We Are More

28th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Wisdom 7, 7-11 / Heb 4, 12-13 / Mark 10, 17-30

Jesus, looking at the man, loved him and so said to him:  “You are lacking but one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor; then come, follow me.  At that statement the man’s face fell and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

What words here in this gospel scene do we not understand?  The man came to Jesus wanting more from life – wanting to find more in life.  Jesus recognized that in the man and loved him for it.  He offers him a way to find the more in life.  But the man – disappointed and saddened – turns from the way Jesus offers.

For myself – before the man’s face falls into sadness – I see fear.  I see fear in his face – fear of losing what he holds to be most necessary in his life – fear of losing what he has.

I see fear in the man’s face.  I remember making a ten-day retreat in 2003 at a Benedictine monastery in Pecos, NM.  Much of the retreat was spent reflecting on the reality and role of fear – in my own life, but also in our church and in the world.  The retreat was made when the sex scandal in the church and its fallout were very fresh.  The fear that I encountered in those reflections was not a fear that results in screams – but rather was a fear that brings on silence – silence and secrecy in response to the awful scandal.

As I prayed, I learned to ask: Why?  Why do I allow silence and secrecy to stifle and suffocate the Spirit of Christ given to me in baptism?  Why?  Why did – why do some bishops persist in the ways of silence and secrecy – ways so alien to the way Jesus offers us to finding life’s more, as we see in the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation?  These sacraments are ways to find life’s depth.

Also during the retreat I did some reading.  I read about Pope John Paul II – how on his first visit back to Poland as pope – he publicly and defiantly confronted the Warsaw regime, as he yelled to his fellow Poles:  You are not what they say you are.  You are more!  You are more!  And I reflected.  We are not what our fears say we are.  We are more.  We are not what silence and secrecy say we are.  We are more.

Likewise powerfully, publicly and defiantly we need to call into question those minimal, meager identities that our fears lock us into.  These are the identities which tell us:  You are what you have.  You are what you appear to be.  You are what people think of you.  These identities will only make our faces fall as we sadly walk away from life – from life’s depth – from the more in life that we already bear within us.

We may not tranquilize our sense of self with such trivia.  We may not choose to live only on our own surface.  For we are more!

Our way to conversion and liberation we will walk as we learn to loosen fear’s tight hold on our hopes and expectations for ourselves and one another.  They will happen as we learn to approach ourselves – approach one another – with reverence and wonder – as where God’s Spirit is present – learn to approach ourselves as capable of great and generous love.

In conclusion, let us hear again from today’s gospel – from today’s Good News.

They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves:  Who then can be saved?  Jesus looked at them and said:  For human beings it is impossible, but not for God.  All things are possible for God.

And so, sisters and brothers, we can live in hope.  We can live with one another in hope.  As church, as parish we are a community of hope.  We are more!