28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
Mark 10: 17-30
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father you’re your mother.” He replied and said to Jesus, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” Peter began to say to him, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”
Leave your possessions, and you will have the good
Fernando Armellini
Chosen as the judge of the musical contest between the flute of Pan and the lyre of Apollo, King Midas awarded the victory to the former. Only a clueless person, one with the musical sensibility of a donkey, could have made such a judgment. He grew asinine ears and became the symbol of the foolish man. One day Dionysus, grateful for a favor received, allowed him to make a wish, promising to fulfill it. Midas, without thinking and guided by his proverbial foolishness, asked that everything he touched was changed into gold, and so it happened, but from that moment, he was no longer able to eat or drink.
Only those who do not realize that these myths reflect our reality and denounce senseless choices that are ours, smile at these myths. We are the ones who, between the sound of the Apollonian lyre, a symbol of harmony, the balance of passions, moderation, and the melody of the flute, an instrument of seduction and stimulus to excesses, prefer the latter.
The insatiable covetousness of gold, the greed for goods, the idolatry of money cause worry, restlessness, and anxiety. They take away one’s breath and make life impossible, but they are still considered goals for which it is worth living. Everything you touch—your profession, scientific research, friendships, family, and sometimes religion itself—is valued… if it produces gold. That’s the madness.
‘Donkey-eared man’ was considered by the sages of antiquity, ‘mad’ was defined by Jesus as one who makes the accumulation of goods the purpose of his existence (Lk 12:20).
Gospel: Mark 10:17-30
Mark placed the most challenging demands of Christian morality in the middle section of his Gospel, not before, because they can only be understood by those who have chosen to follow Christ in the gift of life. Last Sunday, Jesus spoke of the indissolubility of marriage; today, he confronts the disciples with the need to renounce all possessions to follow him.
In the first part of the passage (vv. 17-22), a rich young man enters the scene, running, who throws himself on his knees before Jesus and asks him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 17). This man’s behavior is genuinely singular; he seems like a sick person who approaches Jesus to implore the grace of healing. From the following account, we learn that he is a righteous person and aware of having led a blameless life. Yet we perceive a profound restlessness in him, an intimate and indefinite pain that makes him suffer as if it were a spiritual infirmity. He seeks Jesus because he has intuited that only a distinguished teacher like him can come to the word that communicates serenity and hope.
He is also prepared from a theological perspective: he does not speak of ‘conquering, deserving, having the right,’ but inherits eternal life. The inheritance is not earned, one does not receive it as a prize, as wages for work, but it is given freely. Like every pious Israelite, he is aware that from God everything is received as an ‘inheritance’: the land (Ps 135:12), the law (Ps 119:111), the blessing, the promises (Heb 6:12), the kingdom of God (Mt 25:34), the Lord himself, Israel’s inheritance (Ps 16:5). Nothing is granted as a reward for good deeds. Everything is a gift.
Despite understanding that eternal life is an inheritance, he asks Jesus what he still must do. He realizes that he must not only wait but that it is necessary to be prepared because the Lord does not force anyone to accept his gift.
As the rabbis used to do, Jesus answers him with a counter-question that can be paraphrased as follows: ‘You already have a distinguished teacher, God who instructs you through the Scriptures. What more do you want? Is it not written, All will be taught by God? (Jn 6:45). Then, to help him in his search, he reminds him of the precepts that the Lord has revealed to his people and constitute the minimum condition to accessing life. He mentions the Decalogue, but incompletely; he leaves out the first three commandments that concern God. For him, the observance of duties towards people is sufficient; in fact, the only way to show love to God is to share his plan for people, as the apostle John well understood: “Beloved, if God has loved us, we also must love one another” (1 Jn 4:11).
However, the observance of the commandments is not merit; it is a reason for gratitude to the Lord, the only good teacher who has given his people the law of life. The psalmist reflected: “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commands”(Ps 112,1) and, with sharpness, the rabbis commented: the joy is found ‘in his commandments,’ not in the reward that the one who keeps them will receive. The good done is its reward, just as evil punishes those who commit it.
The rich man’s response is surprising. He declares, convinced, that he has kept all the commandments since the use of reason (v. 20). John assures that “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Some doubt about the rich young man’s claim, therefore, seems reasonable.
He was probably not precisely without blemish, he too must have succumbed to some weaknesses, yet his serene and calm judgment contains a precious message: it is an invitation to evaluate one’s own life with a certain optimism. Before God—John encourages us—we must reassure our hearts “Whatever it may reproach us for, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things” (1 Jn 3:19-20). The presence of some shortcomings does not prevent us from considering a life spent for love as good. To be anxious, to feel rejected by God, to feel sorry for oneself because one is not perfect is not a sign of holiness but pride. It is not lawful to call good what is evil, but one cannot be cruel to oneself; otherwise, one ends up being abusive to others.
The rabbis taught that to be righteous was enough to keep the commandments. Jesus, hearing the rich man’s statement, “looking at him, loved him” (v. 21).
Mark is pleased to recall the looks of Jesus: the one indignant against the Pharisees (Mk 3:5), those directed to his listeners (Mk 3:34), to the crowd that surrounds him (Mk 5:32), to the disciples (Mk 10:23), to the disorder that reigns in the temple (Mk 11:11). He looks at the rich man with affection, with complacency, because he sees him prepared to make the quantum leap, and then he throws out the decisive request: “Go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me” (v. 21).
The rabbis often spoke of the coffers of heaven in which the treasures accumulated by the righteous on earth are kept. They taught, ‘The righteous gladly await the end and leave this life without fear. For they have with God a treasure of works.’ Jesus takes up this image to highlight the insubstantiality of this world’s goods and indicates how to use them according to God. We could paraphrase his proposal in this way: ‘Strip yourself of all your possessions, do not throw them away, but give them to those in need; you will remain poor, and God will be your treasure.’
This is not a new precept added to those of the Decalogue but an invitation to adhere to an entirely new logic. It calls for the renunciation of any selfish use not only of money but of all possessions, intelligence, health, beauty, one’s own time, all abilities received from God. One cannot be his disciple if he or she does not detach the heart from what he or she possesses. Those who jealously keep their possessions for themselves until the moment of appropriation inevitably arrives are foolish.
Cynical philosophers had also preached the radical detachment from property. Crates, a disciple of Diogenes, got rid of his considerable wealth by throwing it into the sea. Faced with the goods of this world, Jesus takes an entirely different attitude. He does not despise them, he does not invite people to destroy them, but he indicates how to value them: they must be given to the poor. He does not ask us to give something in alms but to renounce everything.
How to make this requirement feasible? An ingenious solution was devised. It was explained that this is not a prerequisite for being a disciple; it is advice reserved for some heroes. Christians were thus divided into two classes: on the one hand, the ‘perfect,’ those who, by taking a vow of poverty, commit themselves to practice thoroughly what Jesus had ordered; on the other hand, the ‘simple Christians’ who can continue to possess their goods, resigning themselves, however, to remain ‘imperfect.’
This solution is a clumsy trick to escape the request that Jesus addresses, not to a restricted group of ‘perfect’ people, but to anyone who wants to be his disciple. The Christian ideal is not misery, hunger, or nakedness, but the fraternal sharing of the goods that God has made available to all. Sin is not to become rich but to enrich oneself. In the Gospel of the Nazarenes, an apocryphal book of the second century A.D., the episode is reported with some curious details. After the Master’s request, ‘the rich man began to scratch his head; he was not happy. Then the Lord said to him: many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are drowning in filth and dying of hunger, while your house is full of every good thing, and nothing comes out for them.’
In Mark, the story ends bitterly: the rich man chooses to stay with his goods; he does not dare to trust the proposal of Jesus, does not feel like risking, is afraid of losing everything, and is sad goes away. He is afflicted because he has not been able to detach himself from his goods. He did not realize that man’s heart is made for infinite love, and if he is a slave to things, he can only remain disappointed and unhappy.
The grain of wheat, once sown, sprouts, grows, and produces the stem and the ear; this process cannot be different because it follows the nature of the seed. Man is made in the image of God, and in his heart, he feels an irrepressible need for the infinite. Even if repressed, silenced, or forgotten, this desire resurfaces, and no creature is ever able to satisfy it.
The story is not concluded, but it is not difficult to reconstruct the sequel. The rich young man was not inexperienced, moved by the enthusiasm of a moment; he had grown up nourishing deep religious convictions, so it is unthinkable that, after meeting Jesus, he abandoned himself to evil, he began to transgress the commandments. He continued to be righteous, pious, and lead an impeccable life… but he did not become a Christian; he did not manage to make the leap.
The second part of the passage (vv. 23-27) reports Jesus’ consideration of the danger of wealth. It is the most severe impediment for those who want to become disciples. It possesses the seductive power of a god because, every time one turns to it, it responds by granting what is asked of it. It constitutes an almost insurmountable obstacle for those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven. “It is easier—Jesus assures us—for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (v. 26).
Some have tried to interpret this strange image by explaining that it is not a camel but an elbow (the two words in Greek are very similar) or that the eye of a needle was a small gate of the city of Jerusalem. Better to keep the paradoxical image employed by Jesus that speaks of an impossible decision (v. 27). Detachment from all that one possesses requires an act of generosity such that only a miracle from God can help accomplish it.
The disciples to whom the Master addresses himself are not rich, yet they are stunned by his words. They understood that even those who are poor must strip themselves of everything. It is not a question of giving much or little, but offering all that one is, and all that one has, whether it be much or little.
The last part (vv. 28-31) lists the people and things from which the disciple is called to detach himself. About this double list, placed first on Peter’s lips and then on Jesus’, we note first the unexpected presence of family members among the goods to be renounced. It is easy to confuse love with morbid attachment. There is personal selfishness, but there is also more subtle selfishness, which can cloak itself in virtue, and this is family selfishness. He who thinks only of himself, his wife, and children remain selfish; he is incapable of looking beyond the threshold of his own home. He cannot be happy because he has atrophied his heart, repressing the universal love for which he is made.
Among the people to be renounced is not included his wife. The reason is that Peter and the other apostles did not leave their wives. They did not break up their families; that would have been neither right nor humane. When, for apostolic reasons, they had to move and change their residence, they always acted by mutual agreement with their wives, who generally agreed to accompany them (cf. 1 Cor 9:5). Commitment to the Gospel cannot be set in opposition to duties towards family members.
Finally, it is significant that among the things the disciple receives a hundredfold, the father does not appear. Already in this world, generous love is compensated with a hundredfold in houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, but not in ‘fathers.’There should no longer be ‘fathers’ in the Christian community because all are brothers and sisters; the only Father is the one in heaven (Mt 23:9).
How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa
A preliminary observation is necessary to clarify any possible ambiguities when reading what this Sunday’s Gospel says about wealth.
Jesus never condemns wealth or earthly goods in themselves. Among his friends is, also, Joseph of Arimathea, a “rich man”; Zaccheus is declared “saved,” though he kept half his goods for himself which, given his office of tax collector, must have been considerable.
What Jesus condemns is exaggerated attachment to money and property; to make one’s life depend on these and to accumulate riches only for oneself (Luke 12:13-21).
The word which God uses for excessive attachment to money is “idolatry” (Colossians 3:5; Ephesians 5:5). Money is not one of many idols; it is the idol par excellence, literally, “molten gods” (Exodus 34:17).
It is the anti-God because it creates a sort of alternative world, it changes the object of the theological virtues. Faith, hope and charity are no longer placed in God, but in money. Effected is a sinister inversion of all values.
“Nothing is impossible for God,” says Scripture, and also: “Everything is possible for the one who believes.” But the world says: “Everything is possible for the one who has money.”
Avarice, in addition to being idolatry, is also the source of unhappiness. The avaricious is an unhappy man. Distrusting everyone, he isolates himself. He has not affection, not even for those of his own flesh, whom he always sees as taking advantage and who, in turn, really nourish only one desire in regard to him: That he die soon to inherit his wealth.
Tense to the point of breaking to save money, he denies himself everything in life and so does not enjoy either this world or God, as his self-denial is not for him.
Instead of having security and tranquility, he is an eternal hostage of his money. However, Jesus does not leave any one without the hope of salvation, including the rich man. The question is not “whether the rich man is saved” (this has never been in discussion in Christian tradition), but “What rich man is saved?”
Jesus points out to the rich a way out of their dangerous situation: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes” (Matthew 6:20); “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations” (Luke 16:9).
It might be said that Jesus was advising the rich to transfer their capital abroad! But not to Switzerland — to heaven! Many, says St. Augustine, exert themselves to put their money under earth, depriving themselves of the pleasure of seeing it, at times all their life, just to be sure it is safe.
Why not put it no less than in heaven, where it would be much safer, and where it will be found again one day forever? And how to do this? It is simple, continues St. Augustine: God offers you the carriers in the poor. They are going there where you hope to go one day. God’s need is here, in the poor, and he will give it back to you when you go there.
However, it is clear that today almsgiving and charity is no longer the only way to use wealth for the common good, or perhaps the most advisable.
There is also honesty in paying one’s taxes, to create new jobs, to give a more generous salary to workers when the situation allows it, to initiate local enterprises in developing countries.
In sum, when one makes money yield, makes it flow, they are channels for the water to circulate, not artificial lakes that keep it for themselves.
[Translation by ZENIT]
Charity is the soul of Mission
Romeo Ballan, mccj
“In the world there is enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed” (Ghandi). They are the words of a non-Christian, in tune with the austere teaching of Jesus concerning the use of material goods and the danger of riches. The evangelist Mark leads the catechumen and the disciple in the gradual discovery of the “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1,1), subsequently revealing his identity through the miracles and teaching. In the central part of his Gospel, Mark inserts the most exacting requirements of Christian morality, which he groups together around three themes: the conditions to follow Christ (the renunciation of self, the taking up of the cross: 8,32-38); the demands of family life (marriage indissolubility, love and respect for the children: 10,2-16); the use of material goods (the danger of riches, the reward to those who give up material possessions: 10,17-31).
The three themes are spelled out by the three announcements of the passion and resurrection (8,31; 9,31; 10,32-34) and are inserted between the two miracles of Jesus who opens the eyes of two blind people: the blind man of Bethsaida (8,22-25) and the one of Jericho (10,46-52). Particularly meaningful are the words which Jesus says to the latter blind man: “Go, your faith has saved you”. The cured man becomes his disciple and follows him. In today Gospel Mark says that to follow the path of Christian morality – and, therefore, of salvation! – “is impossible with men, but not with God” (v. 27). All is possible to God who opens our eyes to see the path to be followed and, through faith, gives us the strength to follow it.
Christ invites us to put in the first place people not material possessions. He is for the poor but against poverty; he does not propose poverty but communion; goods make sense only if are signs of and instruments for meeting other people, by our sharing. Jesus does not condemn riches in an absolute way, does not praise misery and hunger, but teaches how to use goods: with honesty, justice and charity. The Master looks at the young man of the Gospel, “who had great possessions” (v. 22) and was a faithful observer of the commandments (v. 20), loves him (v. 21) and invites him to go beyond the observance of the law, to make a radical change: to enter, that is, in the logic of charity and sharing of the goods with the poor. In this way one can assert his real freedom concerning things, which are also nice and good, by not becoming dependant or slaves of them. Only in this way life is lived in gratuitousness: like a gift that we share with others. When we follow Christ, we can discover the richness and joy of the Treasure (v. 21).
The wise man (I reading) discovers that the Wisdom which comes from God is worth more than riches, more than health and beauty (v. 9-10). The “living and active” (II reading) word of God, which plumbs the depths of the meaning of things and of the human heart (v. 12), leads us to understand that for Christianity the main virtue is not poverty, not even the giving up of everything, but charity, understood as oblation of self and of our own possessions for a service of love to others. That’s why charity is the soul of Mission: love motivates us to mission and to solidarity. Charity is a sign and instrument of communion among the Churches, in our exchange of gifts.
The words of Jesus to the rich young man have a special ring during the month of October, the mission month: Go, give it to the poor, come and follow me… Mission is to go, always a going out of self, it is to rejoice in the finding of the Treasure which fills our life, it is to feel the urgency of sharing such an experience, it is to discover that the other is more important than our house, it is to share our spiritual and material goods with the people most in need… This is the mission which gives full meaning to life and new flavour to the human family. Great missionary figures give witness to this, figures that the calendar remembers in the month of October: Francis of Assisi, Daniel Comboni, John XXIII, Theresa of Avila, the holy martyrs of Canada, Laura Montoya, Antonio Maria Claret…
