31st Sunday of Ordinary Time, B November 3, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Why? Why didn’t anyone dare “to ask him any more questions?” My guess is that it has something to do with the way he told the scribe he was not far from the kingdom of God. Usually when Jesus flexes that kind of power – like forgiving sins or flipping tables – usually the scribes and pharisees complain that he is overstepping his authority. But this time? No one even questions it. Something about the whole exchange must have just made it clear: Jesus is right about this man.
But he said something good, why be afraid of that? It’s what that authority implies. If Jesus correctly sees that this man is close to God’s kingdom, then surely he can see just as clearly when someone is not close. Suddenly, this game of asking Jesus questions got a whole lot riskier. Not only can he outmaneuver every trap you throw at him, he can completely expose you – the real you – in the process. “What if I ask him a question and he says that I’m not close to the kingdom?”
When Jesus teaches the truth, it is convicting. Unlike wild speculation or superficial judgmentalism, when Truth itself points out what’s really going on inside, we can’t hide from it. This is but a tiny foretaste of our final judgment.
You see, most people get the 4 last things very wrong. Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell – traditionally called the “four last things” – are what they sound like: the four last things human beings have to deal with. Whenever one of these comes up in conversation or on mass media, I often find myself cringing or just sighing at the missteps.
If you listen to popular opinion on this, you’ll get a wide range of ideas: everything from “hell doesn’t exist” to “everyone goes to heaven” to “almost everyone goes to hell.” Then there’s crazy ideas about our bodies being prisons or the idea of reincarnation. Then there’s this false image of God’s judgment being like a test which you pass or fail.
But the way Jesus responds to this man points us deeper. Yes, there are commandments and they do matter, but why do they matter? I don’t have a clever answer. You know it. It’s love. The commandments matter because they teach us how to love. The greatest commandment is to love God with your whole self and to love your neighbor as yourself. Great! What does it mean to love someone? To love God? The commandments set out the boundaries, block off the wrong paths, point to the right path.
But merely checking the boxes is not enough. Jesus doesn’t tell this man he is close to the kingdom of God because he was good at keeping the commandments, but because he answered with understanding. This scribe, unlike so many of his colleagues, didn’t just observe the commandments, he integrated them into himself, made them part of how he thinks. I’m sure a lot of the Jews in the crowd were stunned when the scribe said loving God and neighbor “is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” and Jesus agreed with him. Many of the people in the crowd were probably counting on all those “burnt offerings and sacrifices” that Jesus just completely dismissed.
Don’t know what I’m talking about? Let’s update it a bit. Do you know how many times people have asked me this question? “Father, I don’t understand. I go to Mass, I pray, I don’t hurt anyone, I’m a good person… why would God let this happen to me?” There’s the slightly different version: “with everything I do for God, why can’t he let me do [insert favorite sin here]?” It’s usually a sexual sin, btw…
We don’t slaughter animals and burn them on the altar, but so many Catholics are stuck in the exact same mindset as this crowd: thinking that simply offering sacrifices is enough to get God off their back so they can go on living their lives. Whether it’s the attitude of “I did what you wanted, now leave me alone” or “I did what you wanted, now give me what I want,” the root problem is the same: that’s not love. And when it comes to the 4 last things – death, judgment, heaven, and hell – it’s the love that matters.
Don’t think that makes it easier, though! “Love” is an almost useless word in English. When I say love is all that matters, I don’t mean just “be nice and feel good feelings.” Real love is not vague, it is a super-specific, very demanding reality. No matter how much we think, want, or feel like it, some things can never be love. No matter how badly you want it, throwing a baseball through a goalpost is not a touchdown. No matter how badly we want, breaking the commandments is never loving God or neighbor. No matter how badly we want it, keeping the commandments just to keep God quiet can never be love.
The rituals matter. The rules matter. The authority structures matter. But, they all matter because they exist to lead us to love; love as giving oneself to the other, love as doing what is good for another. To love God is to give him what is good. The only good thing God does not have is your heart. He wants you to keep the commandments because they teach you how to be human, how to know right from wrong, how to avoid the many traps and lies of the world. But he wants you to keep them so that you can understand your own heart and guide your own heart well enough to give it to him, to love him.
So no, our loving God does not send people to hell because they missed a technicality. What he really does is let people choose what they love. If that love is anything other than God, then we are choosing hell for ourselves, or at the very least choosing a painful process of learning to love those things less and loving God more.
This is both refreshing and terrifying. On the one hand, it’s not a test and there is no trap. On the other hand, it means there are no loopholes or technicalities. There’s only one way into God’s kingdom. We have to love him, actually love him with the real, genuine love. This means we have to do the real work of understanding and of loving. Don’t know how? Sure you do. Jesus says quite clearly: “whoever loves me will keep my word.” So, start there. Start by obeying. But just, for the love God, please don’t stop there.