Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

Mark 10:23

Mark 10 tells two seemingly unrelated back-to-back stories. In the first, Jesus’ disciples try to keep children from bothering the Teacher. Jesus rebukes them and welcomes and blesses the children. In the second, a rich young man comes to Jesus and inquires about the requirements for having eternal life. Jesus lets him walk away despondent after telling him he has to give up his wealth. What links the two stories is entrance requirements for the kingdom of heaven.

In the first, Jesus tells his disciples that no one can enter the kingdom of heaven without receiving it as a child. In the second, he tells his disciples that wealth hinders the rich from entering the kingdom.

What is it about children that makes them model candidates for the kingdom of heaven? What is it about wealth that proves such a hindrance to the rich?

Jesus tells his disciples that dependence is crucial to entering the kingdom of heaven. He demonstrated that same dependence himself throughout his life, rising early in the morning to pray and telling those who questioned his authority that he only did what he saw his Father doing¹John 5:19. and said what his Father told him to say.²John 8:28. Jesus’ dependence made him an enigma to his contemporaries. When his disciples told him, “Everyone is looking for you,” his response was, “Let’s go somewhere else.”³Mark 1:35-38. And when his brothers urged him to go to a feast in Jerusalem and declare himself openly, he told them he wasn’t going and then went incognito a little later.⁴John 7:1-11 He was always listening for direction from his Father.

Entering the kingdom of heaven, a place where God’s loving rule holds sway, requires that kind of dependence, a continuing posture of listening and learning, hearing and obeying, waiting and serving. It goes against our natural tendency to assert ourselves, insist on our rights, and demand respect. Entering the kingdom requires humility, a recognition that we still have a lot to learn no matter how advanced we think we are and that we could still be wrong, no matter how right we think we are.

The trouble with wealth—what makes it a curse from heaven’s perspective—is that it makes us independent. The rich make their own decisions; have freedom, safety, and comfort because of their wealth; and go through life privileged and respected just because they have money. Jesus tells the rich young man to give up his wealth, his independence, in order to have true riches in heaven. He needs to become dependent again, like a child, and become a student learning from his teacher. The man was sad because he couldn’t do it. He could not sacrifice his (illusory) independence and security even to gain eternal life.

Like the fool in Jesus’ parable, who wanted to build bigger warehouses to store all his stuff, he could not see that all his wealth was useless for saving his own life, that wealth stored in barns or high-security vaults is pointless. Unless money is being distributed to those in need, what good is it? Give it away, and follow Jesus.

Footnotes

• 1
  John 5:19.
• 2
  John 8:28.
• 3
  Mark 1:35-38.
• 4
  John 7:1-11