I’m going to ask a simple question, and everybody’s got to respond. By a show of hands, how many of you would like to be rich … no matter what? A lot of hands went down when I said no matter what. The rich young man we heard about in today’s Gospel reading would still have his hand held up. He would still have his hand held up to his own detriment in the short term as went away sad, and to his own detriment in the long term as there is a strong implication that he did not inherit the eternal life he wanted to inherit.
The rich young man shows us what not to do. He made two critical mistakes that cost him dearly and I believe he wants us to learn from his mistakes, so we don’t make the same mistakes. If we listen close, maybe we can hear the rich young man whisper two lessons he wished he would have learned so that we can benefit from these lessons in the short term and long term:
- Put God first.
- Have but do not to hold.
Let’s start with the first lesson, put God before God’s creation. In the Gospel reading, we hear that the rich young man places himself in front of Jesus. Where does the rich young man belong? The same place we belong, as followers of Jesus, we belong behind Jesus.
This is the basic message Jesus is giving the rich young man. When he asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus starts telling the rich young man the commandments he knows. There is something interesting thing about the commandments Jesus says the man knows. At risk of oversimplifying it, the 10 commandments can be broken up into two types of commandments. The first group of commandments are the first three commandments that focus on love of God. The second type of commandments are the last 7 commandments which focus on love of neighbor or put another way on love of God’s creation or created things. All the commandments Jesus says the rich young man knows are from the second type of commandments, the love of neighbor or love of God’s created things. The rich young man has no problem with loving God’s created things. As one of God’s created things, the man has put himself before God. The man’s problem is with love of God. In fact, the rich young man has taken the love of God’s creation, which is meant to follow behind love of God and placed them first before God. It’s a little like my when my five year old son, Scott, is trying to button up his shirt and he messes up the order of the buttons. It’s better to let them all go and start from scratch.
Jesus knows this, which is why Jesus tells the rich young man to sell everything he has, give it to the poor and come follow Jesus. The rich young man goes away sad, because he can’t let go of his possessions. He is sad because the one thing he most wants, eternal life, is the one thing his money cannot buy. He can’t let go of his possessions so his hands can be freed up to let Jesus lead him to eternal life, which brings us to the second lesson.
To have but not to hold. If we have a possession that we can’t let go of even though it is keeping us from what we want the most, maybe it is not us who possess it but it that possesses us. It’s not the having that’s the problem, it’s the holding onto that’s the problem. We see this with the first human being born to a woman. Adam and Eve’s son Cain was living his life having the best fruit he produced. Cain having this best fruit was not the problem, but when he held onto the best of this fruit instead of offering it to God, that was the problem. It was when Cain held onto the best fruit instead of offering the best fruit to God, that there was a problem. Cain held onto his best fruit and gave God the just okay fruit, which led to God not being pleased with the just okay fruit that Cain offered to God. Cain’s brother Abel offered God the best he had pleasing God. Then Cain becomes jealous of his brother Abel who found favor with God by offering the best he had. Then, Cain killed his brother.
Again, having is the not the problem. It’s the holding that’s the problem. We see this also with the manna the Israelites had in the desert. The Israelites having the manna the first day was not the problem. The problem was when they tried to hold onto the manna for the second day that it became rotten.
We see this same principle at play with Judas and the money bag. It was not Judas having the money bag that was the problem. The problem was when he tried to hold onto the money for his own selfish purposes.
We see this in today’s Gospel reading. It’s not that the young man having riches that’s the problem. Jesus does not condemn the man for being rich. It’s the young man holding onto the riches even after Jesus asked him to sell it and give it to the poor that’s the problem. The strong implication is that if we insist on holding onto created things that for us, like them, the time we spend with God will be short-lived, instead of being what it is meant to be, eternal.
Food, money, whatever it is that we have is not the problem, it’s when we hold onto it that, if we let it, can take a hold on us, keeping us from following Jesus and what he wants us to do with the gifts we’ve been given.
To have it all tomorrow, we need to be willing to let go of what we have today. Eventually we, like the rich young man, will need to say goodbye to all the things of this world to say hello to heaven. Jesus is inviting us to begin preparing today for that moment which will surely come for us all.
The reality is whatever it is that we have, there is going to come a time when Jesus asks us to let go of it so that we can follow him into eternal life. If poverty is an empty cup we all possess and fill with what we believe is rich, Jesus comes to us today in the Eucharist asking us to let go of everything else we have that we have mistakenly thought of as being rich and fill ourselves up with his body, blood, soul, and divinity so he can lead us to eternal life.
Now, I’m going to ask you a simple question and everyone’s got to respond. By a show of hands, how many of you would like to follow Jesus … no matter what?