28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

          The Gospel for this Sunday contains, as always, a challenging message for us.  And it is not just for those who have wealth, as we might initially think, but really a message for us all.  And though it may at first seem difficult, I think if we would hear this message out, we would find it to be very liberating.

          A man approaches Jesus and, like so many people, he is looking for answers – perhaps an easy answer.  More specifically, he wants to know what he has to do in order to “inherit eternal life.”  He has kept the commandments from his youth, he says, but there is still something more he feels he must do.  “Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’”  He loved him.  How interesting that before Jesus tells this searching soul what he must do, it first says he loved him. 

Sometimes we think that the demands placed on our lives by God are meant to restrict us, or worse that they are maybe some kind of punishment, but here in this exchange with this man, we see that Jesus’ real motivation in all that He asks of us is love.  “Looking on him, he loved him.”  We have to grasp this first: that God loves us.  If we do not understand that, then nothing that follows from our Lord, nothing that He asks of us will seem reasonable.  It will always and only seem to be a limitation instead of and invitation.

          Jesus then invites this man to renounce his possessions, to give to the poor and then, to come and follow him.  But renunciation is hard.  For this man it was his wealth and material possessions that kept him from following Christ.  This might be true for us as well.  All Christians are, I believe, called to a kind of poverty, albeit to different degrees.  All Christians, in imitation of their master who was poor, are called to a certain simplicity of life, separating wants from needs.  And all Christians are called to be generous with their means, especially to those in need, to the poor.  But wealth may not pose the greatest obstacle for us.  It could be pleasure, comfort, lust, convenience, apathy, or some unhealthy attitude that we are called, like this man, to renounce.  Whatever it is, it must be let go of if we would truly embrace Christ. 

Sometimes I think it is as if our arms are full of things – like trying carry in too many groceries from the car – and Christ runs to us and wants to give us this big hug.  And rather than drop the stuff and embrace Him we kind of wave at Him with our little finger or give Him an awkward nod of the head.  It is an “acknowledgment,” but not much more.  But we must do more than acknowledge Christ.  We must embrace Him, and for that to happen we first have to let go of that stuff; we have to set it down; we have to renounce whatever it is that is keeping us from that embrace.    

But, as I have said, this is hard.  True detachment from those things or attitudes that we cling to so that we might be fully available to God is difficult.  We can fully expect to feel, at least initially, like this man in the Gospel, who “went away sad.” 

But what was it that really made this man sad?  Was it that Jesus had asked so much of him?  I don’t think so.  I think he was sad not because of what was asked of him, but because he knew that this was right, and yet he could not bring himself to do it.  As one commentary I read on this passage pointed out, “Failure to respond generously to one’s vocation always produces sadness.”  In other words, it is not so much the renunciation that makes us sad, but the old attachments that make us sad.  It is the denial of our true self, the denial of our call to discipleship that makes us sad.  I have yet to meet a single person who has truly embraced Christ and is sad because of it.  Quite the contrary; though they may face great afflictions in their lives, they are filled with joy; they are truly happy.  At the same time, I have met many people who have run from that embrace in one way or another, who have run from their vocation in one way or another, and are miserable for it. 

I know this to some extent “from the inside.”  In my own discernment of a call to priesthood I wrestled with this.  In my college years I started here in the seminary, but then left for a time before eventually coming back.  At the time that I left, I felt like the world was telling me that because I would have to renounce some very good things to be a priest (a wife, a family, a big paycheck, a home of my very own, freedom in regard to where I might be assigned, etc.)…because I would have to give up these things, that I would be sad.  And, in some ways I was.  At least I allowed myself to feel this way – focusing only on the sacrifice of the priesthood and not on the gift of the priesthood.  I felt that God was calling me, and yet I “walked away sad,” because of what I thought it would cost.  But, as I thought and prayed more about this vocation, at a deeper level I found that I was not sad at all.  Oddly, I found that I was never happier than when I thought about being a priest.

And I have also found Jesus’ words to be true about receiving “a hundred times more in this present age.”  As a priest I have been a guest in so many people’s homes, and while I don’t really get to choose where I live, I have also never had to worry about having a roof over my head.  And I certainly have many more brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers than I ever could have had otherwise – in the people I have been privileged to minister to, whose lives I have been blessed to be a part of.  So, the world, it seems, does not always know what is best for us.  We, ourselves, do not always know what is best for us – what will make us truly happy, but God always does.  Whatever our calling in life, I believe we will only be truly happy when we can say “no” to self (at least that truly selfish part of us that seeks only personal comfort), and say “yes” to God.  And, much to our surprise, what we thought would make us sad, may make us happier than we ever imagined.  While it is true that failure to respond to God’s invitation makes us sad, the opposite is also true: generous response to God’s call always brings true joy.

Still, some of things that God asks of us are very hard.  We may even think that they are impossible.  We're in good company.  Jesus says to His disciples, “How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  [Like last week when He told us “to cut off our hands and feet and pluck out our eyes,” He’s using hyperbole or exaggeration to make a point.]  And so the disciples ask Him, “Then who can be saved?”  This is impossible—impossible indeed…for human beings, but not for God.  No one can save oneself.  That is impossible.  But we may be saved because, as Jesus says, “All things are possible for God.”  Similarly, nothing that God asks of us in life can be done just by our sheer will power, by our own strength.  We know this from our own lives.  But nothing that God asks of us is impossible if we seek first His grace.  Without God we can do nothing, but with God we can do anything.

So, yes, this business of renunciation is hard, but it is far from impossible and, despite our initial feelings, it will not leave us sad.  If we seek that which is above, instead of that which is below, whatever that might be, if we are willing to let go of whatever it is we still cling to in order to embrace Christ, then, and only then, will we be truly happy.  We need not be afraid.  God looks on us and He loves us, and would not ask what He does from us except out of that love.  As Christ comes to embrace us even now, here in this Eucharist, let us not walk away sad, but come and follow Him.