That One Thing – Kerri Lynn
(Taken from Matthew 19:16-22)
I sit in Jesus’s shadow, hugging my knees to my chest as I watch him, feeling defensive, feeling like maybe I don’t know this cool-eyed person as much as I thought I did. I came to this story to rub shoulders with the crowd but I can’t do that today – instead my eyes are stuck to him. These stories always ask me a question with two parts.
What do I know of myself? What do I know of him?
Some days the answer is immediate, but other days, like today, I’m not sure the answer will come at all. The sun reinforces my uncertainty – sitting in the sky like a hard, shiny diamond – casting these deep shadows – making colors disappear into black and white – baking the ground into something hard and unyielding. Taunting the air with mirages, false promises of things that aren’t there. It’s like even the land knows what kind of accusations are ringing in my head.
Jesus is talking to a young, rich ruler. And it’s not a comfortable or even very friendly conversation. At all.
I flick my eyes over the young ruler and flinch. He’s just like me. The example. The good one. I can see the rules all over him like an expensive, itchy, ill fitting suit – it makes me claustrophobic just thinking of it against my skin. I fight the urge to leave. He doesn’t even know how much the whole transactional system has screwed with his head, how hypocritical he’s become in his chase of perfection – saying one thing while he secretly, and mostly unknowingly, believes something else.
Jesus is treating the kid like he’s a stranger – he doesn’t do that except when he’s mad at legalism, when he’s staring at a wall built between him and something he loves – my heart is yelling at me that something’s not right with this picture – that he’s not supposed to be like this. So what am I misunderstanding? Me, or him, or the kid? Maybe today it’s all three.
This ruler follows all the Jewish rules. All. Of. Them. He keeps a meticulous list in his head, always aware of where the pitfalls are. He holds control over his mind and body in a tight, clenched fist. And he wants Jesus to see it. To see how good he really is. To see all the work he’s done to get here. How much he deserves to be a ruler. To be let in on Jesus’s inner circle. He’s here partly to brag, and secretly to beg. It’s the same hypocrisy I grew up in. Acting out of memorization and principle while hiding my secret fault lines. Desperately wishing someone could see my worth anyway. Thinking I could claw my way into heaven through sheer self will. He wants Jesus to look at him and say yes! You’ve got it down pat!
I sniff and clutch my knees tighter and watch Jesus as he becomes a wall of adamant. A steel beam for this arrogant kid to bounce his enthusiasm and instinctive hypocrisy off of. Where is Jesus’s humanity? Where is his compassion? Every time I find him like this it shakes me down to my core. I’ve been told too many times what this story is about. There’s too many abusive messages here for me – things I used to try and beat myself with to get into Jesus’s inner circle.
- Poverty. Being poor equals holiness. If you’re comfortable – in money, in happiness or success even – you’re sinning.
- Self sacrifice – give up everything or you’ll never know Jesus. He only wants martyrs. Self is evil. Self is the enemy.
- You are never enough. There’s always one more thing to do before you can be accepted. One more sin to eradicate, one more behavior to fine tune.
Jesus turns his head and his eyes lock with mine. My spine stiffens, my eyes want to slide away, and I know that rebellion spills out of me – rebellion he can sense. Right now he looks like that stranger God that Cain saw. Every second of watching him, I’m putting all this distance between us because I don’t like the way he answered that boy, I don’t like what feels like hardness coming from him. He feels antagonistic – harsh like the sun. Exposing black and white lines of worth in the same unfeeling shine as the sun today.
All the boy asked him is how to get eternal life. He was even polite – respectful – addressing Jesus as “Good Teacher.” Jesus’s answer is immediate, almost like a scoff – definitely like a challenge – “who are you calling good?” He responds, his voice a slap, “Only God is good.”
The boy’s speech stumbles to a halt, his eyes shift to the side, confused, uncertain how to respond. Neither he nor I realize what’s just happened – that Jesus is pulling out a lie that’s been growing inside him since he was a child.
Jesus turns his chin, those unreadable eyes stare into mine and there’s a question in them. Who do I say he is now? He’s asking me. What do I believe about him in this moment? He holds my gaze, watching me squirm as he lists off some of the most well known and ancient rules for the kid – the commandments in the Old Testament. The kid answers him quickly, relieved by this return to an even footing. It’s interesting, because he’s strangely and secretly disappointed too. He knows this stuff already. Yes, he follows them all. Is that it? Following the rules is what it takes to get eternal life?
Jesus turns to the boy and those eyes of adamant are still there. Tension builds in my chest – squeezes the already stifling air around me into a water-less sauna. I lean forward, just a little, holding my breath – don’t do it, I think, don’t crush him. But he doesn’t listen to my silent plea. Instead, he pulls out that one task he knows the kid won’t be able to do. “You want to be perfect? Go, sell all your things and give your money to the poor and then come and follow me.”
The boy’s head jerks back as if he’s been struck. He stands in shock for a moment. His smile falters and falls away. There’s a flicker of despair that he stuffs down, and then hardness slams down over his features. Without a single word he turns, his shoulders slumping, and walks away. Dejected. Rejected. He can’t sell all his things – his wealth is all that sets him apart – he uses it to comfort himself over the emptiness he feels inside. It helps him escape from his head, and the endless lists of rules. He’s worked hard every day of his life to toe the line. To be a good Jewish boy. It’s a huge and impossible task. But wealth is a comfort, a sign of God’s favor. And it’s the only thing that separates him from the masses – those crowds that are barely surviving – those that have to rub shoulders with the unclean and the pagans and the less favored. Jesus wants him to be poor? To give everything up? To lose his home and his position and his success?
I don’t watch him go. My eyes are stuck to Jesus. Why does he have to make it so hard? My eyes are full of hot rebellion, full of resentment. I’ve forgotten the first part of the question this story asks – the question of who I am. I’ve fallen right into my old fears, the messages I listened to growing up telling me there’s always one more thing I need to give up before I can be good enough for him to let me in to his inner circle.
But Jesus isn’t looking at me. He’s watching the boy walk away. He never looks away from that figure as it gets smaller. I catch my breath and loosen the grip on my knees. There’s so much love in his eyes. So much compassion. If there’s nothing else that’s true in this moment, he LOVES that kid. My self accusation fumbles into quiet. My rebellion turns to curiosity. So why does he make it so hard? Why was he so enigmatic – so removed and shut off? Why did he let the kid walk away?
As I think, he’s discussing the impossibilities of rich people getting into heaven with his disciples. Even they – these men and women that I so often judge – react like me, they are all shocked by his words – they exclaim and question him on who can get into heaven if it’s really that hard.
“It may be impossible for humans,” He says, his voice cutting through the distance between him and I. He turns his chin, looking right at me, and he winks, grinning at me as my stubborn wall made of rebellious bricks comes tumbling down as if it’s a house of cards rather than the impenetrable steel I thought it was. The adamant in his eyes is gone, the gentleness back in his voice, “but nothing is impossible for my dad.”
I wonder how much it’s going to sit in that kid’s craw, Jesus’s comment about being good. How much is he going to go over and over what makes someone good? I wonder how long it will be before he admits it’s impossible to keep all those rules in his pockets from falling out. How long will he juggle his worth with his control over his world and himself?
Two things I know:
1. God is following that kid down the road just like he followed Cain. This is the beginning of their conversation – and Jesus never starts a conversation that he doesn’t finish. Maybe that kid couldn’t yet let go of his control, maybe he didn’t recognize that it was trying to be perfect by following the law that was driving a wedge between them. But Jesus never gives up and he didn’t come to condemn. He has plans to walk beside that kid in the weeks and years to come. For Spirit to whisper in his heart about what it means to let go of his grappling for worth, to let God in, to find rest and trust.
2. In all the distance I pulled between me and Jesus; after hurting and wishing for rescue and feeling abandoned and getting mad at him… I forgot for a minute or two what he promised me years ago: that we’re always going to do things together; that its his job to fashion me into love and teach me how to let go. I never, ever, have to try and be good on my own. And when I try to beat myself into a shape he can love, as I so often fall into the habit of doing, he’ll unclench my fingers from around the hammer in my hand, no matter how many times he has to do it.
It all floods back in now that my inner self-righteous accuser has been squashed into silence. The answer to that two part question: Who Jesus is, and who I am. How patient, how unceasing, how crazy intelligent and sneaky wise he is. How beloved and treasured I am. I remember that he wouldn’t send that kid away to an eternity of hell, to drown in the idea of separation.
His dad doesn’t care about wealth or poverty as if either is a measure of worth or stake in his favor – no. He’s about being involved no matter what state we live in. And he’s chock full to the brim with abundance. He is all that is Good and True and Beautiful. He’s the one who made this earth brimming full of breathtaking wildflowers that grow and die in places where no one but him sees. He’s the one that scatters seeds in fields – even when they land on rocky ground and get choked by weeds. He’s the one that produced 12 baskets of leftovers rather than just exactly the right amount on that picnic day where they say he fed five thousand.
He’s the one who whispers in my heart again and again, demolishing the distance between us every time I pull it up and hide behind it. He’s the one who sees me and doesn’t mind reminding me of my worth to him. Doesn’t shy away from pulling that abusive system of self modification out from under me so I stop trying to use it like a prop for controlling my fate. He’s adamant about unclenching my fingers when I start grasping onto something that keeps me from him. Keeps me from being who he made me to be.
Published by kerrilynn123
Writer, author, nature lover. “I am passionate about stories and the power of words.”
Plain Truth Ministries | Box 300 | Pasadena, CA 91129-0300
