This is no ponzi scheme!

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
11 October 2009
Year for Priests

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I've only been on the Yankee Stadium field once. It was the old Yankee stadium, before the new 'death star' was built (by the way, I've never liked the Yankees). In April of 2007, Pope Benedict XVI made a pastoral visit to the United States, and one of his final events was having Mass at Yankee Stadium. I was fortunate enough to find a ticket to distribute communion on the lower level. so during the Eucharistic prayer we were invited onto the field, an elevated stage actually, that was close to the Holy Father as he celebrated Mass. We were ushered to a spot right between shortstop and third base. Being a big baseball fan, I instantly recognized that I was standing right where Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, two of the most famous and well-paid players in baseball, practiced their craft.

We don't know how 'young' the man was who approached Jesus in today's Gospel. We only know that he was fit enough to 'run up' to Jesus to ask him his important question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? I remember that when I was young, my dream was to be a professional athlete. Needless to say, this was a naive dream. I didn't realize that my amazing plays that I made in front of my friends and brothers in the backyard did not translate into making millions and being on sportscenter. But when I was young, I would have given anything to be Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter. To make millions. To play a game I love for a living. To be on SportsCenter every night. To win and win and win. Granted, I would rather be doing this for the Royals than for the evil Yankees, but this is what I wanted more than anything.

Twenty years later, as I was standing in the same spot where Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter play, looking at the crowd of Catholic faithful praying the Mass, and watching the Holy Father, who is such a powerful symbol of the unity of the Catholic faith, gather this great crowd into one around the Eucharist, I reflected on how full my life had become over the last 20 years. As I thought about how Christ had worked in my life, and about the friendship I shared with Christ because of my desire to follow Him more closely through the priesthood, I reflected on how little I wanted to be Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez. I realized that what was once attractive to me had lost its luster, because of the surpassing love of Jesus Christ that had truly redeemed my heart and compelled me to give my life in service of His Church. To take nothing away from how cool it would be to make $42,000 every time I came to the plate, and how incredible it might feel to be able to hit a baseball 400, or even 500 feet, the fullness of my heart as I stood on that field with the Holy Father was such that I could not imagine being anything other than a priest.

At the end of the Gospel, Jesus promises his disciples who have left everything to follow Him that they will get a hundred times more in this age, and persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. I wonder how this first hit the ears of the disciples. On the surface, such a promise from Jesus sounds like prosperity theology - the more you give materially, the more you will get materially - like a ponzi scheme where you have high short-term risk but high long-term rewards. Initially, Jesus seems to be 'cutting a deal' with his disciples to keep them investing, promising them the world in return. If we look a few years into the future, we see that either Jesus was a liar, or that he was promising Peter and the disciples something much different than a ponzi scheme. Of the things that Jesus promised them - a hundred times more houses and brothers and sisters and children and lands in this age, and persecution, and eternal life in the next - the only thing that history can confirm that the apostles received for sure were the persecutions. They were all eventually martyred for leaving everything to follow Jesus.

So how can we blame the young man in today's Gospel for walking away from the deal Jesus offered him? Go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow me! How could the young man say yes to this proposal from Jesus, unless he knew Jesus to be more than simply a good teacher. Upon greeting Jesus as 'good teacher' Jesus immediately challenges this greeting with a peculiar question - why do you call me good? Jesus gives the young man a chance to profess faith in Jesus as more than a good teacher. Jesus pretends like he not good, to see whether this man might use the occasion to profess his faith in God, and his desire to be in relationship with Jesus who came from God. The young man ignores Jesus' peculiar question, however, and instead focuses not on the possibility of a deep friendship with Christ who is before him, but on the commandments, which he has followed as well as anyone.

In the ensuing dialogue, we see that the young man is like all of us. He wants to make the correct investment, to cut the right deal, and to know that he will get the right result. Which of us does not go through the same process thousands of times every day, hoping to make the right investments of our time, and money, in order to get the desired result. But the dialogue between Jesus and the young man does not turn into an extended conversation about how one can make the right adjustments in order to inherit eternal life. No, the conversation ends abruptly, with the young man walking away sad, after Jesus intimates that following the commandments is only the beginning of inheriting eternal life. In order to be perfect, the young man must remove everything from his life that would keep him from loving God, and his neighbor, with all his heart, and all his mind, and all his strength. The commandments do not make someone perfect. The commandments are the beginning of love and discipleship, not the end.

College campuses like KU are notoriously liberal places. KU, and Lawrence, are politically speaking, an anomaly within the conservative state of Kansas. One can simply look at the disparity between the votes cast in Douglas county and Johnson county to see this. But there is a difference between political liberalism and philosophical or theological liberalism. Liberty, and liberalism, pertain to human freedom. Whether you think that being a Democrat or being a Republican is more correct, or realistic, or better for the commond good, in the historical landscape of higher education, the question of whether one is becoming more liberal or not, which should happen to all students at a true university, is a much more complex question that whether you vote Democrat instead of Republican. When speaking philosophically, and theologically, the question of liberalism is a question of whether one is become more free to pursue the things that are eternal. The question of liberalism is whether or not you are free from being utilitarian, using your life as a means to pursue things that pass away, and are instead more free to contemplate and pursue transcendental things like truth, goodness, beauty and unity. The question of liberalism is a question of whether you are in higher education for more than simply to learn a trade and to get a job and make money, and to tailgate and party when you need to veg out. The question of liberalism is a question of whether you are becoming free to pursue more than what the young man pursued, for he walked away sad, because he had many possessions. Campuses are liberal places because they are places where you are to learn the meaning of life, and how to live precisely for the things that bring a happiness and peace which do not fade.

This, in the end, is what Jesus was offering the young man in today's Gospel. It is what he offers all of us who might be his disciples. Through an unadulterated and uncalculated relationship of deep friendship with Him, Jesus offers to pour into our hearts the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and love. Through our discipleship with Jesus, Jesus promises to detach us from all those things that keep us from realizing our fundamental vocation to love. He promises his disciples a sharing in his life, and in his wisdom that is described in our first reading tonight, a wisdom besides which all other gold and beauty and health are but sand. The young man in today's Gospel was more interested in an abstract relationship with commandments that in committing to an intimate and real friendship with Jesus Christ. He walked away because He did not realize who Jesus was, or what He was being offered. He walked away from a sharing in the wisdom that created the world, and through a relationship with Christ, having the opportunity to own the world in him and through him and with him, rather than having the things of the world own him.

In the end, though, we are all like the young man in today's Gospel. After doing all the calculations, it never adds up for us. Left to our own decision, we will walk away from Jesus, for he asks for too much, and his promises seem too abstract and remote. Even if we know that there is more to life than money, and good looks, and being on Sportscenter, our choice to follow Jesus can never live up to his call to sell everything we have, give it to the poor, and then to come and follow Him. We always have a backup plan. We always keep something to ourselves. That is why the disciples, and Jesus, are right to say that for man it is impossible. Jesus' call and command are exactly what they sound like. He commands that we find a way to pass a camel through the eye of a needle. Who would make a deal with a lunatic like that? Ultimately, the call that Jesus makes to the young man is something that we can hear, but not something that we can choose. The young man could not realistically choose it. What Jesus was asking was impossible.

Because of this, we have to take another approach. Like Mary, God's call is something we find a way to live up to. It is something that chooses us. God's call is something we accept, allowing God to accomplish the impossible within us. For a Christian disciple, being truly free, being liberal, being someone who sets his heart always on the highest things that never pass away, is not something we accomplish, but something that Christ accomplishes in us. Jesus looked a the young man before him with love. The decision before the young man, and before all of us, is not ultimately whether we can put a camel through the eye of a needle. We cannot. It is impossible. The decision before us is whether we can be chosen by a love through which by which all things were made, and through which all things are redeemed! +m