Matthew 19:16–22, Mark 10:17–22, and Luke 18:18–23
The New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell the story of “the rich, young ruler.” All three precede this story with a story of Jesus blessing the little children. In Matthew, the rich, young ruler story is followed by the story with the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
So why do I mention preceding and following stories? When reading the Bible, it is always worth paying attention to what happens before and after the text we are focusing on, because the entire book was intended to be read in one sitting, so the context of even seemingly separate stories matters. The gospel writers often put stories together to help explain each other.
The view of children in our culture today is very different than it has been for most of history. While we don’t have time to fully unpack this story, a primary concept to remember is that children would be viewed as low status. The story is shocking because the common understanding would be that children would not be worth Jesus’ time. The point of the story is not that we need to value children, but an emphasis that Jesus valued everyone, even those of low worldly status.
On the other side of the story, we have a story about workers and their wages. A vineyard owner goes to the marketplace and hires workers to work in his vineyard for the day and they agree on the price of a denarius for the day (a standard day’s wages). Every couple of hours, the vineyard owner goes back to the marketplace and finds more workers standing around, who he hires to go work in his vineyard for the remainder of the day on the agreement that he will pay them “whatever is fair.” The last workers are hired with only a few hours left in the day. At the end of the day, he lines them all up and starts with the workers hired last and pays them all a denarius. When he gets to the first workers hired, they are expecting more, but he pays them a denarius, as they had agreed. They, of course, were indignant. The Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t sound very fair, does it?
It is between these stories about status, work, wages and fairness that we encounter a rich young man. Here is the text as it appears in Luke:
18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
28 Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.” [1]
There are a few things that stand out when we put the exchange between Jesus and the rich, young ruler in its full context. Jesus gave his time, which is the ultimate demonstration of respect and value, to children of low status. When he was then approached by someone of high status, he states that his status is actually a hinderance to his ability to enter the kingdom of God! This shocks those listening and they respond, “if he can’t be saved, how can anyone be saved!?!”
This is where Jesus brings the point home, it is not possible for anyone to earn their salvation. But, with God it is possible to enter the kingdom of God.
Matthew gives us an added emphasis on this story by following it with the story of the vineyard owner and the wages to the workers. It is natural for the vineyard story to rub us the wrong way. It goes against our capitalist frameworks and our idea of what is fair. The kingdom of God is not about what is fair, it is about God’s abundant grace.
We don’t earn eternal life, we inherit it. Earning is contractual, inheriting is relational. You earn because of what you have done, you inherit because of who you are.
Paul tells us in Romans 8 that through Christ Jesus we are set free from sin and death and are adopted as children of God.
Our wealth provides comfort and safety in our present life, but it is important to remember that it does nothing for us in eternity. Jesus boldly declares that the economy of our world is not the economy of heaven. While there are many positive statements about wealth throughout scripture, it is important to recognize what wealth cannot do for us. We cannot buy with our money, earn with our good deeds, or achieve through our status entrance into the kingdom of God. We can only receive eternity as an inheritance, a free gift, from God our father because of his great love for us.
[1] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Lk 18:18–30.
