Two Lines
Two lines jump out at me in this reading:
- What Jesus said to the young man – “You are lacking one thing.”
- The question the disciples ask Jesus – “Who can be saved?”
Jesus has already told them in this reading, four things they should NOT do: don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t defraud. I smile when I read how He sums up His list, it’s what my dad would say: “Do what your mother tells you.” The only time I remember him raising his voice to me was one day when my mother asked, “Do you want to do some ironing now?” I had said, “No, not now.” Wrong answer! Jesus offered the same directive to the wine servers at the wedding where he and his mother were guests – “Do whatever she tells you.” And when dying on the Cross, what did he say to John (and all of us) – “Behold your mother.”
Jesus told the young man, “You are lacking one thing.” That’s his challenge to us this week, figure out what’s the one thing we are lacking. Benedict’s Tools of Good Works (RB 4) is a good examination of conscience or you might use Joan Chittister’s listing of Benedict’s counsels:
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- Don’t pamper yourself
- Be transparent
- Be gentle with each other
- Don’t expect too much or consume too much
- Live in the moment of God’s grace
- Be willing to be formed
- Have a holy attitude toward persons and all of creation, and
- Remember the tools of the spiritual life are the work of a lifetime. …
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Jesus said, “Do what your parents tell you.” Benedict says the same thing in several places in the Rule, do what the superior tells you. He gives a little wiggle room when he speaks of impossible tasks but in the end, he says obedience will save us. I’ve saved my mother’s message to me when I wrote to tell her that we now had the option of using our baptismal names and were shortening our skirts. In her own way she said, “I’ve tried to teach you the value of obedience. Do what your superiors are telling you.” RB 7 places tremendous responsibility on each of us to give good example when our founder says, “The eighth degree in humility is that a monk do nothing but what the common rule of the monastery and the example of the seniors suggest.”
Like many people, the young man in the Gospel knew something was missing in his life. There’s some of the young man in all of us … we know something is lacking. We are surrounded with media that tries to convince us what that the one thing is that will bring us joy and well-being. Although we know full well that wealth is not a guarantee for happiness in this life, that spirit can slip through the walls, even through convent walls. We can sense it when we doubt that the common goods available are not sufficient for us. We can act like children who don’t want the crayons put into a pile in the middle of the table. We each want our own box of crayons because we don’t like the broken ones or the ones that have the paper peeled off or the ones you can tell have touched another color or are just not the brand we prefer. Like the young man we want our own possessions and we want them NOW, today. And, we find it hard to part with any of them graciously even when we hear Benedict say (in RB 54) that the members should not presume to accept gifts sent by parents or friends without previously telling the superior who has the power to give the gift to whomever and the one for whom it was originally given will not be distressed.
Maybe instead of asking “What am I lacking?” we need to ask ourselves, “What do I have too much of?” Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, no one who has given up house, brother, sisters or mother and father or children or lands for the sake of the Gospel will not receive 100 times more in the age to come.” We may tick off all the items on that list one by one but the challenge keeps coming back to haunt us, “One thing is lacking.”
Jesus counsels us: “How hard it is, it’s easier to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the needle gate.” It’s hard, he says but not impossible, “For with God, all things are possible.”
Just don’t get caught in Peter’s trap – quickly retorting, “I’ve given up EVERYTHING, Lord!” You’ll hear the echo, “One thing is lacking. Go, give what you have to the poor, and THEN come follow Me.”
~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
