”The rich
young man’s face fell” (Mk. 10:22)
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel
according to mark
Glory to you, Lord.
The rich young man’s face fell
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran
up, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to
inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me
good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not
kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear
false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother."
He replied and said to him, "Teacher, all of these I have observed from my
youth." Jesus looked at the young man and feeling genuine love for him
said, "There’s one more thing you must do. Go, sell all your
possessions and give the money to the poor and you will have treasures in
heaven. Then come back and follow me."
At these words the rich young man’s
face fell, and he went away with a heavy heart; for he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for a rich
man to enter the Kingdom of God!" His words shocked the disciples, but Jesus
insisted, “My children, how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." That shocked them even more,
and they asked," Then who can possibly be saved?” Jesus looked straight at
them and answered, "Without God it is utterly impossible. But with God
everything is possible."
The
Gospel of the Lord.
Praise
to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
A camel or a rope?
In Greek (the origninal language of the New Testament) the word for camel is kamelos, and the word for rope is kamilos. Originally the biblical text had kamilos
(rope) and read, “It is easier for a rope to pass through the eye of a
needle….” In the course of time, however, transcribers of the bible mistakenly
wrote kamelos (camel) instead of kamilos. That's how we got a 'camel' instead of a 'rope' passing through the eye of a needle. At the end of the day, it really doesn't make much difference; the bottom line is the same. “It is easier for a camel (or a rope) to pass through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
“The young man’s face fell.”
When a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to gain
eternal life, Jesus tells him he must keep the commandments. When the man
replies that he has kept them all from his youth, Jesus tells him there’s one
thing left for him to do: he must go, sell all his possessions, give the money
to the poor, and then come back and follow Him. Scripture says, “The young
man’s face fell and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” (Mk 10:22)
A friend writes,
The young man’s face fell because
he understood the cost of discipleship. He understood the cost of following
Jesus: now he has to get rid of all his possessions. So what do you expect the
rich young man to do? Jump up and down for joy?
P.S. I’m still getting rid of all my possessions, and I still have to go
back and follow Him.
Wonderful possessions
It’s obviously unrealistic to think we can get along
without any possessions, especially in our society. Furthermore, very few of us
are ready to give up our wonderful possessions which are the fruits of human
technology and of our own personal labor. They make our lives human, enriched
and pleasant. My Toyota Rav enables me to go shopping for daily bread, visit
friends and find a change of scenery when I need one. My Samsung TV provides me
with a welcome escape from the real world by cozily watching the Green Bay
Packers playing on a snowy winter afternoon. My Samsung TV also keeps me in
touch with the real world of terrorism, of the school and theatre massacres, and
of the raucous politicking preceding presidential Election Day, November 6,
2012. And then there is my Gateway Computer which enables me to travel on an
incredible super-information highway running right through my study. They’re
all wonderful possessions, and I’m not ready to sell them and give the money to the poor.
Farming out the call
Jesus tells the
rich young man to go, sell all his possessions, give the
money to the poor and then come back and follow Him. (Mk. 10:21) On another
occasion Jesus tells a crowd, “Whoever does not renounce
all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 14: 33) Some dismiss as
unrealistic Jesus’ sweeping call to renounce one’s possessions and
follow Him.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran minister executed by Hitler on 9 April 1945. In his book The Cost of Discipleship he
wrote that the Roman Church didn’t dismiss outright Jesus’ sweeping call to renounce
one’s possessions. Instead, it was clever enough to `farm out’ the call to a
group of specialists in the Roman Church, namely its monks and nuns. Their task
was to obey Jesus’ sweeping call to discipleship, and to do it in the name of
all the other faithful. But that, Bonhoeffer maintained, created a double
standard in the Roman Church: a maximum standard of Christian perfection for
the few who are really earnest about following Jesus, and a minimum standard
for the rest of the faithful. Bonhoeffer rejected that; he wrote that “God
showed Luther through the Scriptures that the following of Jesus is not a call
to a chosen few; it's a divine command to all Christians without distinction.”
Making some sense of the call
We can dismiss Jesus’
call to renounce all our possessions as not really serious and practicable. Or
if we are `too pious’ to dismiss it outright, we can at least farm out the call
to monks and nuns. In either case `our faces don’t fall’ and we simply get on
with our possession-ridden and driven lives. There is, however, a third
alternative: we can choose to take seriously Jesus’ call to renounce our possessions,
and then try to make some sense of it. That requires a little disquisition on `possessions.’Ideological possessions
Emotional
possessions
It’s not enough to point fingers at Nazis,
Islamists and narrow-minded church people who have prized possessions which they
should give up but don’t want to. We must eventually point to ourselves who
have emotional possessions which we should give up, but which we strangely prize
and don’t want to give up. You can ask almost anything of us human beings, but
don’t ask us to give up our anger which has us talking angrily to ourselves
through months and even years of our lives. Or don’t ask us to give up our
self-pity which has us constantly licking our wounds so that they never heal.
Or don’t ask us to give up our guilt which preoccupies us so much that we can’t
get on with our lives. Or don’t ask us to give up our sorrow which mires us
down in unavailing tears. Anger, self-pity, guilt, sorrow, etc. in some strange
sense are possessions, and they call for renunciation.
A long list
of possessions
A woman who came one day to a Sunday Mass I was celebrating obviously got what
she was not looking for. In a letter
sent with great dispatch on Monday morning she complained:
The faithful have a right to have Mass celebrated in obedience
to liturgical rules and regulations. Among many things, I noticed that you did not give the prescribed
absolution at the penitential rite. You did not recite the Gloria prescribed for Sunday Mass and you did not read the gospel
in its entirety [It was a very hot summer Sunday]. In the reading of the Sunday
scriptures, you took it upon yourself not to use the masculine pronouns of the
approved texts, but instead you chose to use gender-neutral words. You didn’t
take Communion before the people but after the faithful had communicated. Etc.”
What
a long list of possessions weighs her down! After contending with that frame of
mind through many years, I’ve acquired a very personal and powerful persuasion
that our worst possessions are not in
our hands but in our heads and hearts. And such possessions demand Christian
renunciation far more urgently than does my Toyota Rav or my Samsung TV or my Gateway
Computer or any other material possession of mine. The thought that I can keep
them, use them and enjoy them lifts my human spirit. But the thought that I
have to give up some of the possessions that are in my head and heart `makes my
face fall.’
A rich man poor in spirit
We must
be careful, however, to not overly `spiritualize’ Christian renunciation. At
the end of the day, Christian renunciation must be materialized. It must
be given flesh and blood. That’s what Jerry Quinn did. He gave Christian renunciation
flesh and blood.
Quinn was a fairly well-off man who owned a bar and restaurant in Boston. In
the morning newspaper one day he read about the plight of Franklin Piedra, an Ecuadorian,
33 years old, suffering from chronic kidney failure. His mother wanted to give
him one of her kidneys. The transplant would cost at least 100,000 dollars, and
he had no private health insurance. The Ecuadorian Consulate suggested that he
go home and die.
Conclusion
A rich man who entered the Kingdom of God
The
article doesn’t say much about Quinn himself. Who knows, he might be a devout
Catholic, as many Irishmen are. He might be even a `roaming’ Catholic, as many Catholics
are these days. He might even be some kind of a `rounder.’ We don’t know. But, at the end of the day, we
know for sure Quinn was a true disciple, for he sold his possessions and gave
the money ($100,000) to a poor man. It’s
difficult for a rope (or a camel) to pass through the eye of a needle. It’s
even more difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. But it’s not
impossible, as Jerry Quinn so powerfully proved.
