In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Luke 18:18-27
At that time, a ruler came to Jesus and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'” And he said, “All these I have observed from my youth.” And when Jesus heard it, He said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became sad, for he was very rich. Jesus, looking at him, said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But He said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”
The Gospel reading today is, in many ways, quite a tragic story. A young man asks our Lord what he needs to do to inherit eternal life, what he needs to do to be saved, to go to heaven. And Jesus gives him a reply that might apply to anyone, to every single one of us: “Essentially, to obey the commandments.” But the young man presses for more. “I obey the commandments already,” he says. “What more must I do?”
And Jesus gives him His answer. Elsewhere in the Gospels, we are told as He does so that He looks at the young man and loves him. And He tells the young man that what he needs to do is sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and come and follow Him. But the young man goes away sad because he is a man of great wealth.
And this is the tragedy of the story. The young man has been told by God Himself what he must do to enter into eternal life. But he cannot bring himself to do it. When it comes right down to it, he loves money more than God. He puts the temporary pleasures of this life over eternal happiness in the next—gaining and retaining gold and silver in this life more than laying up treasure in the next.
The young man is happy to do what God asks when he finds it easy to do so. He will obey the commandments when they come at no great cost or cause him no great inconvenience. But when obeying God challenges him, when it will truly cost him, then that is a line he cannot bring himself to cross.
The command to sell all he has, of course, is specific to the wealthy young man. It is not a general one that applies to all Christians. Jesus looks deep into the heart of the young man, sees the spiritual illness that afflicts him, an illness that threatens his immortal soul, and offers him the medicine that will cure him and save him. And the young man rejects the healing hand of the greatest physician known to man, the One who can cure the body but also, more importantly, is able to cure the soul.
But we must not think that the lesson of the story only applies to the young man, or perhaps only to those of great wealth. Jesus says much more to him than those words which warn him against his love of silver and gold, other words that all Christians would do well to heed.
He reminds him of the need to obey God’s commandments, which, as I already mentioned, apply to us all.
He also tells him to give to the poor. We may not be as rich as this young man, but that does not mean that we should not be as generous as it is possible for us to be to those who struggle to provide themselves with the necessities of life. Do we really think we deserve a little treat more than a hungry man deserves a mouthful of bread?
We must always remember the praise our Lord gave to the widow who gave generously out of her poverty, and the warning He gave us about those who ignore their brothers in need when He spoke of the last judgment and the fate of the sheep and the fate of the goats.
And He told the young man to come and follow Him, something we are all called to do. It is useful here to reflect on why the young man could not do this. It was because he valued money more than God. This should alert us to consider what there might be in our own lives, perhaps without realizing it, that we love more than God.
Do not look here to what it is you say, to others or even yourself. Look instead to what it is that your actions proclaim. Examine your conscience thoroughly, being harsh with yourself, making no excuses. What commandments do you disobey or disregard, saying to yourself that they do not matter or pretending that you have done no wrong at all? And then pray, not only for forgiveness, but also that whatever this weakness and temptation in your life is, that it will not become for you what the wealth of the young man was to him: the thing that blocks your path to eternal life. Amen.
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