A few years ago, I became obsessed with the TV show, House
MD. If you aren’t a fan of medical sitcoms, it’s a series about the snarky,
maladjusted Gregory House and his work as the head of the diagnostics
department at Princeton-Plainsboro University Hospital. The specialty of the
diagnostics department is solving the unsolvable medical mysteries, so everyone
who would come into Dr. House’s office was always suffering from some
life-threatening disease of which no one had ever heard. Now, pretty much every
episode of this show followed the same basic outline: (1) someone would get
sick, (2) House would get the case, (3) his team would spend the entire episode
trying to solve the case and keep the patient alive, and (4) at the very last
minute House would come up with the brilliant diagnosis that 95% of the time
would save the patient from certain death.
There was usually some background drama to go along with it,
like who House was in love with or what shenanigans he was getting into in his
off time, but I didn’t really care about any of that stuff. My favorite part of
every episode was always the diagnosis work. You see, Dr. House and his crack
team of the brightest minds in medicine would get into a rhythm with their work
as they sought to find the problem and derive a solution from it, and although
they used a process, no two cases were ever the same. Their diagnostic
detective work followed this basic outline: (1) they used a white board to
compile a list of all of the symptoms so that they could assess the situation
from every angle, (2) they carefully checked and ruled out any possible source
of the infection such as patient medical history, living conditions, travel
history, and human interaction, (3) they would cross check present symptoms with
all sorts of rare and unpronounceable diseases from around the world, working
with a fine-toothed comb to determine the cause of the patient’s condition, (4)
the other doctors on the team would offer up plausible possibilities as to what
the problem was throwing around terms like autoimmune disorder, carcinomas,
legionnaire’s, and lupus (It was never lupus, but I swear they would bring it
up at the beginning of every episode…), and (5) House would systematically rule
out all possibilities until he hit upon the correct diagnosis, usually by
discovering something that was overlooked or hidden before.
No two cases were ever alike, yet House was always able to
solve them by going through this process to reach a diagnosis.
In our Scripture reading today, we heard the story of a
different kind of diagnosis from a very different kind of physician. In this
passage, we hear the story of Jesus diagnosing the spiritual health and well
being of a stranger who comes up to him and asks him what he must do to inherit
eternal life. In this passage, we see the Gospel played out.
Mark’s Gospel tells us that a man came up to Jesus as he
traveling down the road. He kneels before Jesus, a sign of respect for this
traveling rabbi, and he asks him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit
eternal life?”
The patient has been admitted. Now the Great Physician goes
to work.
Jesus begins his diagnostic detective work first by
reminding the man that God is good. Now, this might not seem like an important
step in the process of unraveling this man’s true spiritual and physical needs,
but it is an extremely vital part of the process. You see, this is the
foundation of Christ’s diagnosis: that everyone is in need of some spiritual,
physical, and/or emotional healing. No one but God is good, and therefore
everyone else has something that needs fixing, something broken inside that can
only be repaired by the love and grace of God.
Paul the Apostle hit the nail on the head when he wrote that
“all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Not a single person is
deserving of eternal life through merit, because everyone has experienced the
brokenness of our world, has felt the pain and disconnect of sin. And because
sin has run rampant in the world and humanity is steeped within it, because
everyone shows the initial symptoms of sin and brokenness, we are not good, and
are only deserving of death.
By stating that only God is good, Jesus is pointing out the
cause of this man’s condition: sin.
Next comes the patient’s medical history, or in this case,
his spiritual history. Jesus tells him that he knows the commandments. Do not
murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not
cheat, and honor your father and mother.
Where do all of these come from? The Ten Commandments.
Everything that Jesus tells him to do or not do comes straight out of Exodus
20. God gave Moses two tablets with these commandments written upon them, and
Moses brought them down to the people. Four of the ten deal with the peoples’
actions toward God—worship only the Lord, do not make graven images of God, do
not use God’s name as a curse, and honor the Sabbath as God honored it. The
other six deal with the peoples’ actions toward one another—do not murder, do
not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet what
your neighbor has, and honor your father and mother.
It is interesting here that Jesus only mentions the
commandments that deal with how we interact with other people. I’ve always
thought that the first four commandments, the ones dealing with our
interactions with God, were the most important, but this text uplifts the other
ones instead. Maybe Jesus knew that this man was a good Jew who always rested
on the Sabbath and who always held God above all others. Maybe Jesus had a hard
time remembering all ten of the commandments, so he listed off the ones he
knew. Whatever the reason, Jesus chooses to only mention the commandments that
deal with how the people of God interact with others. He lists them and then
waits for the man’s response. And without reservation, our patient responds to
Jesus’ statement, telling him that he has kept all of these commandments since
his youth.
Now, one of the tag lines from House, M.D. is “Everybody
Lies.” Every time they take a patient history, Dr. House decides to disregard
something from it because he does not trust the patient to tell the truth about
medically relevant facts like drug use or promiscuity. He is by nature
distrusting and suspicious. This is not the case with Jesus, though. Jesus
hears the patient’s history, listens carefully, and looks upon him with love.
He knows that this man has remained tried and true to all of the commandments
that he had listed, and that he has strived toward living a life wholly
pleasing to God.
So Jesus makes a diagnostic decision and he prescribes a
procedure to test his claim. He says, “You truly lack only one thing. Go, sell
what you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come and follow me.” Like a doctor prescribing a round of
antibiotics with the hope of killing the bacterial infection, Jesus gives this
man the means to counteract his brokenness and to gain eternal life.
But the man does not respond as hoped to the prescription.
The solution costs too much for him, and he is unable to follow through. So he
walks away, sad and dismayed, for he had many possessions.
Jesus diagnosed the problem and prescribed the solution, but
it was too rigorous a regiment for the patient.
Then, turning, Jesus sadly declares to his disciples, “It is
very hard for the wealthy to enter into God’s kingdom. It’s difficult to enter
into the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.”
So what is going on here? Is Jesus saying that being wealthy
is a spiritually terminal condition? Is Jesus joining the Occupy Wall Street
movement, and rallying against the 1%? What is going on?
Well, I think that this diagnostic process that Jesus went
through was for the benefit of those around him, for the benefit of us as
readers today. I think that Jesus knew this man, and knew what he was lacking
and what he would have to do to gain treasures in heaven. You see Scripture
tells us that this man was rich. He was had many possessions, which means that
selling all he owned would have resulted in a lot of money. Remember where and
when this story takes place, though. This is not in Princeton, NJ or NYC or
some place where people are able to afford cush living. We’re talking about 1st
Century Palestine. Jesus was a peasant, the disciples were peasants, and the
majority of the people around them are living at or under the poverty line.
Rich people were not a dime a dozen. Jesus most likely knew
this man and knew exactly how much he was worth.
Which is probably why, when Jesus was naming off
commandments, he intentionally left out the one about not coveting what your
neighbor owns. Because for a man to be rich in this time and place when
everyone else around him is starving meant one of the two things: either this
man was in cahoots with the Romans, the people who were oppressing the Jews and
forcing so many of them to live in destitution, or this man was hoarding
resources and gathering for himself at the cost of others. This might not have
even been done malignantly; some of the nicest and most generous people I know
have a lot of money and resources.
But when people are dying of starvation around you, it is a
sin not to give all you can to save them.
Jesus knew this man’s diagnosis. He knew this man felt a
need to amass more and more, and that he could not let it go. Maybe it was a
fear out of what the future might hold, or maybe it was an impulsive need to
always have more. Whatever the reason, the man’s wealth was his brokenness, and
Jesus gave him both the diagnosis and solution.
What is your brokenness? If you were to come before Christ
today, what would be his diagnosis for you? Is covetousness your brokenness as
well, or is it other sins from your past that haunt you, that have shattered
your soul and kept you from right relationship with God?
The saddest part of watching House is when the patient
receives a terminal diagnosis. Stage 4-pancreatic cancers, inoperable brain hemorrhages,
heart failures. When the patient has to face her own impending death, it’s
heartbreaking. I know that there’s nothing that the doctors can do, and I can
feel the pain that palpably present in the scene.
But I want you to hear this good news and hold on tightly to
it: it might be extremely hard—even impossible—for us to enter into the kingdom
of God because of our sin and brokenness, but not with God. With God, all
things are possible! As the Apostle Paul declares, “the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord!”
Our sickness and our sinfulness are healed and restored at the cross. Those broken areas in our lives are made whole. We are able to engage the world anew
through the work of the Holy Spirit and we are able to freely enter into the
Kingdom of God because of the sacrificial love of the Almighty. We never have
to dwell on that terminal, inoperable diagnosis, for in Jesus Christ we have
received new life, eternal life!
So may we always look to Christ as our Great Physician. May
we take solace in his spiritual diagnostic capabilities and bravely hear our
areas of brokenness when they are presented to us. May we remember that on our
own, our brokenness and sinfulness can be overwhelming and will always keep us
from realizing our true calling to live a life in relationship with the
Almighty. May we rejoice that what is impossible for us is made possible
through God, and may be joyfully enter into the Kingdom of God that is made
available to us through the love of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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