Shane Claiborne loves to quote his friend, the late singer and songwriter Rich Mullins, on the way Christians read the Bible. Mullins used to say that it was as if we had highlighters for certain verses. Jesus says, "you must be born again", so we must all be born again. But didn't Jesus also say, "sell all you have and give to the poor"? Why don't we all have to do that too? Since I read that, the story of the rich young ruler keeps coming up in my reading. It features in two of Walter Brueggemann's collected sermons, as well as in the first two of the Second Series of George MacDonald's amazing Unspoken Sermons, where once again he is contrasted with Nicodemus. All this started me thinking. Are these stories alternative visions of Jesus - one 'spiritual', one 'political'? Or is there something that holds them together? The story of the rich young man is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, with only slight variations. He
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson