From my heart and from my hand,
Why don’t people understand
My intentions?

Oingo Boingo

There is always a danger in reading or preaching a familiar passage. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, an assumption that there’s nothing new to learn here that I didn’t get back in Sunday School. However, while those Sunday School lessons are valuable and needed, very often these familiar passages have much richer, deeper, and sometimes more confrontational meaning for those of us in the Church.

Jesus’s encounter with the rich young synagogue ruler in Matthew 19:16-20 and Mark 10:17-27 is just such a story. Because of its familiarity, it is easy for us to take only half the lesson from it. The temptation is strong to look at this young man, jump on him for being too enslaved to his possessions to recognize the supreme value of following Jesus, and pat ourselves on the back while saying, “well, at least I haven’t done THAT.” While criticism is certainly warranted and there are lessons we can learn about the seduction of possessions, that only addresses a partial application of the principle this passage teaches us rather than the principle itself.

And here’s the principle: God wants to conform us to his character at the level of our motives, not merely at the level of our actions. Make no mistake: what we do matters. But why we do it matters more. And the danger for us, which is illustrated by the interchanges between Jesus and this young man and between Jesus and his disciples, is that it is very easy for us to be doing the right things for the wrong reasons.

Two Questions/Two Motives

The Rich Young Ruler asked two questions, each of them reflecting a different motivation.

His first question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” reflects a desire for reward. It assumes a transactional relationship with God: If I do this, then I will get that. It assumes that there is a bar to be reached before he can be allowed entry into Heaven. It assumes eternal life can be earned by our good actions.

The second question, which is implied in Mark’s account but actually verbalized in Matthew 19:20, is “what do I still lack?” It is prefaced by the young man’s insistence that he had fulfilled his contractual obligations; he believed that he had kept the law the letter. So the desire for reward is still driving this question, but a second motivation now appears: Fear of punishment. This second question acknowledges a perceived self-deficiency that must be made up, and failure to do so would bring the undesirable consequence of missing out.

Desire for reward and fear of punishment are not necessarily bad motivations. We use them to raise children, when we teach them not to touch a hot stove (ouchy!) or why they should clean their room (allowance!). And peace and stability in society depend on them, because there are people will only be restrained from evil by the threat of force and will only do good if there is something in it for them.

Beyond that, how many of us did not come to God initially at least in part because we feared Hell? How many of us have not continued to follow God because we hope for Heaven? Fear and punishment and hope for reward have their place. God uses them, and always has. In Deuteronomy 30:15-18 he declares:

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.

Even here, reward and punishment are both present. God uses them to teach us. But they are incomplete, inadequate motivations. Their main value is teaching us to know God at a very basic level, so that as we grow in our knowledge of him we can grow in becoming like him in our character. We pass through these lower motivations to the highest motivation, one that even Deuteronomy 30 more than merely hints at. We can’t afford to miss it.

Jesus’s Answer

You have to understand the insufficiency of punishment and reward as motivators in order to understand Jesus’s answer to the rich young ruler: “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Does Jesus demand that of all of us? No—but he could, and that’s the point. What we love most is proof of who we truly serve.

The rich young ruler went away sad “because he had many possessions,” and he loved those more than what Jesus offered him. For him, eternal life was not enough—for ultimate joy and peace, for its own sake; his loves demanded that he keep what he had in this life as part of the deal.

Remember Jesus’s first question: “Why do you call me good?” This man did not love God because God is good. He loved God for what he thought God could get for him. That distinction reveals everything about our relationship with God.

Jesus’s response amounted to “What do you want more; what do you love more?” The rich young ruler couldn’t decide because of his misordered and disordered loves, and made his choice by default. Any good things he had done—and, as a synagogue ruler, he had likely done many worthwhile things in keeping with the law which had benefited and blessed many people—had been done from faulty motives: To gain reward, or to avoid negative consequences.

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus illustrated the crucial difference between doing what is right from insufficient motives and doing what is right because that’s what you love. In the process he set a much higher standard than mere legalism or following the rules can achieve.

You have heard it said, “You shall not murder,” right? Let’s just admit that’s a low bar. I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother is liable to judgment.

You have heard it said, “You shall not commit adultery,” right? That’s good practice. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery.

You have heard it said, “Do not swear oaths falsely,” right?  But I say to you, don’t play word games with people. Tell the truth. Always.

You have heard it said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” right?  But I say to you, reconcile if at all possible. Turn the other cheek. Give the man who sues for your tunic your cloak as well. If a man makes you walk one mile, do it and then walk a mile extra.

You have seen people give generously, pray publicly, and fast visibly so people will think well of them. But I say to you, give generously with no thought of reward, pray without spectacle, fast without drawing attention to yourself.

Why would Jesus say this? Because his will for us is to transform our hearts, our minds, and our wills, not merely our behavior. He wants to transform the way we think, the way we feel, the very motivations behind our actions—not merely force us to act right and follow the rules.

God uses desire for reward and fear of punishment to teach us. But they are incomplete, inadequate motivations.

Remember the rich young ruler’s questions to Jesus: “What must I do to gain eternal life” and “What do I lack still?” What he is really asking with these two questions is “Have I done enough?” Jesus opened this section of you-have-heard-but-I-say-isms in the Sermon on the Mount with the answer to that question: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). If he was there, do you think that might have gotten the rich young ruler’s attention? I guarantee it knocked the sandals off everyone who heard it, because they thought—based on appearances and behavior—that NO ONE was more righteous than the Pharisees! So if the legalistic standard of the Pharisees was not high enough to gain eternal life . . . what standard is? Jesus answered in the final verse of Matthew 5: “You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

How is that even possible?

Obeying God out of a desire for reward or a fear of punishment will not get us there. Only one motivation will.

Trojan Horses

Throughout Matthew 5 Jesus contrasted one group of God-seekers with another, but the first group was focused on their actions, not their motives. They seek God from motives that are, at their core, sinful: Pride, which is fueled by a belief that reward is justified for being or doing right; or Fear, of being thought less of. And so their actions, while outwardly appearing good, are motivated by sin and selfishness.

Can we get our doctrine right or do good things for reasons of pride and fear? Of course we can! We want to be thought well of for being right; we are afraid of being wrong. Can we be honest for sinful reasons? Of course we can! Think about the reasons you were taught to not to lie; did they not basically boil down to pride and fear? Tell the truth so I can feel good about myself: Pride! Don’t lie or I’ll get caught and I’ll be in trouble: Fear! Don’t lie, because liars are bad people. Fear! Tell the truth because I’m not a bad person: Pride!

But do you know why this is really a problem? It’s bad enough to treat people this way: outwardly good, but the goodness is motivated by selfishness. But if fear and pride are what motivate me, it will inevitably poison my relationship with God.

Tell the truth because God will reward me if you do: Pride! As if I are going to put God in my debt, as if he owes me something, as if I earned it.

Tell the truth because God will punish me if I don’t: Fear! This is the works trap, and it always leaves us embittered towards God.

And in case we aren’t yet convinced that pride and fear are toxic motivations, consider this: Why don’t we lie? Because of fear and pride. But why do we lie? Because sooner or later, if fear and pride motivate us, what pride wants to gain and fear doesn’t want to lose are better served by a lie that the truth. Under the right circumstances we are afraid of the truth, and we too proud to admit to it.

Pride and Fear, such as motivated the rich young ruler, are Trojan Horses. They appear to be helpful and to address our needs, but they are sinful at the root and will always, eventually turn our hearts away from God. And they will always strive to do it subtly and stealthily, so that—like the rich young ruler or the Pharisees—we are never even aware that there is a problem.

The Third Motivation

I cannot stress enough how shocking the Sermon on the Mount would have been for those who heard it at the time, and it should shock us if we move past its familiarity to its message and implications for us. His final you-have-heard-but-I-say-ism is crucial (Matt 5:48):

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The perfection—by which the early Fathers understood him to mean “completion”—Jesus speaks of is only possible when we go beyond doing what God says to loving what God loves. And we lack the capacity to do it without his grace active and operational and strongly desired in our lives. It’s why Romans 12 says God wants to transform our minds, changing the way we think. Its why Hebrews, quoting Jeremiah—writing from the ashes of Jerusalem, with the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30:18 all around him, repeatedly says:

 This is the covenant that I will make with them
    after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
    and write them on their minds.

It’s why prophet after prophet had reminded Israel that God wanted their loving obedience rather than their dutiful sacrifices for sin. If they had loved what God loves, sin would have been so undesirable to them that there would have been considerably less need for sacrifices.

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the brilliant theologians of the early Church, explained the relationship between desire for reward, fear of punishment, and love for God very well:

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life out of the servile fear of punishment, like slaves; nor to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life in some business-like or contractual arrangement. Instead, disregarding all those things for which we hope and have been promised, the only thing we dread is to fall from God’s friendship, and the only thing we consider worthy of honor and desire is to become God’s friend. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life.

Keeping this balance requires loving God and loving what God loves. Otherwise, selfish motivations will corrupt whatever we do, even if what we do has some value.

Because the rich young ruler’s questions of Jesus were rooted in a transactional mindset (what must I do that will be enough to earn reward or to escape consequences), it felt like a bad deal to him. The price was too high, and he walked away sad. This is why reward and punishment become toxic motivations if we don’t grow beyond them: Once they outlive their intended pedagogical purpose, they breed bitterness and resentment.

God wants to conform us to his character at the level of our motives, not merely at the level of our actions.

When fear of punishment is what drives me, I do not love the one who has the power to punish me. I might obey, sure, but the obedience is tainted by resentment. And the person who obeys only because they have to will certainly try to get away with whatever he can, because “it’s only wrong if you get caught.”

When hope for reward is what motivates me, I become proud of my own achievements—and I become bitter if I believe the reward is too long in coming or too little when (if) it arrives. I think, pridefully, that I deserve better because I’ve earned better. I become angry with God, believing I have kept my part of the transaction only for him to play games with his.

Four centuries later, St. Augustine expressed in his Confessions the lesson the rich young ruler was being called upon in that moment to learn:

We fall to pieces when we lose what we have loved.
Yet it is only then that we realize we were in misery even before our loss.

The same lesson now waits for us.

Grace to Grow

The entirely human motivations of Pride and Fear also explain the confusion of the disciples who witnessed the exchange between Jesus and the young synagogue leader. When we assume—as they did—that rewards in this life, such as wealth, are indicative of God’s favor for the righteous, it is shocking to hear that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Hence their bewilderment: “Who then can be saved?”

It also explains Peter’s characteristic impulse to justify himself: “See, we have left everything and followed you.” It is not hard to imagine a thought bubble over Peter’s head: “I’ve given up everything. Is that enough?”

Let’s be real: If the Apostle Peter struggled with this, do we think that we will somehow be immune? Not a chance! The only question is whether or not we are aware of it—and that awareness drives us to a very good place: The feet of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who saves and makes us holy by his blood.

Fear of punishment and a desire for reward can lead us to God. But only a love of God for who He is, not merely for what he can do to or for us, keeps us contentedly and humbly with Him.

But let’s also accept the grace God gives us to grow. This is a very difficult step, because law comes so, so easily to us: Do this, and I earn that. Break this rule, suffer this consequence. God uses these basics to help us understand who he is and what he loves. But he calls us to maturity, and maturity is loving what God loves. When you love what God loves, you stop worrying “have I done enough.” You discover that you lack for nothing because you have Christ, who is his own reward.

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