Homily — 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Fr. Timothy W. Castor

King Solomon speaks in today’s first reading. It is his prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of wisdom. The story goes like this: shortly after Solomon took the throne of Israel, following the death of his father David, the Lord appeared in a dream and told him to ask for anything he wanted and the Lord would give it to him. Solomon could have asked for greater wealth, for a bigger kingdom, for the defeat of his enemies. But instead he asked for wisdom to govern God’s people rightly. The Lord was so pleased with this request that he made him the wisest man who ever lived, and gave him everything else besides. During the reign of King Solomon, Israel enjoyed complete peace and great prosperity, and, indeed, Solomon governed his people with great wisdom. And what is wisdom? It is not merely knowing a lot; rather, it is the ability to apply what we know in the best possible way. In its most basic form, wisdom is knowing the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and then choosing always the right and the good.

The young man in today’s Gospel also makes a prayer for wisdom—he asks for the highest wisdom of all: the knowledge of how to attain eternal life. Tragically, unlike King Solomon, this man does not receive what he asks for because he makes several fatal mistakes. It’s worthwhile knowing what these mistakes are so that we don’t make the same blunders in our prayer.

The exchange with which this little dialogue begins is very interesting, and contains the young man’s first two mistakes. "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Our Lord’s response sounds rather strange: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." What he saying is this: "You don’t know who I am, do you? You don’t realize that the one you are speaking to is God, the Son of God, and the Messiah of Israel. You call me good, but it is just an empty formality. You don’t know who you are talking to." That was the young man’s first mistake. And what about us? Do we know who we are addressing when we make our prayers?

The second mistake is also in the young man’s question. Listen to what he says, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" There’s a contradiction here! An inheritance is a gift—there’s plenty a person can do to lose an inheritance, but there’s nothing one can do to gain it. Once upon a time, a woman passed by the royal gardens and admired the beautiful flowers growing there. Noticing the gardener, she said to him, "Please, sir, may I buy some of these flowers to give to my sick daughter?" The gardener angrily shot back, "Never! How dare you! The King’ s flowers are not for sale!" Unbeknownst to both the woman and the gardener, the King himself was walking in the garden and overheard their conversation. Quietly, he picked a beautiful bouquet of flowers and presented them to the astonished woman. "It’s true," he said, "the King’s flowers are not for sale. But I give them to you as a gift. I hope you and your daughter will enjoy them."

Our King, Jesus Christ, freely offers us the gift of eternal life. All we have to do is receive that gift with grateful hearts, and be careful not to lose it through sin and negligence. All the Lord asks of us is that we cooperate with his grace, and put to use the gifts that he gives us. So the second mistake which the young man makes is in thinking that there was something he could do, in his own power, to gain eternal life.

There’s one more mistake, and it’s the most tragic one of all. Jesus reminds the young man of the commandments, and the man claims that he has kept them all. Yet something still was missing, and he knows it. What was missing was love. The man obeyed God’s commandments, but he didn’t love God with all his heart. How do I know this? Because when God himself looked at the man with love, he turned away sorrowful. Listen again to how St. Mark describes the scene: "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.’"

Now some might ask, if Jesus really loved the man so much, why did he make such a harsh ultimatum? Because the love of Jesus is not always what we expect. Remember when I asked, do we know who we are addressing when we pray? I’m afraid too often we regard God as some kind of cosmic Santa Claus who is ready to give us everything we ask. And when we don’t get what we want, we clench our fists and stomp our feet like spoiled little children. God loves us, intensely and profoundly. But not with the love of an indulgent rich uncle. God’s love is a refiner’s fire—it transforms us and reshapes us according to his will. That’s why when Jesus told the young man to give up everything he owned, it really was a loving invitation to be free—free from slavery. The man’s possessions owned him, he didn’t own them—he was a slave to his possessions. And the Lord was offering him freedom—at the modest price of everything he owned.

Does this contradict what I said earlier about eternal life being free gift? Not at all! Salvation is given freely, and God will accept no payment, apart from the payment which has already been made of the Precious Blood of his only Son. But he does call us to make sacrifices for our own good and good of others. He wants us to slough off whatever keeps us from being united to him; he wants us to empty our hearts of the clutter that prevents them from being filled with his love. This is what it means to cooperate with God’s grace. But we cannot do this on our own. And, when the young man looked into his own heart, he realized he had not the resources to make the sacrifice the Lord was calling him to make. Sadly, he turned away, forsaking real happiness for the infinitely inferior pleasures of this world. Had he only waited a few more moments, he would have heard those comforting words which the disciples heard, "For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God."

You see, it is a free gift. Even the grace to do our part is given freely.

The second reading today tells us that "the Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart." Jesus is the incarnate Word of God. He penetrated the thoughts of the young man’s heart and identified the one thing which kept him from perfect union with God. He will do the same for each one of us, if we let him. When he calls you to make that sacrifice—whatever it might be—will you turn away sorrowful or will you look into his loving eyes and say yes?

© 2003, The Rev. Timothy W. Castor