The Gospel of Matthew 19:16-26

At that time, a young man came up to Jesus, kneeling and saying, “Good Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you call me good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, 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.” When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

This story is one of the best-known and best-loved stories in the Gospels. One of the most interesting things about it is the way in which most is us unite different details from various gospels to complete the picture. It is usually called the story of the “Rich Young Ruler,” but that is not necessarily the case. All of the gospels tell that the man was rich, for their in is the point of the story. But only in the gospel of Matthew, that we read today, says he was young (Matthew 18:18). It is interesting to see how a composite picture has been created with elements taken from all three gospels (Matthew 19:16-22); Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-23).

There is another interesting point about this story, Matthew alters the question put to Jesus by the man. Both Mark and Luke say that the issues were, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). Matthew says the question was, “Why do you call me good? One there is who is good” (Matthew 19:17). Matthew’s is the latest of the three synoptic gospels and his reverence for Jesus is such that he cannot bear to show Jesus asking the question, “Why do you call me good?” That almost sounds to him as if Jesus was refusing to be called good, so he alters the intro to the question, “Why do you ask me about wat is good?” in order to avoid the seeming irreverence.

The story touches on the deepest of all lessons for it has within in the whole basis of the difference between the right and the wrong idea of what religion is.

The man who came to Jesus was seeking for what he called eternal life. He was seeking for happiness for satisfaction, for peace with God. But his very way of phrasing his questions betrays him. He asks, “What must I do?” He is thinking in terms of actions. He is like the Pharisees; thinking in terms of keeping rules and regulations. He is thinking of piling up a credit balance-sheet with God by keeping the works of the law. He apparently knows nothing of a religion of grace. So Jesus tries to lead him on to a correct view.

Jesus answers him in his terms. He tells him to keep the commandments. The young man asks what kind of commandments Jesus means. Jesus then cites five of the Ten Commandments. Now there are two important things about the commandments that Jesus chooses to cite.

First, they are all commandments from the second half of the Decalogue, the half that deals, not with our duty to God, but with our responsibility toward others. They are the commandments that govern our personal relationships, and our attitude to others.

Second, Jesus cites one of the commandments out of order. He quotes the command to honor parents last when it should have come first. It is clear that Jesus wishes to lay particular stress on that one commandment. Why?  We have to speculate on this one. Maybe the young man had grown rich and successful in his career and then forgotten his parents, who may have been very poor. He may well have risen in the world, and have been ashamed of the folks in the old home; and then he may have justified himself perfectly legally by the law that Jesus has so unsparingly condemned (Matthew 15:1-6; Mark 7:9-13).What these passages show is that the young man could have done all of that, and still have legally claimed to have obeyed the commandments. In the very commandments that he cites Jesus is asking this young man, and us, what his attitude is to his fellow man and his parent, asking him what his personal relationships were like.

The young man’s answer is that he has kept the commandments; and yet there was still something that he knew he ought to have and which he had not got. So Jesus told him to sell all that he had and give it to the poor and follow him.

The young man claimed to have kept the law. In the legal sense, this may be true; but in the spiritual sense it was not true because his attitude toward others was wrong. In the last analysis, his attitude was utterly selfish. That is why Jesus confronted him with the challenge to sell all that he had and to give to the poor. His possessions are so shackled this man that nothing less than surgical excision of them would suffice. If a person looks on their possessions as given to them for nothing but their comfort and convenience, they are a chain that must be broken; if he looks on his possessions as a means for helping others, they are his crown.

The great truth of this story lies in the way it illumines the meaning of eternal life. Eternal life is life such as God himself lives. The word used for eternal does not mean lasting forever; it means as befits God, or such as belongs to God, or such as is characteristic of God. The great characteristic of God is that he so loved, and he gave. Therefore, the essence of eternal life is not a carefully calculated keeping of the commandments and the rules and regulations; eternal life is based on an attitude of loving and sacrificial generosity to others.

If we are to find eternal life, if we would find happiness, joy, satisfaction, peace of mind and serenity of heart, it will not be by piling up a credit balance with God through keeping commandments and observing rules and regulations; it shall be through reproducing God’s attitude of love and care for others. To follow Christ and in grace and generosity to serve others for whom Christ died are one in the same thing.

In the end, the young man turned away in great distress. He refused the challenge because he had great possessions. His tragedy was that he loved things more than he loved people, and he loved himself more than he loved others. Anyone who puts things before people and self before others must turn their back on Jesus.

Just like last week we need to back up a few verses to put this passage in the proper context.  Starting with verse 21 Peter asks Jesus how many times we are to forgive a person who has wronged us.  Peter then goes on to answer his question when he says, “Up to seven times?”  I love Peter, in fact, our daily Bible study email has been focusing on the Letters of Peter.  Peter is a great example of what God can do with someone for he took Peter and made him great.  But I digress.  Peter thought he was very generous when he suggested that we are to forgive up to seven times because the rabbinic teaching was to forgive only three times.

The Rabbinic teaching of the time was that is someone sinned against you, you were to forgive them no more than three times.  If a person commits and offense, you forgive them; if they commit an offense a second time, you forgive them; if they commit an offense a third time, you forgive them for the third time, if they commit and offense a fourth time, you do not forgive them.  This was the teaching that those listening to the exchange between Peter and Jesus would have been familiar with.

The Biblical proof of this teaching is taken from the opening chapters of the Prophet Amos, which contain a series of condemnations on the various nations for three transgressions and four. From this, we can deduce that God’s forgiveness extends to three offenses and that his punishment comes upon the sinner with the fourth.  Sort of a Divine three strikes and you’re out rule.  The teaching began along the lines that a person could not be more generous than God, so forgiveness was limited to three times.

Peter thought he was very generous, he takes the rabbinic three times, multiplies it by two for good measure adds one, and suggests, with eager satisfaction as Peter usually does when he answers his questions, that it will be enough if he forgives seven times.  I can picture Peter standing there, the look of satisfaction on his face with his well thought out the answer and then Jesus gives him his answer.  The Christian must forgive seventy times seven, in other words, there is no unreckonable limit to forgiveness!

I today’s Gospel Jesus tells the story of the servant forgiven great debt that then when out and dealt harshly, some would even say he dealt with him without mercy, a fellow servant who owed him a debt that was a fraction of he had owed.  We see that the mercilessness of the servant was utterly condemned.  From this parable come two central teachings.

The first is one that runs all through the New Testament, a person must forgive in order to be forgiven, it is just that simple. Those who do not forgive those who have wronged them has no hope that God will forgive them.  “Blessed are merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). No sooner had Jesus taught his disciples his prayer, that he went on to expand upon one of the points of that prayer: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15). As James has it in his letter, “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13). Divine and human forgiveness go hand in hand.

Second, why should it be that these go hand in hand, human forgiveness, and Divine forgiveness?  One of the great points of this parable is the contrast between the two debts.

The first servant owed his master 10,000 talents; a talent was the equivalent of roughly $240; therefore 10,000 talents was equal to about $2.4 million. This was, and is an incredible debt!  It was more than the total budget of the ordinary Roman Province of the day. This debt was greater than a king’s ransom, and it was forgiven.  The servant was not put on a payment plan, he was not given a reduced amount, it was completely forgiven.

The other servant was owed a much smaller amount; it was, according to the parable, 100 denarii; a denarius is worth about 4 cents, and so the total debt owed was about $5. It was approximately one five-hundred-thousandths of his debt.

Look at it this way, the 100 denarii could be carried in one pocket. The 10,000 talent debt would have to be transported by an army of about 8,600 soldiers, each carrying a sack of coins weighing about 60 lbs, and they would form, at a distance of a yard apart, line 5 miles long! The contrast between the two debts in this story is staggering. The point is that nothing another person can do to us can in any way compare with what we have done to God; and if God has forgiven us the debt we owe to him, we must forgive our fellow human the debts they owe to us. Nothing that we have to forgive can even faintly or remotely compare with what we have been forgiven.

We have been forgiven a debt that is beyond all paying – for the sin of humanity brought about the death of God’s own Son – and, if that is so, we must forgive others as God has forgiven us, or we can hope to find no mercy!