jesus by the title “teacher,” so adding the adjective “good” may just be the young man’s way of saying that he admires Jesus for His wisdom and His knowledge.
In our world, the word good means about the same as OK. Good is better than bad or mediocre, but it’s not in the same league with excellent or outstanding or even tremendous. When we were in grade school we learned the three comparative forms of good – good, better and best – but good is at the bottom of the heap. But in the original Greek, the word good refers to a fine moral character or value – providing superior benefit – pertaining to a high status – intrinsically good – the ideal.
When Jesus tells the young man that “No one is good except God alone,” he’s saying that the word good correctly applies only to God – and to no one else. When he used the word good to describe Jesus, the young man unwittingly confessed that Jesus is God. He was right, of course – but he didn’t realize it.
But still, he has asked Jesus the wrong question. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The rich young man has been very careful in his choice of words, but here he slips up. By definition, an inheritance is receiving something that has been earned or paid for by someone else. Usually when someone inherits something they receive money or possessions or land from a relative who has died. Sure, you occasionally hear stories of someone who’s been cut out of a will, but you just don’t do something to get included in a will. You don’t earn it. It is given to you. Your inheritance depends entirely on the generosity and the love of the one who bequeaths that inheritance to you.
When the rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, his wrong question is based on the wrong assumption that he has to take to initiative, he has to take action, he has to do something to please God. As far as he’s concerned, he’s already pleasing God by pious and faithful lifestyle. When Jesus reminds him of the commandments, he responds that he’s been doing a really good job of keeping all of them since the days of his youth. But remember that the word good applies only to God. He may have thought that he kept all of the commandments, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Years later St. Paul would write in his letter to the Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” because Paul knew – as we know – that we can never be perfect. We can never be sinless. We can never fulfill the Law perfectly as God demands that it be fulfilled. In fact, in all of history, only one man was able to meet every requirement of the Law in every respect for every minute and every day of his life. That man was the Good Teacher who spoke to the rich young man – Jesus Christ.
In verse 21 Jesus tells the rich young man: “Go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” For 2,000 years people have been asking, “Does this mean that I have to sell everything I have and give it to the poor?” Once again – wrong question.
Jesus recognizes that the bottom-line reason why this man is asking the wrong question is that not only was he focusing on his deeds – what he had done – but he also focusing on his riches and all of the things that he had. The First Commandment says that we shall have no other gods, and Luther explains the commandment by saying that we should fear, love and trust in God above all things, but that wasn’t what this man was doing. Jesus wants him to understand that he lacks one thing – a living, breathing faith in God where God comes first. The commandments that Jesus had quoted can be summed up with the command to love your neighbor as yourself, but this man was so focused on his riches that he put himself before everyone else and before God. By bragging about his good deeds and his good life, he was putting himself on an equal footing with the only one who truly is good, God Himself.
By selling all he had and giving it to the poor, he would realize that God is more important than all of the things he and and all of the things he did. And that’s true for us, too. It may not be money, but it’s really easy to make other things more important than God. And no matter what those other things are, Jesus tells us to get rid of them. God comes first – and until we realize that, we lack the one thing that does lead to eternal life. We lack faith. We lack Jesus.
Of all the people who came to Jesus during the years of his ministry, this rich young man is one of the very few who came away from Jesus worse than when he came to Him. Throughout the Gospels we read of people who came to Jesus with their illnesses and their troubled hearts and their sins – and came away from him with their illnesses healed, their hearts put at ease, their sins forgiven. But this rich young man came to Jesus seeking eternal life – and ultimately rejected it. He asked Jesus the wrong question – but even after Jesus showed him how to ask the right question, he walked away. As Mark writes, “Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
When we read our Gospel lesson, you almost want to scream at this young man, to grab him by the shoulders and tell him that he’s asking the wrong question! Don’t ask Jesus what you can do to inherit eternal life! Ask Jesus what He has done to give us eternal life. He has paid the price. He suffered on the cross. He died for our sins. He rose from the dead. He gives us the gift of life, pure and simple. We do nothing – He has done it all. He even sends His Holy Spirit to bring us to faith so that we and all believers can and do and will receive this inheritance.
Jesus didn’t want the rich young man to leave on this note. Mark writes that when Jesus looked at him he loved him. Jesus loved him because He wanted the young man to put God first, to make God more important than all of his earthly possessions and accomplishments. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give up the money. He couldn’t give up the power. He couldn’t give up the glory. He couldn’t do it – even for the sake of eternal life.
“Good teacher,” the rich young man asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It was the wrong question. Jesus lovingly tried to guide him to asking the right question: “What has Jesus done to give me eternal life?” That’s the right question. That’s the question he should have asked. By the grace of God, that’s the question that each of us needs to ask every day. Because the answer is oh, so simple. Jesus died for our sins. And that’s the only answer to the only question that we ever need.
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