Saturday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 11:27-33
Jesus has now come to Jerusalem. It is the last phase of his public life and hostility is building up against him. In today’s reading, while walking in the Temple area, he is confronted by a group of Jewish leaders, chief priests, scribes and elders. These are the people who formed the supreme council which will later condemn him to death. They ask:
By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?
The implication is that he is not doing it on their authority, which they regard as supreme. In his usual manner, Jesus counters with another question. He asks them if the work of John the Baptist was of human or divine origin.
They immediately realise that answering Jesus’ question raises a serious dilemma. If they were to say John’s baptism was from God, then it could be asked why they did not take part in it (as large numbers of the ordinary people did—and as Jesus himself did). The Gospel had described the leaders as simply coming to observe John as outsiders and judges.
On the other hand, if they were to say they considered John’s baptism as merely a human thing, then it would offend all those people who had the highest respect for John and saw in him a prophet of God.
Weakly Jesus’ questioners reply: “We do not know.” A strange and not very convincing reply from the spiritual leaders of the people! Jesus then refuses to answer the question they asked him.
But Jesus’ case was similar to that of John. The people, who had heard Jesus speak (“Never has anyone spoken like this!”) and saw his cures (“God has visited his people”), had no doubts whatever about the source of Jesus’ authority:
They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. (Mark 1:22)
The leaders’ own question was a clear indication of their prejudice and wilful blindness in the face of overwhelming evidence.
We too, of course, can have a similar blindness. We can refuse to see the presence and activity of God in situations where we do not want to see it—or in people where we do not want to see it. But God can use any person, any experience, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, to communicate with us. We pray:
Help me, Lord, to seek and find and respond to you in every experience of my life.
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Friday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 11:11-26
We are now entering the final part of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus is now in Jerusalem and in the final days of his ministry.
Today we have the strange incident of the fig tree. Jesus was leaving Bethany for nearby Jerusalem and was hungry. He went up to a fig tree looking for fruit to eat even though it was not the time of year for figs. Jesus then cursed the tree:
May no one ever eat fruit from you again.
Why curse a tree for not having what it could not have at that time of year? And in the evening on their way back to Bethany, the disciples saw the fig tree that Jesus had cursed all withered.
This story is generally understood as a kind of parable. The fig tree without fruit represents those people among the Jews who rejected Jesus. When he came to them looking for faith in his message, he found nothing. In a sense, they had closed their minds and withered up.
This meaning is reinforced by another event which is sandwiched into the middle of the fig tree story. This is a common device used by Mark and it is called an ‘inclusion’, i.e. when one passage is enclosed within another. Another example is the story of the woman with the haemorrhage, which is included within the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter.
After cursing the fig tree Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem and began driving out all those who were trading in the Temple court. He accused them of turning God’s house of prayer into “a den of robbers”—a market place. It was an example of people who had reduced their religious faith to mere commercialism. Religious ritual had been turned into an opportunity for making money. The meaning of the Temple as the symbol of God’s presence among his people was being lost. As well, there was also the failure to see the presence and power of God working through Jesus himself. The fig tree was adorned with beautiful leaves, but there was no fruit.
And so at the end, Jesus urges his disciples to develop real faith, a real trust and insight into God’s presence in their lives. He says:
Have faith in God. Truly I tell you…what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.
It is an essential condition for prayer. And prayer must include a willingness to forgive and be reconciled with those who cause us difficulties so that we may find forgiveness and reconciliation from God for our own faults and failings in his service. Let us pray today for that kind of faith. A faith that produces much fruit.
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Thursday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 10:46-52
Read superficially, this is simply another pleasant story about Jesus healing a blind man. However, as we shall see, there is much more here than meets the eye, and there is a lot to discuss. Although Mark’s Gospel is the one which gives most details when telling a story—leading people to speak of his using the memories of an eyewitness (perhaps Peter)—there is quite a lot more symbolism in his stories than at first seems apparent.
First of all, this story is strategically placed. It comes at the end of a long portion of the Gospel beginning with the healing of a man who is deaf (Mark 7:31-37). This section includes the high point at the middle of the Gospel where the disciples recognise Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and also the three predictions of his passion, death and resurrection and the accompanying teachings. In between are several other episodes and teachings. Through it all, we see the disciples stumbling along in various degrees of misunderstanding as they accompany their Master.
Today’s story brings all this to an end, and in a way, can be seen as a summing up of all that has gone before. Immediately after this, the final phase of the Gospel begins with Jesus in Jerusalem for the last time.
We find Jesus and his disciples in Jericho, which lies just north of Jerusalem. They are journeying south on their way from Galilee. We saw yesterday how alarmed they were about Jesus’ determination to head for a place so full of danger for him (and them). As Jesus was leaving the city, accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd of people, there was “a blind beggar” called Bar Timaeus (meaning, ‘son of Timaeus’) sitting beside the road. Already we have a sentence full of symbolism here, some of which we will discuss further on.
Jesus is not just leaving the city*, he is on the first stage of the final and climactic period of his mission on earth. He is heading for Jerusalem. Although he is surrounded by a large number of people, most of them are with him only physically, but not in spirit, as we shall soon see.
When the blind man hears all the commotion he naturally wants to know what is going on and is told that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Immediately on hearing this he calls out,
Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!
It is a form of what we now call the ‘Jesus Prayer’. This is a prayer we need to make constantly—a prayer we can only make sincerely when we are truly aware and accepting of our dependence on Jesus’ help and guidance, and when we fully acknowledge the distance that exists between what we are and what Jesus is calling us to be.
In making such a prayer, the blind man is opening himself up to all that Jesus can and wants to give him. However, the surrounding crowd, smug in their (physical) closeness to Jesus and contemptuous of an irritating beggar, try to silence him. How often people have given up their approach to Jesus because of discouragements they have met! How often have we, perhaps, been a source of discouragement or scandal to people who were hesitatingly looking for Jesus and the meaningful life he can open up for us?
This man, however, is not discouraged. The more he is scolded by the crowd, the louder he shouts. Jesus has told us to ask, not once, but many times. This the man does. Then Jesus stops…if the man had not called, Jesus might not have stopped. He would simply have continued on his journey. Jesus constantly passes through our lives. Every single day. How often have we failed to recognise his presence? How often have we failed to call him? And perhaps he has passed on and out of our day.
Jesus tells those around him:
Call him here.
Notice that Jesus does not call the man himself. He tells others to call him. Again that is something that is the norm in our lives.
If we believe that Jesus has appeared to us in a vision and directly called us, either we are ready for canonisation or, more likely, for a care home! No, it is through others that we are constantly being called. In fact, we might reflect today on the huge number of people who have directly or indirectly brought Christ into our lives. It is because of them that we are what we are now. Without them, we would not know Jesus or the Gospel or the Church.
Notice, too, the fickleness of the crowd. Those who had just been scolding the man are now urging him to approach Jesus.
Take heart; get up, he is calling you.
How many people need to hear those words! And how often they never do! Yes, there is no need ever to be afraid of Jesus, our Good Shepherd. And he is calling every one of us, in some way or other. But perhaps many have never heard the call, because Jesus expected me to do the calling. But I was too absorbed in myself to do so.
“Get up!” they tell the man. Yes, he is being told to rise, and it is the same verb that describes the rising of Jesus from the dead. He is not just being told to get on his feet, but to enter a whole new way of living. He throws off his cloak, which presumably was all he was wearing, and comes to Jesus. He comes to Jesus encumbered with absolutely nothing. It is also reminiscent of the disciples leaving their boats, their nets and their family to follow Jesus. It is reminiscent of the early Christians stripping themselves of all their clothes, symbolic of their sinful past, as they go down into the baptismal pool. When we approach Jesus, we need to divest ourselves of everything, get rid of everything we tend to cling to (see the story of the ‘rich’ man in Mark 10:17-31).
Jesus now asks him:
What do you want me to do for you?
Isn’t this a wonderful thing to hear from Jesus? But he is asking the very same question of us every day. We often tend to ask what Jesus wants us to do for him, but he is also asking us what he can do for us. And when he asks you that question today—and he will ask today—what answer are you going to give him? What you say is going to reveal a great deal about you and your priorities in life.
In a sense, of course, Jesus does not need to know the answer to your question, but you do. And the answer comes from the asking. And have you noticed any changes in the way you would answer the question over the years? And what would today’s answer be? By the way, did we not hear Jesus asking the same question before? Yes indeed. In yesterday’s Gospel when James and John came asking for a favour, Jesus asked them,
What is it you want me to do for you?
Compare now the two answers. The disciples asked for a privilege, for positions of status and authority and power, to be one up over others. What did the blind man ask for?
My teacher, let me see again.
Of course, in our present context he is not just asking for physical sight. He is looking for something much more important; he is looking for in-sight, the ability to see into the meaning of life and its direction and its ultimate values.
In answer to the question that Jesus is asking us, we could hardly make a better response:
…let me see again.
When we truly see with our inner eye, it changes our whole way of looking at the world, and our behaviour changes accordingly. We cannot ask for anything more crucial in life. Perhaps we feel all along that we have been able to see both literally and figuratively. But today we are asking to see again, to have a deeper vision that goes much further into the ultimate meaning of our lives.
Jesuit Father Anthony de Mello speaks of this in his book Awareness. He defines ‘awareness’ as “being wide awake and living with your eyes open”. No wonder Jesus responds generously to the man’s request:
Go, your faith has made you well.
“Made well”, that is, he is restored to complete wholeness. Only a person with perfect (in)sight (in the sense we have discussed) is truly whole. Only such a person knows where to go and how to get there.
And what happens then? The beggar receives the sight he asked for (“Ask, and you shall receive”) and what does he do? He does the only thing that a person with true vision can do—he follows Jesus on the road, that Road, that Way to Jerusalem and all that it means. He becomes unconditionally a disciple.
Going back now to the beginning of the story we were told that Bar Timaeus, “a blind beggar” was sitting by the road. This description is one that fits every person who discovers Jesus. We are, without Jesus, blind; we cannot see clearly although we may be very clever and highly educated. But, if we cannot see what Jesus sees, we are sightless; we are blind.
And we are beggars. We can only truly come to Christ when we realise that, whatever intellectual, social or material endowments we may have, we are basically poor. That was the problem of the rich man who came to Jesus. In his monetary wealth, he was not aware of his radical poverty. In our present life, we have nothing that is really ours.
Third, the man was sitting beside the road, not on it. And this indeed is the lot of everyone who sits beside the road, to be blind and a beggar in need. The road, as we have said, in the Gospel story is a symbol of the Way that is Christ. It is where there is Truth and Life. And so at the end of the story, the man, having made his compact with Jesus, is now able to see, is no longer a beggar, and is accompanying Jesus on the road that is his Way.
This story has meanings going far beyond a mere miracle story. It is a beautiful summing up of how Jesus’ disciples learnt to see and walk with him along the Way. It is a Gospel in miniature, a vignette of the spiritually deprived person discovering where Truth and Life are and committing himself or herself to it totally.
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*Luke mentions the same visit but describes Jesus entering Jericho. Here he has his encounter with Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector (see verses beginning with Luke 19:1).
Wednesday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 10:32-45
We now come to the third and final foretelling of his passion, death and resurrection by Jesus. It is not insignificant that it follows immediately on the story of the rich man and the teaching of Jesus that goes with it. We are now going to see what being a disciple of Jesus really means.
The first sentence is a statement of fact, but full of meaning:
They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem…
They were on the road—not just any road—but the road…and that road goes to Jerusalem and points to all that Jerusalem will mean for Jesus and his followers. Jesus is the Road—the Way—and his way brings him to Jerusalem, the carrying of his cross, the letting go of his life in love of his Father and us, leading to the final triumph. Those who wish to be his disciples have to be ready to walk that road with him.
The disciples have not quite reached this stage of discipleship yet. As Jesus steps out firmly on the road to Jerusalem, his disciples straggle behind. The Apostles:
…were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.
As far as they were concerned, Jesus was out of his mind. To go to Jerusalem at this time was asking for trouble, serious trouble. Everyone knew the Jewish leadership was out to get Jesus. Jerusalem was the last place to go.
Jesus shows them he is under no illusion about the situation. He gives them a detailed description of what is going to happen to him, more detailed than in the previous foretellings. The key term “handed over” is used again and, for the first time, a handing over to the “Gentiles” is mentioned. Condemnation to death will come from the leaders of his people, but the carrying out of the execution will be the work of the Romans. It was not just some Jews who were responsible for Jesus’ death; we were there, too, in the person of the Roman Gentiles.
Nevertheless, earlier on the disciples had acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah and Saviour-King of Israel. In the second prediction they had revealed an awareness that what Jesus was predicting was going to happen and so debated who his successor might be. Now, for the first time, the last part of the prediction—rising after three days—seems to be getting through.
Perhaps it was in that frame of mind that Jesus is approached by two of his closest disciples, James and John. However, it is also clear that they showed little understanding of all that Jesus had taught them so far. They approached him gingerly:
Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.
Replies Jesus:
What is it you want me to do for you?
(Note the question, because we will meet it again in tomorrow’s reading.)
The answer of the two brothers indicates how little they have understood of the mind of Jesus:
Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.
Left unstated was their reasoning: “After all, you did say three times that you were going to rise again after your death.”
This is a perfect example of using a personal acquaintance or relationship to get in by the back door and obtain a favour otherwise out of reach. And by “glory” they are almost certainly thinking in worldly terms of Jesus as an earthly, victorious, all conquering king. The kind of person they expected the Messiah to be.
Jesus tells them:
You do not know what you are asking.
They neither know the kind of King Jesus is going to be, nor do they know the price he is going to pay to enter that kingship. This is clear from the next question he puts to them:
Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
This is a clear reference to Jesus’ passion and death, the price he will pay to reveal God’s love for his children.
We remember, later in the garden, as the weight of his coming passion presses him down, Jesus prays that the cup be taken away. “Baptism” implies a total immersion, and Jesus will be totally overwhelmed with suffering and shame and humiliation.
Do the two disciples realise this? Are they ready to go through this with Jesus on their way to the privileges and glory they are asking for? “We are able” they confidently boast without realising just what is involved. In fact, with the rest of their companions, they will scatter and disappear when these events overtake their Master.
Nevertheless, looking further ahead, Jesus generously tells them that they will indeed one day share Jesus’ cup and his baptism of suffering and death. James would be one of the first martyrs of the young Church. However, as to giving them the places of honour they were looking for, that was beyond Jesus’ power to give:
…to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.
In other words, these places are not just for the asking; they have to be earned. They will be given, not to those who furtively ask, but to those whose love most closely approaches that of Jesus himself.
Not surprisingly, the other ten were highly indignant when they found out what James and John had done behind their backs. They were not indignant at the impropriety or the daring, but that they had been beaten to it…they wanted exactly the same things themselves.
Following the same pattern as the other previous incidents, the prediction of the Passion and Resurrection is followed by a show of misunderstanding by the disciples, leading to a teaching. And that is what comes now.
Jesus now patiently gives them another lesson on what real greatness in his Kingdom consists of. In the ‘world’, “among the gentiles”, to be great is to have power over others, to exercise authority, to be able to control and manipulate people to be at your disposal, to use people to attain your ends. However, in Jesus’ world, those really great put themselves and their unique gifts to use by promoting the well-being of brothers and sisters, especially those in most need. And the more people we can serve the greater we are.
‘Authority’ is not to control, but to empower. And it is the role of anyone in authority to generate ideas, energy and creativity in those for whom one is responsible—in other words to serve those who have been entrusted to one’s authority. But it is a corruption of the word to become ‘authoritarian’ in such a position. After 2,000 years of Christianity it is a lesson practically all of us have yet to learn.
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Tuesday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 10:28-31
Having overcome their initial shock at what Jesus had to say about the danger of wealth as a serious obstacle to being a follower of Jesus or of being a member of the Kingdom, his disciples begin to take stock of their own actual situation. Clearly they cannot even be remotely numbered among the wealthy. Is there something to be said in favour of their relative poverty? Worried, the ever-irrepressible Peter exclaims:
Look, we have left everything and followed you.
Indeed they had. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we are told that, on Jesus’ invitation, they had abandoned their whole livelihood and become followers of Jesus. It was a bold step when they really had no idea where it would lead them.
Jesus replied:
Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.
This sounds like a pie-in-the-sky promise, but has it been fulfilled? In fact, it has been—and many times over. By leaving a world where each one scrambles for a piece of the cake and where some get a huge piece and others only get crumbs, the Christian who truly has the spirit of the Gospel enters a community where everyone takes care of everyone else, and where each one’s needs are taken care of by a sharing of the community’s resources.
This is how, by leaving one’s home and family and giving away one’s material goods, one enters a new family in which there are far more mothers, brothers and sisters; where one home is replaced by many homes offering their warmth and hospitality—in essence, offering a home away from home.
This is a reality which, unfortunately, has not been realised among many Christians—those who choose to live their daily lives in the rat race for acquisition characteristic of our modern capitalist societies. Their behavior reflects their belief that what they cannot get by their own efforts they will never come to enjoy.
Yet there are examples. One of the most obvious is religious life where the words of Jesus are lived out. The question is why should only religious have this experience of shared love and shared material goods? There are Christian communities and some charismatic groups where families live in a communal style sharing all their resources.
But by and large, we have to a great extent failed to realise that Christianity is not meant to be a religion where individuals, rich and poor, live individualistic lives and carry out certain ‘religious’ acts to “save their own souls”. Rather, Christianity essentially consists of creating a whole new way of living, by which people relate to each other in mutual love and care.
Jesus says that in his world the first will be last and the last first. In fact, he is saying that in his world there is no first and no last. Perhaps this can be illustrated by the following story.
A rich man was concerned about his future salvation, whether he would ‘go to heaven’ or not. In order to motivate himself, he asked God to give him a preview of heaven and hell, and God agreed. God said that they would first pay a visit to hell. When they got there the man was greatly surprised. He was brought into a sumptuous dining room of a large restaurant all decorated in red and gold. In the centre was a large round table and on it were the most exotic and delicious dishes that could be envisioned. Around the table were seated the diners. They were the most miserable-looking group one could imagine, all sitting there motionless and in silence just looking at the beautiful food in front of them. The reason for their glumness was that they had been given utensils which were three feet long! There was no way they could get any of the food into their mouths. And they were going to sit there like that for eternity. That was hell!
God then brought the man to heaven. Again he was amazed. Because they were in an identical banquet room, with the same kind of table and the same wonderful food. But everybody was in the highest spirits. The sound of laughter rang out everywhere. They were really enjoying themselves and the meal. Was this because they had the normal length utensils? No! Theirs were also three-feet long, but here everyone was reaching out food to serve people on the opposite side of the table—that was heaven.
It is a very good illustration of today’s Gospel. When everyone serves, everyone is served. When everyone gives, everyone gets. It is a lesson even we Christians seem to find difficult to learn.
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Tuesday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Sirach 35:2-15
Today’s reading from the book of Sirach has a message which is relevant for all Christians. It teaches that there should never be a division between our worship in church and the way we lead our daily lives. Each one is meant to reinforce the other.
The author, Ben Sirach, is both a firm supporter of liturgical worship, and at the same time emphasises the observance of the Law, especially in matters of justice and charity. He brings them together in this reading. To live a deeply moral life is in itself a form of worship. But formal worship is also important for him.
He begins by saying that:
…one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being.
Following the teaching of Jesus, we Christians believe that, to extend true love and service to brothers and sisters, especially those in need, is to worship God really present in each one.
As examples, Sirach says:
…one who returns a kindness offers choice flour, and one who gives alms sacrifices a thank offering.
To abstain from moral wrongdoing is to make an act pleasing to God, and to give up sinful ways is the equivalent of making atonement (the Day of Atonement was the greatest day in the liturgical calendar of the Jews). We are told:
Do not appear before the Lord empty-handed, for all that you offer is in fulfillment of the commandment.
To “appear before the Lord” means to approach the Temple with offerings. And to come empty-handed here does not mean coming without sacrificial offerings, but without a record of good behaviour and acts of kindness and help to those in need.
Jesus’ teaches that, if we recall that someone has been hurt by us in some way, we need to work to bring them healing and reconciliation, and do so before we go to make our sacrificial offering. There is an intimate relationship between what is offered in the Temple and the kind of person who is making the offering.
The offering of the righteous enriches the altar,
and its pleasing odor rises before the Most High.
The offering of fruits or animals becomes greatly enhanced when the one offering is someone living a life truly in harmony with God’s will as given to us in the teaching of Jesus.
The sacrifice of the righteous is acceptable,
and it will never be forgotten.
It is the lifestyle of the one offering which gives the offering its real value before God.
As Christians, we need to take this reading to heart. We sometimes describe a daily communicant as a ‘good’ Catholic. But we also do not see what we call the ‘Sunday’ Catholic as an ideal. ‘Going to Mass’ must be much more than the mere observance of a commandment.
On the one hand, the way of life offered to us in the Gospel must be the basis for our everyday living and influence all our words, actions and relationships. Our Sunday worship, if properly celebrated, is intimately connected with our living a Gospel-centred life. And a Gospel-centred life will have a lot to bring to the celebration of the Eucharist. Perhaps it is in this that we find one of the inherent weaknesses of our Christian life in these times.
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Monday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 10:17-27
Today we have the story of a rich man, that is, a man who believed he was rich or who believed that in his material wealth was his happiness. He was a well-meaning man and asked Jesus:
Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
“You know the commandments”, says Jesus and then proceeds to list only those commandments which involve our relations with others, omitting those relating directly to God: not killing; not committing adultery; not stealing; not bearing false witness; not defrauding; respecting parents. And the man responds:
Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.
He was indeed a good man insofar as he did respect his parents and he did not do any of the sinful things mentioned.
Jesus looked at the man with a real love. This is not a love of affection or attraction. It is the love of agape, a love which desires the best possible thing for the other. This man was good, but Jesus wanted him to be even better. So he said to him:
You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.
On hearing this, the man’s face clouded over. He walked slowly away full of sadness because he was very rich. Jesus had asked him for the one thing he could not give up. He had asked for the one thing which the man believed showed he was specially blessed by God. The man had not expected this.
After he had gone, Jesus looked at his disciples and said:
How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!
Now it was his disciples’ turn to be alarmed and shocked. The whole tradition of their society at that time believed that wealth was a clear sign of God’s blessings; poverty was a curse from God.
Jesus removes any misunderstanding on their part:
Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
In other words, quite impossible. This was really too much for them. The Apostles:
…were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”
If those who have done well in this life cannot be saved, what hope can there be for the losers? It would take them time to learn the truth of Jesus’ words. And it is a lesson that many of us Christians still have to learn.
And we might ask, Why is it so difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God? Is there something wrong with being rich? The answer depends on what meaning we give to ‘rich’ and to ‘Kingdom of God’.
A person at a lower economic class level in Europe or the United States may be extremely wealthy with the same resources if living in some African or Asian countries. Similarly a ‘rich’ peasant in a remote village may live a life that is primitive compared to a family on welfare in Europe.
When Jesus uses the word ‘rich’, he means people who have more, a lot more, than those around them, and especially when many of those do not have enough for their basic needs. For a person to cling to their material goods in such a situation, to enjoy a relatively luxurious standard of living while those around are deficient in food and housing, is in contradiction to everything that Jesus and the Kingdom stand for.
And we need to emphasise that the ‘Kingdom of God’ here is not referring to a future life in ‘heaven’. Jesus is not saying that a rich person cannot go to heaven. He is concerned with how the rich person is living now. The Kingdom is a situation, a set of relationships where truth and integrity, love and compassion and justice and the sharing of goods prevail, where people take care of each other.
The man in the story said that he kept the commandments. One should notice that, except for one, all are expressed negatively. The man could observe several of them by doing nothing! Jesus was asking him to do something very positive, namely, to share his prosperity with his brothers and sisters in need—and that he was not prepared to do. As such, he was not ready for the Kingdom. He could not be a follower of Jesus. Nor can anyone else who is in a similar situation.
We might also add that the teaching applies not only to individuals, but to communities and even nations. There are countries in the world today enjoying very high levels of prosperity with all kinds of consumer luxuries available while a very large proportion of the rest of the world lives mired in poverty, hunger and disease. It is one of the major scandals of our day. This is not a Kingdom situation and much of it is caused not by an uncaring God, or natural causes, but by human beings who just refuse to share their surplus wealth. As has been said, the really rich are those whose needs are the least.
A final reflection. We may feel that, in our society, we personally could by no stretch of the imagination be called rich and so the story does not apply to us. But we can cling to other things besides money. I might profitably ask myself today if there is anything at all in my life which I would find very difficult to give up if God asked it of me. It might be a relationship, it might be a job or position, or it might be good health.
To be a disciple of Jesus means that he is asking me to follow him unconditionally, without any strings, ready to let go of anything and everything (although he may not actually ask me to do so). It is the readiness that counts. The man in the story did not even seem to have that. Should a Catholic be a millionaire? What do you think? What do you think Jesus’ answer would be?
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Monday of Week 8 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Sirach 17:24-29
Today’s reading from Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) is a call to the sinner to repent and come back to God. There is an implication by the author that the Lord will postpone death for a repentant sinner so that he may fulfil his destiny of praising God on earth. In the light of Christian teaching, the gift of final penitence extends this divine purpose into a life with God that never ends.
If we truly repent of the wrong we have done, we can be sure that God’s door is open to receive us back. This is beautifully expressed in Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. A realisation of this should help to dispel any loss of hope which we might have in God’s mercy and compassion.
So we are urged to turn back to the Lord, to convert, to pray in his presence—to leave behind our sinful ways and thereby lessen the effects of our wrongdoing.
Turn back to the Lord and forsake your sins;
pray in his presence and lessen your offense.
We do that, above all, by totally identifying ourselves with God and hating “intensely what is abhorrent”, i.e. morally loathsome.
Reflecting the belief of the Jews at the time, the author asks how we can give praise to God once we are in “Hades” (in Hebrew, Sheol, the place of the dead). Sheol (Hades) was understood as a place of no escape and a place where one could no longer actively serve and love God. We are told:
From the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased; those who are alive and well sing the Lord’s praises.
We believe:
How great is the mercy of the Lord
and his forgiveness for those who return to him.
If we die in communion with God, he will take us to himself and we will live in unspeakable happiness with him forever.
How foolish of us, then, to act sinfully instead of spending our lives in the praise and service of God! But there is still time for us to turn away from the wrongs we do and to experience the compassion and the forgiveness of God, which is waiting there for us. Only then can we give God the praise which is his due. We cannot praise God and at the same time act in ways which are contrary to his wishes for us. Now is the time to give praise to God when we have the opportunity.
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