Love does not 'fit' into our lives

Homily
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
14 October 2012 in the Year of Faith
Daily Readings

In response to the rich man's question about eternal life, Jesus says two things.  First, he asks, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.' Secondly, Jesus repeats the commandments.  Unless Jesus is asking a rhetorical question, or unless the Gospel writer Mark forgot to record the young man's response, it seems as if the young man ignores the first question.  "Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone."

I'm not saying the outcome of the conversation would have been different if the young man had focused on the first question and not the commandments, but the conversation itself would have turned dramatically I think. Jesus starts by giving the young man a chance to become more interested in the person he is talking to, but the young man doesn't take it.  Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.  Admittedly, Jesus is playing a bit of hide-and-seek, trying to draw out the man's faith.  He starts by gently indicating that the young man should have asked not 'What must I do to inherit eternal life?' but 'Who must I be with to inherit eternal life.'  Why do you call me good was Jesus way of indicating that this young man was in the personal presence of Wisdom, which is worth more than all the gold in the world, and he was face-to-face with the ultimate Word of God, Jesus himself, who cuts to the heart, between soul and spirit, and between joints and marrow.  The young man has come to the right person, but is not interested enough in the crucial question of who Jesus really is.  Yet Jesus also answers the question of what must be done, but again, the young man decides to focus not on the person, but on the commandments.

In the end, Jesus gives the young man a job, a commandment, something that he must do - sell it all - before returning to the most important thing - follow me.  Be with me.  Share life with me.  Share the mission of love I have received with me.  Come and see who I really am.  Yet the commandment to sell it all is too much, and this part unfortunately, should sound familiar to all of us.  How much time have we all wasted trying to lay hold of eternal life in a futile, impossible way -  by making millions of adjustments and resolutions and new rules and commandments for ourselves, but always within the parameters of what we can control.  Trying to make God a bigger part of our lives is like trying to move the Grand Canyon into our living room, which is just as impossible as a camel going through the eye of a needle.  It's not going to happen, even if we stay at it for a thousand lifetimes.  God does not fit in our lives.  Love does not fit in our lives.  There is no way to lay hold of eternal life by making adjustments.  Self-abandonment is the only reasonable and secure choice for anyone who truly wants to love and live.  Love and holiness require the smashing of boundaries, and radical self-abandonment that leads to a life thousands of times bigger than we can imagine, just as the Lord promises.

Detachment from money and our things is just a baby step.  We make a simple thing like giving away our money hard, but for a Christian, it's not really supposed to be much harder than following the 5th commandment - you shall not kill.  Detaching from our things is just a baby step if we are to have any chance whatsoever of attaching ourselves to God and to others in a way that produces the security and eternal life that this world cannot hope to offer.  We should confess our attachment to money more.  It is a real problem for most all of us.  If we fail to do so, eternal life is no more possible for us than a camel passing through the eye of a needle.