Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
After a gap of a few years, I am now back to facilitating the Confirmation program for our teens. I am in need respite from all the administrative stuff. At the first meeting with the candidates last Tuesday, I gave them a questionnaire. One of the questions that I asked the teens was, “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?” There are some truly spectacular answers. I am not sharing them because I don’t have the permission. But today, I am going to ask you the same question. “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”
One day, a man who ran up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and asked him: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17) The man does not have a name. I will come back to that later. Jesus’ response to him, his response back, Jesus’ invitation to him to abandon his riches and follow him, and the man’s sorrow-filled walking away have much to teach us.
The Search
By our standards, the man who asked the question was a good, observant Catholic. He kept the commandments, was a regular church goer, made it to the sacraments, tithed, honored his parents, was respectful towards all, lived a virtuous life, did not get drunk, didn’t waste time, didn’t litter, and cared for the environment. Perhaps that describes most of us in church today. I find this most fascinating, though, that he was not content with simply being good. Something very genuine within him longed for something deeper. He was a seeker. May be a perfectionist? Nevertheless, his search brought him before Jesus.
Are we seekers? What is our search? Whom do we kneel before? If we could ask God one question, what would it be?
Kneeling Before the Wisdom of God
The link between the gospel reading, the first reading, and the second reading gives us some answers to the questions I raise.
If we are on a search, one of the places to seek wisdom is the sacred scriptures. The book of Wisdom says, “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me” (Wis 7:7). And again, "I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her..." (Wisdom 7:8). Wisdom comes to the aid of seekers and shows the way as Jesus did to the man who came before him. The vast deposit of wisdom found from Genesis to Revelation guides us to eternity. This wisdom as Hebrews says, is “living and effective.” Most of all, we have the life, message, ministry, passion, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is the Wisdom of God par excellence. Someday, like the man who knelt before Jesus, we must kneel before Wisdom – Jesus Christ.
Our search, whatever it is, must make us come before God, the source of all goodness.
Rewriting the Story
The story takes a turn when Jesus says, “You are lacking in one thing” (Mk 10:21). Even though he had devoted himself to keeping the commandments, he had failed to keep the first and greatest of the commandments—love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Matthew 22:37-38). The man’s riches were of more worth to him than God. He went away sad because he came to the realization that he did not really love God as the commandments demand.
The verse, “At this his face fell and He went away sad,” (Lk 10:22) teaches us a greater lesson. If we are on a search, we don’t come before Wisdom with answers. Rather, we allow Wisdom to reveal to us the mysteries of human and divine existence.
That day, the man had come to the very gates of eternity and walked away. He knelt before eternity and walked away from it. But at least the man was on a search. At least he was asking the right questions. Perhaps, he did finally follow Jesus. Jesus, the Wisdom of God, taught the disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” With the man it was his wealth that came in the way. With us, it could anything else.
Today we have the possibility of rewriting the story. I said at the beginning of my homily that the man does not have a name. Well, he does have a name. His name is whatever is your name. For me, his name is Satish. At the end of our lives, what will that story read like?
May wisdom lead us as we rewrite the story.
Fr. Satish Joseph