Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“He went away sad”
Today’s first reading advises us to seek true wisdom rather than vanishing realities like riches or political and social influence. Solomon chose Wisdom before everything else. When he accepted Wisdom, he received everything else along with it. In today’s Gospel we hear about Jesus’ encounter with a rich young man and Jesus’ sayings about wealth as a possible obstacle to following him.
Affluenza: the word that seems to have been used for the first time in 1954 and became popular in the 1990s. Affluenza—the sudden wealth syndrome - may be the disease everyone would like to have. However, affluenza is a dysfunctional or unhealthy relationship with money or wealth or the pursuit of it.
The rich young man: Imagine the rich young man in today’s gospel passage. He is a person who appears to have everything going for him. He has wealth so he should be able to meet whatever need arises. He is young so he has his whole life ahead of him. And he is an upright man, respected by those around him, including Jesus. So why is he running up to Jesus?
By the young man’s actions it seems he is desperate enough to risk his dignity by coming to Jesus and asking him questions in public. What was he desperate about? He probably heard that Jesus announced that the coming of God’s Kingdom would be soon. The young man wanted to know if he was one of those who would inherit eternal life in God’s Kingdom.
Jesus asks the basic question. Does he follow the Law? He says, “Yes, I kept them from my youth.” Then Jesus goes to the heart of the matter – the wealth upon which the young man relies. Can he place God first before all else? No safety nets, no backdoor exit, and only his faith in Jesus to guide him. It is here that fear grips the young man and he walks away. He thought it was too much to risk, even for the Kingdom of God.
The unaccepted challenge: Jesus made it clear that a true follower who wants to possess eternal life must not only be a respectable gentleman who hurts nobody, but also someone who shares his riches, talents and other blessings with the less fortunate. Unfortunately, the rich man was unwilling to accept Jesus’ idea that wealth is not something to be owned but rather something to be shared with others.
Life messages: 1) Do we have that young man among us, or even in ourselves? He is the one who considers wealth and making money more important than God, eternal life and pursuit of holiness. He is the man who considers his job more important than living a religious life. He is the man who misses going to church on Sunday because he has to take his children to games. He is the man who does not even consider the possibility of going to church when he and his family travel. He is the man who finds joy in seeing his bank balance go up rather than help others. Now let us ask that question again - Do we have that young man among us, or even in ourselves?
An old mountaineer was on his deathbed. He called his wife and said, "Go to the fireplace and take out the loose stone under the mantle." She did, and found behind that loose stone a shoebox crammed with cash. The mountaineer then said, "That's all the money I've saved through the years. When I go, I'm going to take it with me. I want you to take that box up to the attic and set it by the window. I'll get it as I go on my way to heaven." His wife faithfully followed his instructions. That night, the old mountaineer died. Several days after the funeral, his wife remembered the shoe box. She climbed up to the attic. There it was, still full of money, sitting by the window. She thought, "I knew it. Instead of the attic I should have put it in the basement so he could take it when he went down to hell."
Common wisdom says, "We can't take it with us, but we can send it on ahead."
You may have seen the book ‘The Success Syndrome’ written by Harvard Medical School psychologist Steven Berglas. There he says that individuals who (in his word) "suffer" from success have great pride and a sense of aloneness. When someone has an income of $100,000, he hungers for $200,000, and when he is making $1 million, he hungers for $3 million. Berglas says that oddly enough, people who found that $200,000 did not make them happy never asked themselves why they thought $300,000 would make them happy. As a cure for the success syndrome, Berglas said, "What is missing in these people is deep commitment or religious activity that goes far beyond just writing a check to a charity." [James W. Fowler, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984), p. 88.]
2) Jesus told the young man: “You are lacking one thing." We must recognize this and address it. We have a decision to make: whether to go away sad like the rich young man, or to follow Jesus and be happy.
