Chapter
18
by Fr. Thomas Keating
The Rich Young Man
As he was setting out on a journey, a man
ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, 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 shall not
murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear
false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother." He
said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus
looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what
you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven;
then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away
grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his
disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the
kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But
Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom
of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly
astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus
looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God;
for God all things are possible." Mark (10:17-27)
Most people, I
suspect, feel a certain uneasiness with these words of Jesus. It is not easy to
try to translate this challenge into practical daily life. The feelings
expressed by the apostles reflect fairly well our own immediate reactions.
Christian tradition
has softened the challenge that Jesus gave to the young man. We hear that he
looked on this young person with love and wanted him to be his disciple.
Christian tradition has emphasized that this saying is not directed to everybody
and is not essential for salvation. In other words, to give away everything to
the poor and to follow Jesus is a special vocation. Evangelical poverty, it is
generally believed, is a special call to the religious life or to a lay
commitment to the service of the church.
Personally, I do not
think the matter is that simple. Although the literal giving away of everything
we own may not be our particular calling, there is a very profound sense in
which we have to give everything away in order to enter the kingdom. What is
this "everything?" Is it some form of wealth, or is it something more
profound? The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (see chapter 4, above)
captures that profundity in a remarkable way.
In the parable a
very rich man is juxtaposed to a very poor man. The rich man feasted sumptuously
every day. The word "sumptuously" means not just well, but
luxuriously. Thus he enjoyed a daily banquet with his various hangers-on and
friends. Every day for him was Christmas or Thanksgiving. The rich man in the
parable was clothed with purple, the symbol of nobility, the upper class, and
wealth. At his gate lay a beggar who was desperately hungry. The beggar is
described in terms of the utmost destitution. Even the dogs, described in terms
of the utmost destitution. Even the dogs, who in those days were anything but
pets, licked his sores.
In the popular mind
of the time, poverty and especially beggary, were looked upon as punishments
from God. This was one of the current ideas that Jesus regularly refuted or
reversed as in the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor." He also
challenged the popular idea that wealth was the reward of virtue. Here he warns
his disciples, "It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." That statement wrung
from his hearers a cry of despair as they saw their last hope of wealth going
down the drain. They murmured to each other, "Who then can be saved?"
Jesus responded,
"For God all things are possible," indicating that his example of the
camel passing through the eye of a needle is not to be taken literally. It is
addressed rather to a spiritual reality. With the help of this parable, we may
be able to glimpse it.
Without any
discussion of the merits of either person, we learn of the very different
situations of the two men in the afterlife. There everything is reversed and an
abyss separates them. The barriers that the rich man set up in this life
evidently followed him into the next.
The point of the
parable is crystallized in the reference to the gate of his estate. For
the rich man, it was a barrier to keep marauders away from his possessions. The
problem for the well-to-do is that the more they possess, the more security
systems they need in order to protect their possessions. At the same time, it
becomes more difficult for them to pass through the gate. A gate can be a
barrier or it can be a passageway to the other. The latter is the secret of the
kingdom. It is not the rich man's wealth that is the cause of his future
torment, but his mismanagement of it. He failed to grasp that the gift of
abundance was not for himself. It had to be shared.
The paradigm of
Joseph in Egypt in the book of Genesis (chapter 4) shows us how to make the
right use of abundance. Abundance is given for the sake of the community. The
kingdom of God is to be in communion with humanity. It is not privatized
journey. It is manifested in the measure that we pass beyond our personal
protective apparatus into solidarity with everyone else, especially those most
in need.
Every interpersonal
relationship is a gateway to the ultimate mystery and to ultimate human values.
What does the gate represent? It signifies identification with the other and
with the needs of the other. The gate, the symbol of grace, empowers us to let
go of our private world in order to enter into communion with the whole human
family. This is what God does. Such is the message of the prophets of the Old
Testament regarding the care of the needy, the oppressed, and the poor, who, in
the Psalms, are the apple of God's eye.
The rich are not
condemned because they are rich. Abraham, in whose bosom Lazarus wound up, is
the symbol of fulfillment of all the promises God made to the people, and he was
a very wealthy man. Thus it was not the rich man's riches that were his undoing,
but the use he made of them. He made the mistake of thinking that his wealth was
for himself. The gate to his estate, instead of serving as a passageway to
others, became the barrier that prevented him from entering into solidarity with
the beggar and his needs. He could so easily have thrown the poor man a few
scraps from his sumptuous table, but failed to do so. Hence he himself created
the barrier that prevented him from entering Abraham's bosom.
Elsewhere in the
gospel, Jesus affirms that it is more important in a disagreement with someone
to leave one's gift at the alter and go first to be reconciled. "Leave the
Christian assembly," he says, "until you have reconciled yourself with
your adversary." In the kingdom of God, communion is more important than
worship. Worship is hypocrisy and a pious sham if we have not first passed through
the gate of reconciliation. Thus, mutual forgiveness is presented as the top
priority in the gospel. I am not speaking of the feeling of forgiveness, which
requires certain psychological steps, but the intention and will to forgive,
which may be the best that we can do for now. Jesus reinforces this precept by
commanding that we love even our enemies. Any holding back from full
reconciliation is to misunderstand the meaning of the gate and the crucial
choice of staying inside it or passing through it to others.
The community is the
supreme value in the kingdom of God; hence, the importance of how we relate to
it. Time is given us to go through the gate and to identify appropriately with
everyone and indeed, with everything that is. For all practical purposes,
everything that is manifests God. Hence our relationship to ordinary reality
reflects our relationship with God. Selfishness, self-centeredness, locks the
gate. Even God cannot get in. Communion, which is the gate permanently open to
relationship, is the kingdom of God. It is available to everyone, rich or
poor.
Each of us has an
enormous responsibility to share in appropriate ways the abundance of God's
goodness to us. If we leave the needy and those we could easily
help--physically, emotionally, or spiritually--sitting at our gate, then the
gate may follow us into the next life, not as a passageway, but as a barrier
separating us from the ultimate communion.
More information can be obtained by reading the
book The Kingdom of God is Like . . .by Fr. Thomas Keating. It is offered
in our Book
Store.
