(Sunday before Ash Wednesday, 7th Sunday before Easter)
Luke 18: 18-34
One of the highest spiritual leaders
Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One—God alone. You know the commandments, you shall not destroy marriage, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not speak untruth, and you shall honor your father and your mother!
He said, “All these I have observed strictly from my youth.”
When Jesus heard this, he said, [Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said… Mk 10:21] “One thing, however, you lack: Sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor; thus will you achieve a treasure in the spiritual world—then come and follow me!
He was sad about these words, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw him thus, he said, “What hindrances must those overcome who are rich in outer or inner possessions, if they want to enter into the kingdom of God. Sooner would a camel walk through the eye of a needle than a rich man be able to find the entrance to the kingdom of God!”
Those who heard this said, “Who then can be saved?”
He said, “For man alone it is impossible; it will be possible however through the power of God working in man.”
Then Peter said to him, “Behold, we have given up everything to follow you.”
He replied, “Amen, the truth I say to you. No one who leaves home or wife or brother or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in earthly life, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Then he took the twelve to himself and said, “Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything which the prophets have written about the Son of Man will fulfill itself: He will be given over to the peoples of the world; they will mock and taunt him, they will spit upon him and scourge him and kill him, but on the third day he will rise up from the dead.”
Yet his disciples understood nothing of all this. The meaning of his words remained hidden from them, and they did not recognize what he was trying to tell them.February Trinity
February 11, 2018Luke 18: 18-34
Day follows night; spring follows winter. In cycles of time, the seasons follow one another, inscribing a great spiral.
In our lives too, there are seasons; youth, maturity, age; illness, health; life and death—greater and lesser cycles that carry their own greater meaning.
Christ asks those who believe in Him, trust in Him, to follow Him; to walk where He walks, to go where He goes. He asks us to engage our will, and our willingness. For He wishes to lead humankind into an ascending spiral, into a new kind of spring, a new kind of youth. But paradoxically this path leads Him, and us, first through winter, through illness, and through death.
And herein lies the problem; for everything in us strains away from suffering and death. And so His plea, that we follow Him, is a plea that we overcome our antipathy for the hard things. For suffering and illness can only bear fruit if we are willing. There is no resurrection without death; no love without sacrifice. Death can be inhabited by Life only if we love Him and are willing to accompany Him there. Only through the working of God’s power in the human being is the great spiral of ascent even possible. Rilke said:
As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.
Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.
To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
and being swept along is not enough.
Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions ... For the god
wants to know himself in you.*
*Rainer Maria Rilke, in Ahead of All Parting, ed. and translated by Steven Mitchell
No comments:
Post a Comment