Was A Jesuit.
How many times have you heard that verse in which the "rich young ruler" asked Jesus "Good Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-27158
Jesus says-why are you calling me "good?"
Only the Father in Heaven is good" (I think he says that tongue in cheek knowing that 'I and the Father are one' thus he is prodding the kid to recognize that he already knows this here.)
Jesus says, you know the commandments- and begins to recite a few of the key ones. The guy then says- 'but I have done all these and more since my youth.' Then Jesus says to him "Then Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me."
How many times have you heard that Sermon and thought it was a plug for another stewardship campaign, or because the water bills at the rectory are past due, or for some other self dealing improper purpose? .....Or just perhaps because Jesus wants to take care of poor people and make you one in the process to develop your compassion, which you resist and resent.
This time something else hit me. There is a verse in the middle of this in which it says Jesus "looked on him with Love." He loved him. Of course, he loves us all, but probably this guy all the more for bothering to ask.
Enter the Jesuit. He suggests something else by a Jesus-like parable. He said his niece, when she was four years old went on her first plane ride. The little girl as she was entering the plane asked her mother "Mommy, why are we not smaller when we ride on the plane?" Her mother perplexed asked her to repeat what she said and what she meant. "Why are we not smaller when we ride on the plane?" The little girl explained. "Everytime we look at a plane from a distance it looks really small, so why are we not smaller when we ride the plane?"
Can you Trust Jesus when he says you will gain eternal life by, after following the commandments, doing what he says, if it is selling off the things you are most earthily attached to even when it looks like it will make you really small from a distance? Can you trust him that you don't actually get smaller on a plane, you actually get to go somewhere amazing you never imagined standing in the same place on the ground. Do you really believe him when he says what you need to do?
You may not be rich, all that young or ruling anything. This was the earthly attachment to material goods that Jesus was asking that person to not place his trust and confidence in, but in Jesus himself. "You are not off the hook" just because you are not rich, all that young or ruling anything, suggested the good Jesuit. You have to ask yourself where you place your confidence and trust, and what you are willing to do to show Jesus that it is in Him alone- your maker and the maker of Heaven and Earth. Why wouldn't you trust him?
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