Homily for 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the 
28th Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 11, 2009
Mark 10: 17-30
Willow Towers, New Rochelle
Wood Badge Scouters, Alpine (N.J.) Scout Camp

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10: 17).

When I was a kid growing up in Florida, we were well aware that Ponce de Leon had discovered Florida in 1513 while searching for the mythical fountain of youth—which of course he didn’t find; not only that, but he found an early grave.

Our contemporaries continue to seek youthfulness, as you know: resorting to diet, exercise, vitamins, dyes, Botox, hair plants, and Lord knows what else. Ted Williams was just back in the news on account of his seeking immortality thru cryogenics.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade presented us with a derring-do tale of quest for the Holy Grail, which turns out to be the key to immortality. But the quest also proved fatal to many seekers who, in one of the movie’s famous lines, “did not choose wisely.”

Choice! There’s our day’s prototypical American mantra. We’re a free people, and we want, we demand, to make decisions for ourselves and not be dictated to by Church or State. (Ironically, many of us—especially young people—want to do what we choose, as long as it’s what everyone else is doing!)

The freedom that Jesus Christ offers us is the freedom to choose wisely, to choose well; to choose the good and the true; to choose the way that leads to eternal life. Jesus promises his disciples, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32), and he teaches them that he is that truth; he is the way; he is life (John 14:6).

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In his answer, Jesus doesn’t say, “Keep the commandments.” He only reminds the man of them (10:19). When the man replies that he has observed all the commandments “from my youth” (10:20), Jesus tells him he’s still lacking something, i.e., he hasn’t earned eternal life just by keeping the commandments. More is required!

How can it be that keeping the commandments is insufficient for inheriting eternal life? What is the man, whom Jesus already loves (10:21), lacking? Complete attachment to Jesus. Jesus tells him to detach himself from his possessions, give to the poor, implicitly giving to God —“you will have treasure in heaven” (10:21)—and attach himself to Jesus: “follow me” (10:21). There’s a certain parallel here to the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus, which we find in Luke’s Gospel (16:19-31), wherein the rich man is condemned not for anything to do with the Ten Commandments—they aren’t even mentioned—but solely because he ignored the beggar at his doorstep. Our gospel today, however, takes that attentiveness to the poor one step further by adding, “Then come, follow me.”

Lazarus and Dives, illumination from the Codex Aureus of Echternach

Cut back to Indiana Jones: the Holy Grail is the cup of Jesus, the cup that he used at the Last Supper, the cup of the new covenant in his blood. To seek the Grail is to seek Jesus—Jesus who sacrificed himself for others. It’s a cup of self-emptying, of detachment. And, in the movie, it was the very simplest cup among all those on array— if memory serves me, it was a wooden one—bespeaking utter poverty. Indiana Jones chooses wisely by choosing this cup. Detachment from riches is related to attachment to Jesus.

Jesus loves this man, but he fails to respond to that love and give himself to Jesus. He has a choice to make, and he chooses his possessions, chooses a consumer lifestyle. The author of our 1st reading, from the Book of Wisdom (7:7-11), would say this man is a fool, for he chooses riches rather than wisdom. It would be the same, in Wisdom’s eyes, had he chosen power, prestige, beauty, or health (or eternal youth) (7:8,10). By our gospel reckoning, he chooses riches rather than truth and goodness (remember, he begins by addressing Jesus as “good teacher,” and he ends by walking away from goodness and wisdom). He prefers his possessions to the path of eternal life.

The man leaves Jesus sad (10:22). Perhaps he realizes in his heart that he’s choosing a path that doesn’t lead to eternal life, choosing instead that path which Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, calls a broad road leading to ruin (Matt 7:13). Mark doesn’t say that Jesus, too, is sad. But how could he not be when someone spurns his love—“Jesus, looking at him, loved him”—and deliberately walks away from truth, goodness, and life?

Jesus comments that the rich will have a hard time entering the kingdom of God (10:23). He follows that shocker with a still broader pronouncement that doesn’t mention the rich: “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” (10:24). The disciples are astonished (10:24); they’re used to viewing wealth as a blessing from God. They know that most people want money and the comforts and security money can provide. If we all crave wealth, “Then who can be saved?” (10:26). Aren’t we all in trouble, all on that broad highway toward eternal ruin?

The short answer is: yes. We’re all in trouble, and no one can be saved. “For human beings it’s impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God” (10:27). God can save even the rich who are in love with their wealth, their comfort, their security, themselves, and not their fellow human beings, not God. God can save even us sinners who so often are selfish and self-centered, mindless of Jesus and the friends of Jesus (the poor, the abandoned, the outcast, the despised of society).

This brings us back to the rich man’s opening question: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” None of us can do anything to inherit or earn salvation. It’s a gift from God thru Jesus Christ. As you know, you can’t earn a gift.

Or, if you will, what we can do is to make a choice for Jesus, follow him, listen to him, attach ourselves to him—then, he promises, we will receive home and family galore—a different form of wealth, the wealth of God’s household—along with persecution; and finally, the gift of eternal life (10:29-30).