28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11; Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30

We hear in today’s responsorial psalm,
“Teach us to number our days aright,

that we may gain wisdom of heart.”
Presumably this means wisdom has to do
with counting the days of our life correctly,
with neither overestimating nor underestimating them.
So I checked.
The average life-expectancy of a male in the U.S.
is 78.79 years.
By my calculation I am currently about 60.06 years old,
which means that I can number my remaining days
at 18.73 years, or 6836.45 days—
though that’s not counting leaps years,
which I think will get me an extra four days,
for a grand total of 6840.45 days.
More or less.

It’s the “more or less” that is the problem.
Because averages presume
that some people live much longer lives
and others live much shorter.
I could live into my nineties, like my father has,
giving me an extra 4500 or so days,
or I could get run over in the parking lot after Mass today,
making my allotted days considerably fewer.
So as I strive to number my remaining days, 
I’m stuck with a figure somewhere between 
11,340.45 and zero.

“Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.”
But how can I number my days 
amid so much uncertainty?
Should I spend my days 
taking every possible precaution 
to mitigate that uncertainty?
Should I plan and stockpile to make sure 
that my future is as secure as possible?
But experience tells us that the only certain thing 
is that no amount of planning and stockpiling
can eliminate uncertainty.

Perhaps the only way to number our days aright 
is not to number them at all,
but to accept and embrace the truth
that however much we might try 
to calculate and mitigate risk,
however many resources we store up 
against future calamity,
the future is unknown and uncertain.
Our calculations are always off,
our stores of wealth are subject 
to decay and corruption.
As the hymn writer Isaac Watts put it,
in a paraphrase of today’s psalm, 
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”
We know not the number of our days.
But the truly wise heart knows
that all that we have amassed and accumulated
to hold back time’s ever-rolling stream
will one day be reduced to dust.
That fine house, 
that beautiful car,
that stock portfolio,
that power and influence and reputation—
they will all one day be gone.
It may be 11,340.45 days from now,
or it may be this very day,
but the truly wise heart knows
that the day will come.
And if we wish not to vanish with them
then we must place our hope not in passing things
but in the life offered to us by the one who is eternal.

In today’s Gospel 
Jesus is questioned by a rich man
about what he must do to inherit eternal life.
After the man assures him 
that he has kept all the commandments,
Jesus tells him, “Go, sell what you have, 
and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven; 
then come, follow me.”
Jesus knows that what this man lacks
is in fact the only thing necessary:
to learn to number his days aright
so that he may gain wisdom of heart,
to place his hope not in his wealth, 
but in Jesus, in whom is found
the depth of the riches
of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

For the rich man to number his days aright
is for him to recognize that it does not matter
whether the days that lie ahead of him 
number 11,340.45 or zero,
for the only day that matters is this day,
the day on which he meets Jesus, 
who speaks to him the words,
“come, follow me”:
follow me on the journey 
from this world of anxious uncertainty,
this world of decay and death,
into the world of life eternal.

We are told that the man,
“went away sad, 
for he had many possessions.”
He went away sad 
because all that he had amassed
in his futile quest to hold at bay
time’s ever-rolling stream
now stood in his way 
like an insurmountable obstacle
blocking his path on the journey to eternity.
“How hard it is for those who have wealth
to enter the kingdom of God!”

“Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.”
Teach us, Lord, that our days may be few or many,
but that the only day that matters is this day,
for this is the day that Jesus stands before us
and says, “come, follow me.”
Teach us, Lord, to know what is
the one thing necessary,
to not let fear of loss 
of wealth or power or reputation
keep us from answering your call.
Teach us, Lord, to trust 
that with you all things are possible,
that through your grace even we,
weak and frightened and clinging to this life,
can become sons and daughters of God,
and heirs with you to eternal life.
May God’s grace grant to us 
true wisdom of heart,
and may God have mercy on us all.

 

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30

If Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel
do not make most of us profoundly uncomfortable
then we are not really paying attention.
“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Maybe we are not paying attention to the words themselves
or maybe we are not paying attention to our own lives.
Even with our genuine struggles
trying to pay tuitions or credit card debt
or a mortgage or medical bills,
we citizens of the modern developed world
still live in a material abundance
that surpasses the richest person of Jesus’ day
and most people alive in our own day.
“How hard it is for those who have wealth
to enter the kingdom of God.”
As the Letter to the Hebrews says,
“the word of God…is sharper than any two-edged sword…
everything is naked and exposed to the eyes
of him to whom we must render an account.”
If we are not squirming,
if we are not feeling God’s word
penetrating to the deepest thoughts of our hearts,
then we are not paying attention.

But Jesus is not, I think, simply trying to make us feel guilty—
though exploiting the motivating power of guilt
is a fine Catholic tradition that I, as a parent, approve of.
Nor is he saying that our prosperity is somehow in itself evil.
Jesus’ concern for the rich man who asks him,
“what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
is not simply that he make himself poor.
The key to understanding Jesus’ words to the rich man is not
“Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor”
but what follows: “then come, follow me.”
Like Solomon in our first reading,
Jesus calls the rich man to give up what he has
in order to gain something far more valuable,
the heavenly treasure of wisdom.
Jesus, divine wisdom made flesh,
calls him to give up everything that holds him back
from being his disciple,
everything that holds him back
from following in the way of wisdom,
which is Jesus’ way of cross and resurrection.
The act of giving his wealth to the poor
is simply the prelude to following Jesus.

It is true that it is often our material possessions
that hold us back,
the things that we accumulate
and on which we stake our happiness,
which form a wall around us
to protect us from God and from other people.
But that protective wall
can be built of other, less tangible, things as well:
our self-image,
our reputation,
our ideologies,
our compulsions and our addictions.
These are all burdens that Jesus calls us to give up
in order to be free to follow him on the path of discipleship.
But can we answer this call?
Can we become free enough to follow Jesus' way?
We are, after all, just ordinary people.

Today in Rome, in the solemn rite of canonization,
the Church declared Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador,
who was killed by a government death squad
while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980,
to be a saint.
When he became bishop of San Salvador in 1977
Romero was seen
by both the government and the Church
as an ordinary bishop, a “safe” bishop:
one who was traditional in his theology
and unwilling to interfere in politics,
one who would not cause trouble.
But when priests who worked among the poor
and advocated for their rights
began turning up dead,
killed by government-sponsored death squads,
Romero’s eyes were opened
to the plight of the poor in his country,
and he began speaking out against government repression.
The day before he was killed,
he made a direct appeal to the soldiers in the military:
“No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God.
No one has to obey an immoral law.
It is high time you recovered your consciences
and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order…
In the name of God,
in the name of this suffering people
whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day,
I implore you,
I beg you,
I order you in the name of God:
stop the repression.”

Like the rich man in today’s Gospel,
Oscar Romero heard the call of Jesus to give up everything—
the favor of Church and State,
his previous ideas of what it meant to be a bishop,
and ultimately even his life—
in order to learn true wisdom
by following Jesus on the way of the cross.
His example pleads with us,
just as he pleaded with the soldiers of El Salvador,
to value the wisdom of God above all else,
to let the two-edged sword of God’s word
probe our consciences,
to listen to the voice of God
and be willing to surrender everything for the sake of God.

Oscar Romero was an ordinary man,
someone who, like us, lived behind protective walls
of money and power,
of ideology and self-image,
of reputation and prestige.
But Jesus called him forth from that ordinary life
and stripped him of every worldly protection
and placed him amidst the demonic powers of hatred and greed
with nothing except the love of God to clothe him,
nothing but the cross of Christ to shelter him.
God made this ordinary man a saint
by teaching him the wisdom of the cross.
And God will make us saints as well,
if we are willing to practice the daily discipline
of paying attention to Jesus’ call
to come follow him,
of paying attention to our lives
and all that holds us back from answering that call,
of opening ourselves to the grace
that can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Saint Oscar Romero,
pray for us.