It is common among the Lutherans to insist on letting Scripture interpret Scripture. This is all well and good until you find out this means that Paul gets to interpret Mark, for example, despite the fact that it is easily argued that Paul had no knowledge of the teaching of Jesus as found in the Gospels.
The principle doesn't mean that a text should be allowed to speak for itself. Instead, the principle presupposes the notion of the unity of the Bible, which simply insulates its books within a cocoon of canonicity, impenetrable by anything from without and the individual books within incapable of disagreeing with each other, the latter being what troubled Luther about James.
Sunday's sermon in a Lutheran church was based on the story from Mark 10 about the godly rich man who asked Jesus what he yet needed to do to inherit eternal life. It pointedly illustrated the special pleading so characteristic of the Lutheran manner of interpreting the Bible. The preacher actually wanted us to believe that Jesus did not give the rich man a straight answer at all, even though Jesus said in all candor that the rich man needed to "sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor . . . and come, take up the cross (a theological embellishment absent from Matthew and Luke), and follow me." No, a deeper theological (!) point was being made by Jesus, we were told, to the effect that we cannot save ourselves by our own actions. Only God can save. So Jesus demanded an "impossible" thing of the man to underscore that point.
In other words, Mark is not allowed to speak for himself. Ephesians must be imported to interpret the text: "for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Indeed, almost every line of Scripture must be brought under the sway of Paulinism as understood by Lutherans.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the text of Mark shows that the disciples themselves had successfully obeyed the difficult call to discipleship given to them and "said goodbye to everything that they owned." The Synoptic accounts are all in agreement on this, and indicate that Jesus recognized their obedience and promised them rewards "in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting" as a consequence. That is the simple meaning of the text, however much one would rather it sounded like St. Paul.
It is true that the disciples were surprised by the severity of the demands Jesus placed on the rich man. No doubt they compared their experiences and concluded "no one could be saved" if such extreme conditions were required as the cost of discipleship, conditions with which they themselves had not yet had to comply. Obviously we are confronted here with varying costs of discipleship, the simple meaning of the text. The disciples had not sold everything and given away the proceeds to the poor. They obviously had nothing to sell. All they had were menial jobs to walk away from, and wives and children, and the humble dwellings where their families remained behind. The rich man doubtless had all these things as well, but much more in great abundance, and money in the bank.
So how can two levels of cost be justified? How can that be fair? Have not all "sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?" Is it not the case that "there is none righteous, no not one?"
The Synoptics are unanimous in reporting the sycophantic ruse of Jesus' opponents who came to him saying "we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men." Indeed, they must have heard that Jesus was as likely to criticize the upstanding figures of the day as a "brood of vipers" as he was his own followers as "ye of little faith." If Jesus' invectives against scribes, pharisees, the rich and the powerful, and hypocrites in general cause one to think he simply favored the poor, the meek, the downtrodden and such like, that is a mistake. He addresses his willing hearers as "you who are evil." He is routinely found employing the language of reversal and rebuke: the first shall be last and the last first, the truly great must be the servant of all, Satan is as quickly personified in the person of Peter as the voice of the heavenly Father, etc. No, Jesus is at pains to level the playing field, as it were.
If we were to let Mark and the other Gospels speak for themselves, a different answer comes to hand for the question of the cost of discipleship: "Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required." Because human beings are not equal in their earthly condition, they must become so when they answer the call to discipleship. All people, rich and poor alike, must unite in the abolition of the antonyms which divide them. They must repent and see themselves as God sees them, as the mere ants we appear to be from thirty thousand feet. The spirit at work in Jesus is the same spirit at work in Isaiah, who called Jacob, the Israel of God, a "worm."
From the richest ruler with great possessions to the poorest widow with only two mites, all must say goodbye to the old world with its old distinctions, honors, achievements and rewards, and yes its shames, calumnies, failures and injustices, and follow as equals into the kingdom of God. Those who have little to leave behind must leave it as surely as the rich must leave behind plenty. It is only from the human point of view that the one leaves little and the other more. From God's perspective, it is the renunciation of whatever one is which shows the true repentance. "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."
There can be no question of renouncing someone else's life, someone else's experience, only of what falls within one's own sphere. Wealth is a snare, however, more likely to weigh down the would be follower, too cumbersome for the demands of the narrow way that leads to life. It is not surprising that a preacher in a wealthy American town in 2009 should do whatever he can to explain away the severity of Jesus' demands on the rich. But it is still sad.
