As a teacher of teenagers and principal I often listened to parents who were concerned about their child’s behaviour or academic progress. I sometimes asked them what it was they really wanted for their son or daughter. Invariably they answered, “happiness” and then “good health”. Never once did a parent answer, “I want him/her to be wealthy or a millionaire.” Nor did they say, “I want her/him to live in a huge house, with a prestigious post code, and a large swimming pool.”

Of course, if I asked one of those parents would they like their child to be wealthy, they would almost always answer, “Yes, as long as he/she is happy.” Ask any parent struggling to earn a living and put food of the table for their family if they would like to be wealthy, and they would say ‘yes’.

Perhaps this is the first thing we need say about today’s Gospel: There is nothing glorious about poverty, hunger, homelessness or any of the huge concerns that poverty brings. In itself poverty degrades a person’s dignity and leaves them alone and vulnerable. God could never want that for any of his wonderful creatures and Jesus is not, advocating for it in this Gospel.

When telling a story or making some important point it is perfectly understandable that exaggeration will be used to emphasise what is being said. I have often overheard a student in school saying to a friend, “When my mum sees this, she’s going to kill me!”. Never once was I tempted to contact the police or social services. Likewise I have often heard a frustrated parent tell a child, “Haven’t I told you that a million times?” I have never felt I should respond, “A million? Maybe you should get him/her some counselling.”

So when Jesus talks about ‘camels’ and ‘eyes of needles’ and even ‘go sell everything you have….’, it is the point being made we should focus on, rather than a literal understanding of the words.

What Jesus is talking about here, the danger he is warning about, is the huge attraction wealth holds for us, and the over-attachment, even obsession we have for it.

So, why is it that when we say ‘happiness’ is all we want, we allow ourselves to be so easily sidetracked into the false assumption that ‘happiness’ equals ‘wealth’? Why do we, almost knowingly, bring on nervous breakdowns, burn-out, heart attacks, in our endless race to the ‘top’ (wherever and whatever the ‘top’ is!)?

There are all kinds of answers to those questions. At its most basic level evolution has taught us that animals who commandeer most food for themselves and their families have the best chance of surviving cold winters and times of shortage. Having enough and then a little more is part of our self-preservation instinct as well as the nurturing instinct every animal has for their young.

Animals will fight and kill to survive longest and protect themselves and their offspring. Most animals, however, do this in order to survive. They may bury or hoard extra food for the leaner times they know are coming, but I know of no animals who build mountains of nuts of grain or meat, knowing that they will never, ever live long enough to need all of it. No animal, that is, except the human animal!

We are top of the evolutionary ladder, yet possibly the most foolish of all creatures! Look at us! Lords of all we survey, yet probably 80% along the way to destroying the source of it all! No animal that I am aware of, purposely, intentionally, destroys the very source of their food and shelter.

We have come, or maybe it is truer to say we have been told, that ‘happiness equals wealth’. In every advertisement we see and hear, the tiny minority in our world who are the wealthiest tell us this. “Unless you have X, Y or Z (and even the most up-to-date X, Y, Z) you will not be happy or popular or accepted.”

We can blame Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Page, and the rest but that is too easy. We buy into the fiction that wealth equals happiness all by ourselves, and we probably, unknown to ourselves, teach it to our children!

How many of us find our garages and spare rooms and attics, packed full of boxes of toys our children never played with? Instead of one, two or even three cuddly animals our child can love and cherish, we fill shelves full of them and usually only realise when our child becomes an adult that all they ever really wanted was that tattered, dirty, one-eared glove puppet monkey they got when they were four.

Or how many of us, if we opened a drawer of our desk, would not come across one (or maybe two or three) mobile phones which still work perfectly well, but which we abandoned for the ‘latest model’?

In boxes, drawers, presses, filing cabinets, garages, under stairs, in fact almost everywhere there is an empty space, we will find all kinds of electronics, garden machinery, clothes, household goods, kitchen appliances and so much more we truly though we needed to be ‘happy’ – but didn’t? And the funny (or maybe not that funny) thing is that even as I write this I am aware that the computer on which I am writing this is seven years old and probably, I rationalise, needs to be updated, even though apart from being a bit slower, it works perfectly!

Why should we think it would be any different in Jesus’ day? Spices, silks, carpets, pottery, textiles, everything the up-to-date parent, housewife, businessman might want was there, at a price, waiting to be bought and guaranteed to bring happiness, success, and prosperity.

Today’s Gospel is a wonderful illustration of this, and an example of the extraordinary wisdom of Jesus. The message of Jesus to the young man, his warning to his disciples and his insight into human psychology is timeless, as valid now as it was two thousand years ago. I have no doubt Mark’s account of the encounter (and Matthew has a longer version of it) is based on a real event, but it could just as well be a ‘parable’ Jesus tells – a story containing a universal truth from which any person, in any place or era, can learn.

I have always been attracted to the young man in this Gospel. He is clearly a good living, observant Jewish man who is serious about his commitment to the Law of Moses. The story gives us no reason to doubt that he is being truthful when he says, “all these (commandments) I have kept since I was a boy.”

At some point he has heard Jesus speak and likes what he is saying about the Kingdom of God. For a while I imagine him hanging around at the periphery of Jesus’ group of disciples, listening, watching the dynamic between Jesus and his friends, and maybe talking to some of them about their own reasons for following.

Finally, he feels that maybe he, too, could join the movement and travel with Jesus. He gathers his courage and askes Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” I wonder if maybe Jesus heart sank when he heard the question, saying to himself, “Oh no, not another test?” However, something in the man’s demeanour convinced Jesus that his question was sincere, and there follows what for me is the most beautiful moment of the encounter: ^“Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

What a simple phrase and what depth it contains. There was something special about this man, some quality of character that Jesus recognised and with which he wanted to engage. There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus wanted this man to join him, and what is more, he saw in him the qualities it took to be a disciple.

For ourselves, that phrase is well worth pondering. Teresa of Avila told us that prayer was nothing more than “gazing at the one who gazes at us.” How nice might it be to invite Jesus in prayer to ‘look at us’, as he looked at the man in this story. If we did this and allowed ourselves to look into Jesus’ eyes, we too would see that we are loved.

It is true of the man in the Gospel that  ^“Jesus looked at him and loved him”. It is also true of us. Jesus ‘looks at us (looks at me) and he loves us (loves me). Our entire spiritual journey is a movement towards recognising that Jesus, truly, looks at us and loves us. Having recognised it, we may experience it in our lives and bask in its wonder and awe..

I wonder what the man experienced in that look of Jesus. Did he see that he was loved? or special? or called?

I also wonder did he think, for one moment, that his wealth would be what prevents him becoming Jesus disciple? I think not. Like many wealthy people he probably accepted his wealth as a given. Being a young man he might come from a wealthy family and inherited his wealth. One way or the other, he clearly enjoyed the lifestyle and opportunities his wealth gave him and letting them go? …… he just can’t do it.

What internal conflict the man underwent we can only guess at. Probably only when Jesus said “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”, that the implications of becoming a disciple dawned on him. Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, he saw all that he would lose – his easy, affluent lifestyle, the respect and admiration his wealth gave him, the power he had to influence or change decisions made, his friends in high places, … so much to give up for “treasure in Heaven”.

And yet….yet…. he liked what Jesus was offering; he liked the easy companionship and camaraderie he saw between Jesus and his followers; he wanted to be part of the Kingdom Jesus said was coming; he wanted for himself the peace, joy and gentle contentment of that Kingdom …… and he could have it…. but the cost…

In the end he could not do it and “…the man’s face fell, and he went away sad…” 

There is, for me, something very poignant about that phrase. The equation ‘wealth equals happiness’ was too strong to overcome. He goes away sad, unhappy, knowing as he leaves that he is giving up an even greater internal happiness.

Maybe, of course, he returned to Jesus a little later and became a disciple. I would like to think so. If he didn’t, I imagine that no matter how much his wealth grew, he lay awake some nights, haunted and saddened by ‘what if…’ thoughts.

For the rich young man the implications of discipleship were sudden and stark. I truly admire the man’s honesty in making the decision he felt he had to make. He might have convinced himself that he could follow Jesus without changing his lifestyle, or he might have pretended that ‘giving a bit more to charity’ was enough. But no, he saw in Jesus’ eyes what he must do……and he simply could not do it. It took courage to “go away sad”. I admire that courage.

If the man went away sad, I imagine Jesus was sad too. This encounter with Jesus was real and deep. That the man finally turned away and left must have hurt and disappointed Jesus. Perhaps the strength of his warnings about wealth are coloured by this hurt.

Ernest Hemingway said, ““Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.”

Perhaps this is what Jesus was warning us about? Fear, suspicion, isolation, arrogance, even violence, are too frequently the byproducts of wealth. They are diametrically opposed to the values of the Kingdom.

All of us most choose, every day, whether we are true disciples of Jesus or whether we must hang our heads and “go away sad”.

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

Give everything you own to the poor, and follow me

(Longer form)

“As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.  You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honour your father and mother.’”

 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “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.”  The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

(Shorter form)

 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”

 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

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