There is something rather appealing in the way the rich young man intercepted Jesus as he journeyed to Jerusalem. He greeted the Master with the enthusiasm of a child throwing himself into the outstretched arms of a father returning home after a long day at work. And, like a child, the words came tumbling out of his mouth. "Good Teacher," he exclaimed, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" In his sincerity, the young man knelt when he asked the question.
Jesus was greatly impressed by the young man’s attitude and bearing. He was a person without guile. Unlike some Pharisees and Saduccees whom he had encountered, no sinister motive lurked behind this man’s query. There was no intent to entrap.
Before answering his question directly, Jesus drew from the man an assessment of his own character. He steered their conversation to consideration of the Commandments. Jesus began to recite them. The young man interrupted before he could complete his recitation. "Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth." Here was a truly good man, and Jesus loved him for being so.
I.
Unfortunately, the young man’s goodness was not good enough. It did not qualify him for the kingdom of God. His goodness was seriously flawed by a defect linked to his heart. A friend speaks fondly about a woman whose goodness, in every respect, matches that of the good young man who dashed up to Jesus that day as he was going along the road. Do not kill, the commandment warns. This woman has to take a tranquilizer after swatting a fly. Do not commit adultery. She has been married for thirty years without giving the current male heartthrobs of stage or screen so much as a fleeting thought. Do not steal. Like Abraham Lincoln, she would walk a mile or more to return an extra penny, given mistakenly in change at the store where she shops for groceries. Do not bear false witness. She might gossip a little over the backyard fence - never maliciously - but she would bite her tongue before telling a lie. Do not defraud. She would not think of cheating at tiddly winks. Honor your father and mother. A more considerate daughter could not be found anywhere. In character, she is the rich young man’s identical twin.
But she goes beyond her "twin" in one important respect. She is compassionate and generous. She is the kind of person who would give someone in need the blouse right off her back. That is where she and the rich young man part company. He would have drawn the line at that.
II.
That is why the young man’s goodness was not good enough. His "gold" stood in the way of his goal. It blocked any unselfish impulses which might have moved him to generosity. "Go," Jesus said, "sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." The young man’s face fell. He had not expected such a difficult and uncompromising challenge. The cost of discipleship was too high; so, sorrowfully, he abandoned his quest for the kingdom of God.
Gold, which stands for affluence and abundance of possessions, can interfere with our quest for the kingdom, too. It has the power to make us forget our dependence upon God. It can cause a kind of amnesia that blots out memories of our humble origins, and makes us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. It can transport us to an ivory tower where we live in unreality, out of touch with most of the human race. From that lofty perch we see, from a distance, the plight of the needy, without hearing their cries for help or feeling their pain. It becomes possible to lose our capacity for caring so that our eyes no longer shed tears and our heart no longer bleeds. At that point we are not fit for the kingdom.
Ebenezer Scrooge, that despicable, but somehow lovable, character in Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, found himself in that predicament.* Dickens describes his villain as "a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone ... a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." Even on Christmas Eve, when the holiday was being celebrated in the humblest home of England, Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse, dismal and morose despite his riches, and responding to Christmas greetings with a cynical, "Bah! Humbug!" So hardhearted was he that he dismissed an appeal, by two gentlemen on behalf of the poor and destitute, by stating that he did not celebrate Christmas Day, and could not afford to help idle people celebrate. It would be better, he sneered, that they die, and "decrease the surplus population."
There is nothing to suggest that the young man was as extremely uncaring and unfeeling as Scrooge, at the time he sought from Jesus the secret of eternal life. But the peril of his becoming so was present. In his youth, Scrooge, too, had been a person of high ideals and impeccable conduct. He may even have possessed a warmer heart than the rich young man. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ideals faded, and the tender heart turned to stone as it bowed to the god of gold. It is entirely possible that in his declining years the rich young man did indeed become a first-century Scrooge. But whatever turn the young man’s life may have taken, he missed the marvelous opportunity, given his personality and character, of becoming another Peter or Paul, when he ignored Jesus’ challenge, "Come down from your ivory tower to where I labor with the weak and heavy-laden, that you may rise to eternal life in the kingdom of God."
III.
Goodness is good - it is commendable - but it is single-minded obedience that opens the doors of the kingdom. How refreshing are the examples of those, past and present, who have heard Christ’s call and risen to the challenge.
A young minister approached Jesus, seeking eternal life in the kingdom of God. The Master said to him, "You cannot find eternal life, nor enter the kingdom of my Father without risk and self-denial." Obediently, the young ex-paratrooper with the build of a Paul Bunyan followed Jesus among "the least of these my brethren." Wandering through the streets of a decaying city at night, he met the poor on their own ground. He invaded, without fear, the territories of the street gangs, confronted their tough leaders, and proved that he was tougher; he enticed them into his church building, diverted destructive energies into positive and constructive channels, and somehow managed to communicate the gospel in the process. Then he visited their parents in their dilapidated homes. The contacts sensitized him to their plight in a way that moved him with great compassion for the poor, and drove him to city hall to plead forcefully for justice on their behalf. It could not have been easy for the young minister to leave, at Christ’s command, the safety and relative luxury of his suburban parsonage to venture out into the city streets to share the gospel with the most helpless, desperate, and - in some cases - the most dangerous of people. But such single-minded obedience to Christ’s call is an entrance requirement of the kingdom. That total commitment was missing in the rich young man.
IV.
From what I have said about the rich young man it would appear that he was a hopeless case. Not so. Gold does not have to get in the way. It need not bar the door to the kingdom. Yes, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Yes, those ominous words stunned Jesus’ disciples, who exclaimed, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus’ reply provides a way around the golden idol that threatens to snatch the keys to the kingdom. "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God." Gold doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance against the grace of God.
Ebenezer Scrooge leaves work for his dreary lodgings on Christmas Eve, apparently beyond redemption. But the miserable and lonely old man receives unexpected visitors who change his life. First appears the ghost of his old friend and business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley has an ominous warning for Scrooge. He informs him that one’s spirit must wander sympathetically among humanity, in life, or be condemned to do so after death and witness what one "might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness."
Marley fades from view, and the Ghost of Christmas Past appears to guide Scrooge to the innocent scenes of his childhood and carefree youth. He sees himself in young manhood, and hears his sweetheart bid him farewell with the words, "Another idol has displaced me ... a golden one." Scrooge’s heart, unmoved in that distant time and place, breaks as he views that which is lost to him forever.
The Ghost of Christmas Past yields to the Ghost of Christmas Present, who transports him to the home of his clerk, Bob Crachit. What a wonderful time they are having. Even little Tiny Tim, with his crutches and withered hand, bubbles over with Christmas joy. Scrooge, overpowered with unaccustomed emotion, hangs his head in penitence and grief.
Last of all, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come guides him to a group of business associates discussing a colleague’s death - that of Scrooge - with little sympathy and much disdain. Bob Crachit’s home is revisited, and Scrooge learns that Tiny Tim is residing elsewhere for treatment of his "incurable" condition. Finally, Scrooge stands at a fresh grave. With horror, he sees his name upon the marker, and realizes that the businessmen had been discussing his death. "Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone," he cries. He pleads for a new chance at life, with these familiar, and unforgettable, words: "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
Scrooge awakens and finds it all a dream. He is now a completely changed man, who gladly shares of himself and his substance out of a loving and grateful heart, and becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim, who does not die.
Of course, the rich can be redeemed, yes, even the poor among us who put their trust in riches. That is the problem Jesus is really addressing - loving riches, of being a slave to gold. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. We can be - we must be - delivered from that bondage. In Dickens’ tale, it was by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future that Ebenezer Scrooge was redeemed. Nevertheless, his story is a profoundly religious one. It is a parable of what God, through his Holy Spirit, can do, and does. In love, he comes to the rich person - or the would-be rich person - in that person’s poverty of spirit. He touches the heart and sensitizes the conscience in the manner of Dickens’ Christmas Ghosts: sometimes by transporting us to the scenes of our childhood, when we found far more glee in giving than in receiving; sometimes by taking us aside and making us shamed spectators of our self-serving and shabby actions; sometimes by reminding us of our mortality and the limited time we have to rectify wrongs wrought by our greed.
In such ways he calls us from the seductive "worship of the vain world’s golden store"; opens our hearts, hands, and arms in compassion for our needy neighbors; and draws us to eternal life in the kingdom of God, where the likes of Ebenezer Scrooge and the poor widow, who gave her mite to the temple treasury, rub shoulders on ground that is level before his throne.
Life is short, brothers and sisters. May its brevity be a warning to "number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12); a reminder that the great gain is "godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world" (1 Timothy 6:6, 7); and, an incentive to lay up for ourselves "treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:19, 20).
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:2).
* "Scrooge" is a common synonym for miser. Therefore, the preacher need not limit references to Dickens’ character to Christmastide.