28th Sunday in OT (Cycle B)
Gospel: Mark 10:17-30
10/12-13, 2024
What would you do if you won the $336 million dollar (really just $165M after taxes) Powerball game of this past Wednesday night? After you had gotten over the shock, after you had been contacted by people you have not heard from in years and after you had received countless unsolicited suggestions for ways to invest or spend all the money, would you automatically be happy? Would you quit your job? Would you feel better about yourself than you do right now? Would you have called your pastor to give your parish a “million-dollar token” of your appreciation?
When a young man asks Jesus how to gain eternal life, Jesus responds by citing five negative commands and one about honoring father and mother. In fact, a person could obey those six commandments and still be very stingy to everyone except his or her parents. Jesus tries to lead his questioner toward the attitude reflected in today’s first reading…
God’s wisdom is the greatest gift of all. God’s wisdom is better than wealth or political power. When God told a young King Solomon to ask for whatever he wanted, the king requested “an understanding heart” to govern the Israelites. God gladly gave it to him.
Wealth can be lost more easily than God’s wisdom. A fire, thieves, an earthquake or hurricane can wipe out your life’s work. You cannot ensure everything such as your smile, your memory, your love for others, your faith-family.
God’s wisdom brings a person’s life into focus. People worried about increasing their wealth and social prestige reconsider those goals whenever they accept God’s wisdom and serve God’s people.
Before she became a Catholic, Dorothy Day was at various times a socialist, pacifist, suffragette, journalist, had aborted one child and given birth to another out of wedlock. After all that, she co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 in which she set up breadlines and other services for the poor. Her new interests were then shaped by her desire to keep in touch with God’s wisdom.
The rich young man wants everlasting life on his own terms. He wants no sacrifice of personal wealth. He links his identity to his financial condition; he sees them prospering or declining TOGETHER. He goes away sad because he wants to follow Jesus… but not at that price!
With God all things are possible. With God’s help, people re-examine their lives. Most people see life differently from a hospital bed than from their favorite chair or couch. Many saints had a conversion in connection with their own illness or the death of someone close to them. God’s wisdom seems to make much more sense to people under those circumstances.
People “open” to God’s wisdom always find themselves serving the needs of other people. We may wonder why churches don’t do more for the homeless and the hungry. It takes a lot of volunteers and donors to run a soup kitchen or a shelter. Where will they come from?
Direct aid for the hungry and homeless is obviously needed, but so is action to repair the social fabric of our world which seems to have more holes each day. Friends, if you don’t like things as they are, contact those people that represent you and tell them you want change. God does not change things. God changes people who have the ability to change things. It has always worked this way. The Eucharist spurs us on to conversion, allowing God’s Word to wake us up to what is important in life. Jesus gives His Body and His Blood to spur us on to greater generosity… just one day at a time.
