28th Sunday 2024
Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30
“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.” OUCH! It is a very dangerous thing to have Jesus look steadily at you, because then there is no hiding place. It is difficult enough to face the gaze of anyone, because that gaze seems to make us transparent, but the steady gaze of the Son of God leaves us no room for manoeuvre. It must be bad enough when it is a look of censure, but when it is a look of love, it is so much worse because it calls for love in return, and genuine love is always painful, always demanding.
The gaze of Jesus reveals us, not only to Him, but also to ourselves. It shows us our unworthiness, but also our potential. If we respond to that look of love, what may we achieve? On the other hand, what will it cost? We know the answer to that, don’t we? Love of another human being draws us out of ourselves; calls us to sacrifice. Love of Jesus draws everything from us, turns us inside out. As Peter points out, later in this same passage, it is painfully costly: “We have left everything and followed you.”
TS Eliot wrote of “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything”. John Dalrymple Snr., the Scottish priest and spiritual writer, took that phrase “Costing not less than everything” as the title of a book about loving the Lord. A modern songwriter created a very simple, two word title: “Love hurts”.
This is the demand and the dilemma which face the man—the other evangelists refer to him as a young man—in today’s incident. He is a good young man: he has kept the prescriptions of the Law all his life. He has been obedient: now he is being invited to move beyond obedience to love, a love “costing not less than everything”—and he turns away.
Was that the end of the story? It is all that the Gospels tell us, but I wonder if there was a sequel. What happened to that young man subsequently?
I have already mentioned Peter, and I wonder if Peter’s experience offers us a clue. Remember how Peter too was subjected to that searching, penetrating gaze of Jesus. Recall that courtyard scene of Holy Thursday night. Peter has just uttered his third denial of Jesus, and, as prophesied, a cock crows. Then, we are told, “Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter”, and the word here translated “looked straight at” is the same Greek verb (emblepo) which described Jesus’ gaze at the rich young man.
Like that man, Peter is revealed to Jesus in his innermost being, and is revealed also to himself. He has no hiding place. He goes away and weeps bitterly.
What about the young man? He, we are told, went away sad, a word which might also be translated as “grieving”. Peter’s grief led to his conversion: he returned to the Lord determined to make amends, though he wasn’t immune to future backsliding. Might the young man’s grief have achieved a similar result, as he pondered what might have been, and what might still be? Or was his grief of that sort which St. Paul describes as an “earthly sadness”, which produces no good outcome? We are not told.
Inexorably, though, we are led to the weekly question “What about us?” What is this Gospel encounter telling you and me? To look at the question more broadly, it seems to me that Jesus must be calling people today to give up everything and follow Him in the priesthood or consecrated life. He must be gazing at young men and women, and loving them, and inviting them, yet somehow they are not responding to that call. Are they not hearing it? Have they never been encouraged to spend time with the Lord, to allow Him to gaze at them? Or do they have too many equivalents of the rich man’s wealth, attachments which they are afraid or unwilling to surrender? I do not know, but it is a question which calls for much prayer on our part.
Is there anything else? Yes. You and I, each one of us, must allow Jesus to look steadily at us, and to love us. We must give Him time and space to pierce us with His gaze, to reveal our deepest self to Him, and to us. And then we must respond to whatever He is asking of us today, in our present situation, and in the present moment.
