And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
A reflection from Father Tudgay for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
One of our favorite family movies that we love to watch is the 1979 classic The Jerk with Steve Martin. It's as funny as it is dumb! And to add to the dumbness, we laugh at it like it’s the first time we ever saw it… like a Mel Brooks or a Zucker Brothers movie. Through unimaginable circumstances, Martin’s character experiences the sudden accumulation and then equally sudden loss of wealth. The scene that my family finds so irresistibly funny is the one where creditors are seizing all of his property, where Martin walks around collecting senseless and useless items, saying, “this is all I need…”. Obviously, Martin’s character is portrayed as someone who habitually makes poor choices and doesn’t prioritize properly, so his understanding of what is “important” or what is “needed” is a bit off. Suddenly, the scene develops into Martin dragging tons of useless belongings with him, thinking he really “needs” them. All good humor captures some reality of life! What do we really need?
The Gospel passage that we have this weekend provides us with a new element that Jesus introduces into salvation history: Detachment! His encounter with the rich young man illustrates the new threshold for viewing everything that we have in light of what discipleship is all about. Jesus engages the man by walking him through all of the ways that his righteousness is observed with regard to his observance of the Ten Commandments. The man gets this right. Good for him! But there’s more… abandoning his self-reliance and trusting in God’s providence!
It is really easy for us to fret over what we think we really need in life… security and the fear of insecurity is a real thing and we work really hard to mitigate against it. Our First Reading reminds us that Wisdom seeks principally the presence and the will of God, which is preferred to everything. This invites us to detach from what we’ve been given, what we’ve received, what we’ve earned, what we wish we had, and to seek, first, God’s presence. By following God’s presence, our trust in him allows us to take a look at everything that we have and contextualize those things that weigh us down. We need things to live our lives, obviously, but the greatest need, however, is for us to find God’s presence within and trust that we’ll be provided with everything that we need to achieve real happiness!
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