Tough answer to tough question!

Mark 10:17-27

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’ And he said to him, ‘Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.’ Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, ‘My children,’ he said to them ‘how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were more astonished than ever. ‘In that case’ they said to one another ‘who can be saved?’ Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he said ‘it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.’

Food for thought!

Tough question. Tough answer.

The young man that came to Jesus asked a tough question: what must I do to inherit eternal life? This is a question that we all ask, directly or indirectly. As we grow old, as we move away from our birth and come closer to our death, we silently make this question. When I am dead, what will happen to me? Where will I go after this life? Is this life all there is? In other words, what must I do today to live tomorrow? How must I conduct myself today in order to survive tomorrow? This is the tough question.

Tough questions require tough answers. I praise this man because he knew where to take his tough questions. He took his question to Jesus. The Gospel says that he came running up, greeted Jesus with great reverence, and asked. Where do we take our questions? To whom do we go when we need answers to our difficult questions? We do well to run to Jesus, the wisdom of God, as the Letter to the Hebrews puts it:

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are all accountable. (Heb. 4:12-13)

When you decide to take your quest to Jesus, you must prepare yourself for what he will tell you. Some times Jesus' answers are just too tough; you must be ready not only to ask but also to listen. Otherwise, you will be like the young man in today's Gospel reading, to whom Jesus said: Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he went away sad.

Why did this man go away the way he did? Well, Jesus had quoted to the man the commandments which were the basis of the decent life. Without hesitation the man said he had kept them all. And he was not lying; he was saying the truth. And Jesus liked him for that. However, note one thing, that with one exception, all the commandments that this man kept were negative commandments; Thou shalt not! His morality consisted in not doing. The man had never given away anything, and this is what Jesus told him to do for the first time in his life: Go and sell and give.

In effect the man was saying, “I never in my life did anyone any harm.” That was perfectly true. But the real question is, “What good have you done?” And the question to this man was even more pointed, “With all your possessions, with your wealth, with all that you could give away, what positive good have you done to others? How much have you gone out of your way to help and comfort and strengthen others as you might have done?” Christianity consists in not doing bad things ONLY; Christianity consists ALSO in doing good things. That was precisely where this man, like so many of us, failed and fell down. We think that we are OK, just because we never robbed a bank, never stole a car, never .... We are not OK until we learn to do good to others. Morality is not just not doing evil to others; it is also about doing good to others. So, "what good have you done in this life?" God will ask us one day.