28th Sunday Year B - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2018

I like today’s Gospel. The more I look at it, the more it gets me thinking… and wondering. Basically, it deals with two concepts that ultimately overlap: eternal life, and entry into the kingdom of God… and in the process it occasions some challenging reflections. Unfortunately, eternal life and the kingdom of God can easily become just clichés and merge into more general hypnotic, sleep-inducing church-speak. And that is a pity.

Eternal life, after all, is our human sharing in the living of God, of our Trinitarian God, which, to the best of our knowledge, is essentially relationship based on self-awareness, intimate knowing, passionate loving and creative joy [or joyful creativity]. Since we are made in the image of God, that is what would make us truly ourselves and fully human.

But we so easily get it wrong. Did you notice the rich man’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” As a rich man, he knew all about inheriting wealth, and property, and a decent share portfolio. And I suppose with such things, you have a certain power and control over your world, such that you have room and capacity to do a lot of things that others cannot. But what was his sense of eternal life that made him think he could do something to inherit it?

The wonderful thing about eternal life is simply that it is life, about becoming more alive – and it is God’s gift, already, waiting to be activated. How we activate it is the issue. That is what Jesus came to show us – but it is no great secret. We need to accept being loved – by anyone, for a start. But best of all by God. Surprisingly, it is easier said than done. To accept love at its best, unconditional love, calls for what seems like a real death to self. For a start, it means letting go of our instinctive need to be totally in control. Love is like that.

Here, again, the Gospel passage is instructive. It says, “Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him”. [That is not said explicitly of too many in the Gospel – except of Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus.] Jesus invited him, too, to follow him – so that the two could get to know each other better, and so that their friendship, mutual respect and love might deepen. What a wonderful start that could have been for the man if only he had let it be. Jesus recognised the blockage in his case, and to help him to see it and to deal with it, he then said to him, “There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven..”. For all his apparent earnestness [he had after all “kept all the commandments from his earliest days”], the poor fellow could not face the prospect, and despite all his wealth, indeed, because of all his wealth, even though still with all his wealth, “he went away sad”.

To relate, or to possess? To relate, or to control? They do not sit easily together. How do you possess without being possessed, without becoming addicted and ultimately losing freedom? How do you control, without being controlled, without needing to feel in control, without fear of losing control? It is not impossible – but it certainly needs the steady help of God.

As Jesus looks at us steadily and loves us, can we hear him saying, “There is one thing you lack”? Can we hear him saying, lovingly, to us, “There is one thing getting in the way of a truly liberating and fulfilling relationship and sustaining friendship between us, getting in the way, too, of life to the full, of eternal life now for you?” It is worth following up.

Eternal life leaves keeping the commandments for dead.