Sunday before Ash Wednesday, 7th Sunday before Easter)
Luke 18: 18-34 (adapted from Madsen)
One of the highest spiritual leaders of the people asked him, “Good Master, what must I do to obtain eternal life?”
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.”
[Jesus, looking at him, loved him… Mk 10:21] When Jesus heard this, he said, “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.
5th February Trinity
March 3, 2019
Luke 18: 18-34
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are anticipating the richness of spring and the fullness of summer; but below the equator, it is turning into autumn and winter is approaching. This great balance over the whole earth is a picture of a great truth that also exists on the soul level: over the whole of a lifetime, no matter what our inner or outer riches, we must pass through loss and death to arrive at a new life.
In the gospel reading, Christ brings this home to the rich young man.
The young man is rich, both inwardly and outwardly; he is in the summer of his development. But Christ is asking him to take the next step—the step into an autumn shedding, the step into a winter sleep. The episode ends before we find out whether the rich one does carry out Christ’s request. At this moment in the gospel story, the young man is very sad—he already anticipates the grief of loss.
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| Heinrich Hoffman |
But when the young man summons the courage to follow through, he will leave behind his wealth for others and lay down his life. His loss and death will be real and complete. But so will his completely new and unforeseen life. He is to become a Lazarus. Christ will call him forth to a whole new level of being. And Christ will intimately and continually accompany his further development – through loss and death, and into a further life.
The recently deceased poet Mary Oliver* says:
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation
….
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
