It helps to know that in the two-year weekday lectionary only the first reading changes year-to-year. This means the Gospel stays the same. While it’s obvious that there is an effort to harmonize these readings, some days they seem better harmonized than others.
I don’t mention this to be pedantic. I think it is useful to know. I also mention this to highlight the link between our first reading today and the Gospel. The first is self-evidently about idolatry. The Gospel, not so self-evidently, is too.
In preaching, we very often go easy on the rich young man. After all, he’s doing the best he can, right? What Jesus tells him at the beginning of His reply bears repeating: “There is only One who is good.”1 So, the young man’s assertion that he has kept all the commandments, which we have no reason to doubt, doesn’t make him good.
Outward observance is never enough. Means should not be mistaken for ends. What this young man lacks is love, particularly love of God. A few chapters on in Matthew, the Lord tells another of His interlocutors that the first and greatest commandment is “to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”2 In the end, the young man clearly seems to prefer his “many possessions” to following Christ.
And so, this young man is an idolator. This sounds like a harsh judgment because it is. To soften the blow, it is often pointed out that we don’t know if the young man later changed his mind, that is, repented, sold his many possessions, gave the proceeds to the poor, and followed Christ. In truth, this pericope is pretty self-contained and indicates the young man has made a choice.
While he got some fundamental things very wrong, John Calvin also hit some bullseyes. One such is his statement that “the human mind, so to speak, is a perpetual maker of idols.”3 In other words, the human condition is driven by idolatry.
To bring this down to earth a bit, the fact that we are driven by idolatry is indicated in the Act of Contrition we say (to God) after confessing our sins in the sacrament of penance: “in choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things.”
Before it is anything else, sin is failure to love God above all things. Stated differently, sin is preferring something, or, as in yesterday’s Gospel, even someone, to God. What Jesus directs the wealthy young man to do is not necessarily what He would tell you or me to do.
Knowing you better than you know yourself, the Lord asks you to give up whatever it is you prefer to following Him. Wealth and possessions may not be your main issue, even if, like the young man in our Gospel, you are quite wealthy. Maybe it’s preferring binge watching to prayer, gluttony to fasting, recreation to serving others- to give just a few general examples.
Christian discipleship comes at a cost. While that cost may seem excessive, what it amounts to in the end is giving up nothing for everything. As Lutheran theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted: “The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.” About those who seek to use grace as an excuse for not following Christ, Bonhoeffer states they “are simply deceiving themselves.”4 And this by someone from the sola gratia camp!
If we had a New Testament reading for today, perhaps it would be from the end of the fourth chapter of Saint Paul’s second letter to the Church in ancient Corinth:
For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal5Yesterday, I was sharing with someone my love of de-motivational posters, like the one that says, “Hard work pays off eventually, but laziness pays off now.” Riffing off that, maybe we can say, “Discipleship pays off in the long run, but idolatry pays off now.” Like ancient Israel, like the rich young man, we have a choice to make.
1 Matthew 19:17.↩
2 Matthew 22:37-38.↩
3 John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.11.8.↩
4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Cost of Discipleship, revised ed., New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1963, pg 55.↩
5 2 Corinthians 4:17-18.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment