Guest Blogger Morgan Murray continues his series on the Rich Young Rulers of Orange County. 
What we know of the Rich Young Ruler comes in the form of something like a composite sketch. Luke calls him “a certain ruler,” Matthew says he’s “young,” and all three (including Mark) note that he was rich and “had many possessions.” This man has it all: Youthful stamina, social status and lots of cool stuff. He is the person voted “Most Likely To Be Envied” in our culture. He might be among the ranks of teen celebrities, junior executives, and heirs to vast fortunes. Or he might simply be a person who has done all the right things in order to succeed – graduating from the best schools, competing for the best jobs, and striving to provide the best opportunities for himself and for his family.
In our culture, Rich Young Rulers are not only envied, but judged. Today, it is more often assumed that a wealthy person is wealthy not because of good character, but because of vice. The rich are rich because they are greedy, compulsive, or stingy. Enron and WorldCom seem to confirm our suspicion that the super-rich get that way by exploiting someone (or everyone) else. For those of us familiar with the story of the Rich Young Ruler, this is the biggest problem. We assume that Jesus’ hard teaching is a judgment against wealth and material possessions. Pastors of humble means certainly find this interpretation easy to understand, not to mention good fodder for preaching to their well-heeled parishioners. In our day, poverty has become associated with piety, and wealth has become a symbol of sin.
But in Jesus’ day, wealth was assumed to be a sign of God’s blessing. Dallas Willard: “The common assumption of the time, as in many times since, was that the prosperity of the rich indicated God’s special favor. How else could they be rich, since it is, supposedly, God himself who controls the wealth of the earth?” When Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount with the declaration that the “poor in spirit” are blessed because they shall inherit the kingdom of God (Matthew 5:3), he is seeking to dispel the myth once and for all that one’s position in this life is either indicative or decisive with respect to one’s eternal destiny. As Willard puts it, “Under the rule of God, the rich and the poor have no necessary advantage over each other with regard to well-being or well-doing in this life or the next.”
Perhaps this is what the young man has already discovered in his own life. He is wealthy, but not contented. Despite appearances, he doesn’t deserve to be envied or judged. So like young professionals today, he knows what he wants and he is committed to getting it. “As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Mark 10:17).”
Tomorrow: What the Rich Young Ruler Really Wants
For more about Dallas Willard, go to www.dwillard.org.
