Loved into Letting Go

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Mark 10: 17-30
17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 18Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” ’ 20He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ 27Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ 29Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

This is a wonderful gospel passage, but the wonderful part of it is often overlooked because it immediately creates discomfort as we survey all of our material possessions and ask ourselves if Jesus really meant that we have to sell everything we have in order to follow him. We can certainly understand that it’s easy to get too caught up in our possessions and end up in a cycle of attainment and maintenance that can distract us from serving him and we wonder if we have become too attached and too focused on our material possessions. It’s definitely a good exercise to discern how attached we are to what material goods we do have and how focused we are on what we don’t have.

However, don’t let this very good exercise overshadow a deeply important and wonderful truth in this gospel. The first clue we have that Jesus is trying to get something planted in the hearts of his disciples is where, after the rich man explained that he had followed all the prescribed rules since he was a boy, scripture says, ‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

I am struck by the fact that Jesus looked the man and loved him. Within that look and that love was an invitation much deeper than a simple invitation to sell all his material possessions. There was far more than material possessions hindering the man from following Jesus. Why would this man run up and ask Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life if he already knew he had kept the Jewish commandments all his life and had been taught that this is what would save him? Was he really looking for the key to eternal life or was he actually looking for approval from Jesus for his faithfulness to the law? He definitely wasn’t trying to trap Jesus so maybe he just wanted recognition for being a fine upstanding Jew. Maybe he hoped Jesus would say something like, “Look at this man. Here is what you all should be striving for. Obviously, God loves him because he is quite rich, and not only is he wealthy but he is scrupulous about following the law. What a guy!”

Instead, Jesus told him he was lacking one thing. Was this ‘one thing’ the action of selling all the man owned? Perhaps not. Perhaps the one thing lacking was a relationship with Jesus himself. The man went away shocked. He failed to look at the love in Jesus’ eyes and he didn’t understand that love and desire for a relationship with Jesus was the one thing he lacked. All he could hear was “sell all”. He was jarred to the core of his being because all Jews assumed that wealth indicated God’s approval. If he was looking for approbation, recognition or a pat on the back, he didn’t get it. Jesus didn’t say to him, “You’re great. You’ve done everything you need to do. I wish everybody was like you.” The rich man completely missed what was in the eyes of Jesus, which was what he really needed: Jesus’ unconditional love. Had he looked into Jesus’ eyes and seen the love there, he would have done everything possible to follow and be with Jesus.

Jesus then comments to his disciples how difficult it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Was Jesus really speaking about life after death or was he speaking about becoming intimately engaged with the Kingdom of God in the present moment? In Luke 17: vs. 20 and 21, Jesus was asked when the Kingdom of God was coming and in his reply he ended with, ‘...in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’ An alternative word for ‘among’ is ‘within’. The kingdom of God is within you.

The disciples as well as the rich man were looking for information about the afterlife and how it was possible to earn eternal salvation; what Jesus was saying to them was, “I am the kingdom of God and I am here. When you look into my eyes, fall in love with me and allow me to love you, you will have the kingdom of God within you. It will be all you need. It will be all you want.”

The big question is, what is stopping all of us from falling in love with Christ, finding all we need in him and being fully engaged in the here and now Kingdom of God? Do we seek the eyes of Jesus in every moment or are we so concerned with keeping the proper rules and keeping a tally of everything we do for the Lord that we miss experiencing the Kingdom right now where we are?

To the rich man, wealth was a sign of God’s approval. What signs do we look for to indicate that we are acceptable to God? It could be that we are caught up in material possessions but we could also be caught up in a successful ministry or we could be placing an enormous amount of personal justification on the behavior of our children or we could be keeping a count of how often we attend daily Mass or engage in daily devotions. We could even be placing a lot of importance on how much we know about the church, our faith and scripture. There’s nothing wrong with any of these things – including wealth. Even voluntary poverty can become a mistaken source of self-justification. All these things become unhealthy when they become our possessions and, in maintaining our possession of them, they separate us from complete dependence on the love of Christ to justify us and take us home.

The spiritual journey is a life long process of having our fingers pried off false security. No one is exempt. The call to let go of all that we hold onto is not a call coming from the heart of a forbidding God. It is a call from the heart of the Beloved:

“Please…look into my eyes. Let me be your security, your validation and your only source of satisfaction. Let me be your love.”