28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B October 13, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You know what? I think we know that answer already. Maybe the whole poverty thing wasn’t obvious to the Jews of Jesus’ day, but the saying “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” has been around for 2000 years now. We know. Keep the commandments. Stop sinning. Live simply. Follow Jesus. Sure, the details can get messy, but the main point is clear. The problem isn’t that people don’t know the answer to the question, it’s that they never actually ask the question in the first place.
This story has something of a sad ending. The rich young man walks away because he’s not yet willing to give up his riches in order to really follow Jesus. But how many other people never even bothered to ask the question? How many people are so caught up in whatever they’re already doing that “eternal life” is not something they even bother to consider? At least this man is wondering, he cares enough to ask. Because of that, he gives Jesus the chance to look at him and love him. That’s why I hope he came around eventually, sold his wealth, and joined the Church after Jesus’ resurrection. His look of love may not have won immediately, but perhaps with time, it did.
It’s much harder to be optimistic for people so completely blinded by football, careers, Netflix, food, and fancy vacations that they never even ask about eternal life… much less actually try to do what it takes to inherit it. Not that any one of those things is evil in itself, just that they become a problem when they compete with God. This is a major part of the reason Jesus says “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.”
So often, it’s impossible because they don’t even bother to try. The distractions of wealth and the illusions of self-sufficiency just blind them to the question. The few who do try often struggle, like the man in this story, to adopt the trusting dependence on God that is necessary precisely because it’s so much easier and more natural to trust in your own resources. Yet, we aren’t called to do just what is natural, but what is supernatural. This is about eternal life, not a comfortable earthly life.
And we live in the richest era of human history. Running water, abundant food, air conditioning and heating, clothing, the internet… even the poorest among us regularly have access to things most human beings in history could only dream of. Because we can instantly look up anything on the internet, we don’t even stop to reflect on the value of knowledge, much less put in the hours, days, weeks, years’ worth of effort required to truly master information and gain the wisdom to use it well. Because we can buy almost any food in almost any season, we never cultivate the habits of paying attention to nature and relying on God’s providence. Because we can travel 1000 miles or more in a day, we do not often reflect on the importance of the space around us and the value of being physically near the people and places that matter most.
And yet, despite our luxuries, conveniences, and incredible infrastructures, we are busier and more anxious than ever. So distracted by constant entertainment and so caught up in the race to live up to ever increasing “standards of living,” we never have the mental space or reflective self-awareness to really ask about eternal life.
Asking that question – and then answering it – is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, between earthly riches and eternal wealth. I know that doing what Jesus asks is hard and that we need guidance in carrying it out, but I… the Church cannot help us to follow Jesus in poverty of spirit until we have really learned to want to follow him, to truly yearn for eternal life. I won’t pretend living a simple, Gospel-oriented life is easy, but we have to start with the desire for life.
So I ask you to really consider this question: Do you want to inherit eternal life? Seriously, take the next few seconds of silence to ask yourself that question. Ask yourself if you’re willing to look Jesus in the eye and ask him what you must do to inherit eternal life.
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Now that you’ve considered it, I ask you to consider it every day. You should already be praying every morning and every night, even if very briefly. Add this to your morning routine: take a moment to look at Jesus and ask, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Then what? Then we have to face the facts. Money is dangerous. It is not evil – the love of money is the root of all evil – but money itself is not. It’s just dangerous. It’s a bit like water. We need water, but too much of it in the wrong place can kill you – something we on the gulf coast know quite well. Water is best when it is used, consumed, and spread around. Something similar is true with money. If we use it for its purpose – food and shelter and human well-being – it is good. If we use it, spread it around for the good of others, it is good. But if we pile it up, fall in love with it, surround ourselves with it… it will kill us.
Don’t get me wrong. I want businesses to flourish and families to have their needs met – being poor in spirit is not the same thing as being destitute. Nor is it the same thing as allowing evil to destroy our livelihoods. Even our psalm prays “prosper the work of our hands for us! Prosper the work of our hands!” Jesus loves us and so he often blesses our labor. But because he looks at us with love, he will often ask us to give away the very blessings he himself has given us.
So the answer is not to lose all ambition or to settle for mediocrity. It is to discipline ourselves to see wealth correctly. Instead of seeking to make as much money as possible, we should seek to conduct our affairs with wisdom like the first reading describes. A wise laborer will still make money, but they will not be in love with that money, knowing they already have something more valuable. A wise man or woman knows that God sees all, that money eventually fails, and that we have an eternal inheritance which cannot be bought or earned or stolen. Indeed, gaining that inheritance is impossible for us. That’s precisely why God asks us to do it… so that we can learn to rely on him for whom nothing is impossible. The question is, do you even want it?