ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the Eighteenth Sunday of Trinity, 11th October 2009
Readings: Amos 5. 6, 7, 10-15; Hebrews 4. 12-end; Mark 10. 17-31
In this morning's gospel Jesus is asked a question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? Answer: Sell what you own, and give to the poor.
There are two mistakes that we can make with this story. The first is to universalize it: 'what all Christians must do is to sell their stuff and give it away'. Well, if we all did that we'd be locked in a frenzy of competitive disbursement. And that would be absurd.
The other mistake is to spiritualize so much it so that it ends up having no bearing on anyone. The reason that the man turned his back on Jesus is that he had great possessions. When we hear about wealth we tend to look 'upstream'. We look at celebrities and football players and we say to ourselves: 'They're all rich as Croesus. We're not. This story is for them, not us.' But we can't be let off the hook that easily.
Thinking about wealth and poverty is like crossing the road. We have to look both ways. We have to look 'downstream' as well as 'upstream'. We have to look at the teeming millions who live on less than a dollar a day. None of us are that poor. When the world's poor look at us they see Croesus.
So somewhere in the middle and it's a very big 'middle' is the truth for us now. So let's pick this gospel story apart.
The first thing to notice is that for all his apparent wealth this man is 'poor'. He has possessions; he has moral rectitude but he doesn't have fulfilment (full-fill-ment). He's not 'full up'. There's something lacking. But he does have courage and he does have energy. He ran up to Jesus. He's a man with a mission. He wants something. And he knows where (or from whom) he thinks that he can get it: Jesus.
So now we have a classic master/pupil relationship. The pupil asks the question and the Teacher gives the answer. Jesus behaves as any rabbi would. He quotes the Law. He repeats six of the Ten Commandments. The problem is that five of these are negative. We'd all agree that it's a good place to start but a fulfilling life isn't just about abstinence - not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing and all the rest. There needs to be 'more'.
At this crucial moment we're told something significant. We're told that Jesus loved him. Jesus could only get away with what he says next because he does love this man. The imperative is stark: Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. The man says 'no': His countenance fell, and went away sorrowful.
What do we make of that?
Some preachers load on the guilt. Here's a cautionary tale about how not to react to the Lord's call. Here's an example of human selfishness writ large. Compare his reaction to that of Our Lady. When she encountered the will of the Lord she obeyed humbly and instantaneously. This man? Huh. A failure! But I think that we shouldn't be so harsh. After all we know nothing of his circumstances.
The same story appears also in Matthew (19. 16-31) and Luke (18. 18-30). They supply some tantalising details that are absent in Mark. In Matthew he was 'young' (v 22). So perhaps he was immature. It isn't easy to rise to the occasion. Luke on the other hand says that that he was a 'ruler' (v 18). Perhaps he had responsibilities that he couldn't drop just like that. But whatever the reason he turns away and there is a certain integrity in that.
Shockingly, it isn't the worst thing to say 'no' to God. I say that because genuine vocation never goes away. We don't know what became of the man. I bet that he never forgot his encounter with Jesus and who knows what happened later. The catholic tradition with its practice of confession and sense of progress in the spiritual life and even with its notion of Purgatory says that God never gives up.
If it were true that we only ever get once chance in our encounter with God then we should have seen quite a different reaction from Jesus. If this was his only chance of inheriting eternal life then why didn't Jesus pursue him? Most of us when we 'love' and we see love's object slipping away have a tendency to bargain. We can imagine the Christ made in our own image running after him and saying:
OK, OK, only joking. Giving up everything isn't for everyone. Only the other day there was this funny little bloke called Zacchaeus stuck up a sycamore tree. I let him off with only having to give away half of his possessions to the poor (Luke 19. 1-10). So how about that? 40%? 30? Just something? But Jesus does none of that. Like the father who bade farewell to the prodigal son there's no attempt to bargain. Love, real love lets people go. There's nothing of the manic street preacher in Jesus haranguing those who dare to come close to him. Jesus loves and he wants only freewill choices in return.
And that's the key: freewill.
After the man has gone Peter goes into a sulk. He and the disciples have given up everything: Look, we have left everything and followed you. Uh-uh. No you haven't, Peter. You're still holding on to what you've given away. You've given up things in order to possess something else. There're plenty of examples in the gospels that show how flaky the disciples could be: rows about who was sitting where in the kingdom; who would be on the right and who would be on the left (Mt 20. 20-23).
The disciples (like us) found it very difficult to conceive that Jesus is about freedom. Eternal life is about free, unconditional love. The young man's use of the word 'inherit' is misleading. Eternal life is not an 'inheritance' in the same way that we might have been left great aunt Maud's cuckoo clock. Eternal life is not a 'possession'.
Eternal life requires a shift in perspective as great as working out how exactly you get a camel through the eye of a needle. But it's not impossible: impossible perhaps for human beings working alone but not impossible when we work freely with God.
To describe the process would take too long but I can say something about what the end of the process looks like. The voluntary poverty embraced by people who feel called to it is very different to the kind of poverty that any of us can find ourselves in as result of misfortune. There is a difference between being poor out of choice and being simply poor.
During my two and a half years as a novice monk I thought a lot about poverty as it was one of the vows that I would have to take had I decided to commit myself to that life. The Rule of the community that I was thinking of joining has three chapters on poverty. The last (Engaging with Poverty) ends with this paragraph
One of the signs that our poverty is authentic will be the readiness of others to confide in us their own experiences of suffering, grief and loss. If we are evading the mystery of poverty in our own lives we will shut ourselves off from the pain and weakness in the lives of our brothers and sisters. If we are living our vow they will find in our company a holy place of acceptance and understanding, where they can wait for God to bring strength out of weakness and resurrection from death.
(The Rule of the Society of St John the Evangelist 1997 p 17)
That's well said. If we in our own way take to heart this morning's gospel then we will see the fruits of it all around us. The love of Jesus will be evident for all to see.