Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 143

I prayed, and prudence was given me;
I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her,
nor did I liken any priceless gem to her;
because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her, silver is to be accounted mire.

Anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, in his book about the evolution of the human species, The Creative Spark, suggests that the emergence of cities and the development of specialized labor created the ever-widening gap between wealth and poverty. As towns and villages evolved into cities, those responsible for storing food developed methods for preserving the food by drying, salting, pickling, and – where ice was available – chilling it. They also developed ways to sort and pile the food stocks, with written records to keep track of where the food was stored, and to account for income, outgo, and inventory. 

But few could read or understand their accounts. In good times and bad, everyone relied on these trusted specialists; and perhaps they didn’t blame the specialists for protecting their own families first against want. Their children were the first to take an interest in how the food was stored, and how the records were kept. They could read and write, and seemed to enjoy that arcane science with its gobbledygook signs and symbols, and its strange language of decimals, percentages, and interests.

And so royal families appeared in the cities. Because they had and retained power, they could live better than everyone else, with better clothes, better food, and better education. If you were lucky you got to serve them, and they might take care of you before everyone else. If you were strong and skilled you could protect them, and fight for them. You could police their cities or join their armies. 

Or, if you were bold and adventurous like the Patriarch Abraham, you could organize caravans and carry clothing, spices, incense, precious medals, and gems, as you traveled and traded from one city to another. 

It's no surprise that rulers, bankers, and traders are often wealthier, since they hold and manage everyone's treasure. Money is a kind of fluid and when you put your hands in water, they get wet! If you know how to manage currents, you can build a little dam and store up currency for yourself and your loved ones.

Today's gospel concerns the tragedy of a wealthy man who rushes up to Jesus, all in a hurry to be saved. Like the disciples who wanted to sit at his right and left hand, this fellow has no idea what he is asking for. Nor is he remotely prepared for the answer Jesus gives him.

We're not told what his conception of "eternal life" might have been. He seemed to know that some people might not enjoy that blessed opportunity, and that there was something he had to do to inherit it. Could he be adopted by someone who owns, manages, or distributes eternal life out of some heavenly store? Can he count eternal life among his assets, and list them in his portfolio? 

A few years later, when Saint Paul addressed the gentiles, he assured them they had been adopted into the Chosen People of God because they believed in Jesus. How hard could that be? 

Jesus answered the young man very directly; he should liquidate his assets, pour them into the bottomless cistern of human need where not one fluid penny can be retrieved, and follow the Lord. He should live like the birds of the air and the foxes in their holes, without the securities we have built into our cities for the past five or six thousand years. 

His immediate decision not to follow Jesus indicates he had assumed the prize was not very costly, nor the road very difficult. He'd only heard it was something wonderful and might be obtained for the asking. 

The story is tragic. There can be no doubt about that as we see how Jesus loved the man and was saddened by his departure. Not everyone whom Jesus loves will enjoy eternal life. 

Witnessing the man's decision, Jesus said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! And the disciples were amazed at his words."

They had not really thought about what they had signed up for. Perhaps some of them still had vague intentions of returning to their homes, families, and villages after their tutelage under the remarkable rabbi. Perhaps they were delighted at the approach of a young man with many possessions, and disheartened by his immediate dismissal. For hadn't the Lord sent him away with his extreme demand? 

Jesus had not so precisely spelled out the cost of discipleship to his little band of fishermen, tax collectors, or farmers. He had spoken of serving one another, and about the ideal leader who is everyone’s servant; but that sounded too strange and impossible to make any sense.

He'd said, "Follow me!" and they did; the rest would work itself out; and, so far, they’d had a pretty easy time of it. 

But if their entire future was described with Jesus's reply – “...sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven” – they might never return to the old normal. There might never be a normal! They might never be wealthier, more secure, or more powerful than anyone else. Where are we going, anyway?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. But as there are more than a quarter million new cases of Covid worldwide in the past month – including 115,000 in the Russian federation; as polarized politics deepens daily here in the United States and throughout the world; as we face the specter of democracy’s collapse and the return of tyranny; as climate change threatens everything we thought we knew about life; as the wealth-poverty chasm grows ever wider; and as more people disappear into the vortex of depression, addiction, and suicide, we hear only the invitation of Jesus, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. 

Saint Peter speaks for you and me as he says to Jesus, "We have given up everything and followed you." 

We know no more than anyone else what he means by the expression "eternal life” but the Spirit who draws, directs, and drives us knows, and we follow Jesus willingly.