- One Saturday, a very successful businessman was hard at work washing his car
when he met the best salesman in the world - and he was only four years old.
Little Dan watched as the man wiped off the hood and fenders with chamois and said, "That's a beautiful car, Mister."
That set him up. In his little hands, Dan held three or four sticks of gum and, after chatting for a few minutes, Dan asked, "Would you like to buy a piece of my gum? They're only a penny."
"Sure," the man said, "I'd like a piece of gum." He paid Dan his penny and popped the gum into his mouth. Then the businessman asked, "Have you ever considered the economics of your proposition? Have you figured the profit ratio? Have you included your labor and overhead?
Dan said, "I don't know about that kind of stuff. I'm only four years old."
The businessman went on to explain to Dan that he couldn't make a profit selling his gum at a penny a stick when the pack cost much more than that. "Unless you've got a tax angle, this deal is a loser."
Dan said, "But it doesn't work that way. Usually people give me a nickel or a dime, and they don't take my gum." (1)
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus replied. "No one is good but God only" (Mark 10:18). Jesus was picking the young man up on his first dishonest ploy, which was using a complimentary epithet to win the favor of Jesus. Jesus was having none of it and made a point of it right off.
Jesus knew the young man was sincere, however, and went on to address his question seriously: "You know the commandments, 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother' " (Mark 10:19). This was the Law, the basic Ten Commandments. Had the young man done this? Jesus is asking. The young man said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up" (Mark 10:20).
Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me" (Mark 10:21).
The young man thought he had done all needed to be a good Jew. Now Jesus was holding up before him a goal of perfection that no Jew had before thought of. True, perfect spirituality, Jesus is saying, is giving up all your possessions to the poor and coming to follow Jesus.
Unfortunately, the young man was not prepared for this answer. He had too many possessions, and he was attached to them. "At these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property" (Mark 10:22).
We may wonder why Jesus asked such a radical renouncing of material goods from this young man. He did not ask this of his friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha; nor did he ask it of the rich businessman, Zacchaeus. Why this young man, why now?
Jesus saw the goodness in him. That's why the text says, "Jesus looked on him and loved him." Jesus really wanted this young man to be one of his followers. But Jesus had to be straightforward with him. Unfortunately, the young man was not where Jesus hoped he might be.
- Long ago a seminarian asked a woman for spiritual direction. Chuck was
preparing to make final vows, which included a vow of poverty: to own
nothing, to hold all material things in common. He was troubled that
September; all summer he had been plagued with guilty thoughts about the
stereo his parents had given him when he graduated from college. In the
seminary he played it in his bedroom. He knew that with his final vows in
June, his moving out into the mission field, he would have to surrender that
stereo to the community. He couldn't, he told his director. It was the more
precious because his father had recently died and it was a tie to his Dad.
How could he make a public profession to claim nothing material as his own
when this one item tied him in knots of guilt?
His director asked him if Jesus had anything to say about such troubles. He quoted vaguely about leaving all. By the grace of God, the director said, I opened my Bible to Mark's version and read the passage aloud to him: "Jesus looked at the man tenderly". I had never noticed this look of love, nor had Chuck. I asked him whether each time he thought he should leave his congregation and call to the missions because of his guilt and shame, he could replace that thought with a vivid image of Jesus looking at him tenderly. Yes, I can, he assured me.
The director went on: "We met each month and in March, Chuck invited me to his final vows. 'What happened to that stereo?' I asked. 'I gave it to the community at Christmas,' he replied. 'Didn't that hurt?' Chuck smiled: 'Well, when Jesus looks at me tenderly, what do I need with a stereo?'" (2)
The rich young man in the gospel did not have this relationship, although he must have admired Jesus greatly to have asked the question he did; and he was the recipient of that loving look that Jesus gave him. Nonetheless, he thought that, just as he amassed his material possessions because of something he did, so all he had to do to be a follower of Jesus was to do something. He was not at the point of realizing that it's not what he could do to make himself worthy of being a follower of Jesus, but it was how he could admit his nakedness before God and let God do it all in him.
The thought of giving it all up, of, as the saying goes, "letting go and letting God," was too new and too threatening to this rich young man.
- Sister Janice was back in the U.S. after six years of missionary work in
Central America. In her seminar on theological reflection she shared her
feelings about her time with the people there. She said that the memory that
stayed with her the most was of a day in the tiny village where she taught
the women and helped them to develop ways of supporting their families. The
people were destitute: they had next to nothing, but their faith and their
sense of community were strong.
One day, a relief agency delivered a package of clothing from the United States. One woman, who had three sons, was given six pairs of pants for the boys. She chose three pairs that would fit her sons and then gave the other three pairs to another family. "We have enough, thank God, and they need it." She could have saved the other three pairs for when the first three wore out or were outgrown, but she chose to share, out of the little she had, with someone who had less.
- C.S. Lewis, an English writer, wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters. It's a humorous book about how the devil trains his demons to do us humans in. C.S. Lewis perceptively realized that one of the great enemies of discipleship is our great desire for moderation, for a relationship to God that is moderate and not too extreme, one that is cautious, calculating, and careful. Jesus approaches the rich young man and makes a most immoderate demand. Lewis' devil counsels his apprentice devil to keep stressing the need for moderation in his dealings with humanity; [The devil instructs an apprentice devil] Talk to him about "moderation in all things". If you can get him to the point of thinking that "religion is all very well up to a point, " you can feel happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing. (4)
Such a woman, on fire for Jesus, might be the relative one author speaks of. He says:
- She lived poorly and frugally on a tiny farm in the West of Ireland. The richest aspect of her life was her faith, in particular, her prayer life. She walked several miles each day to morning Mass, winter and summer. By the time I got to know her, she had turned so consciously toward the task of going to morning Mass that she rose earlier and earlier each day until she . arrived at the church an hour early. The priest left the key under the stone for her. She would enter the still, dark chapel, light a candle, say the Stations, and then sit in the candlelight until Mass began. At first, I thought her strange. Later, I was grateful for her strangeness and for the gift of her teaching, though in fact she never once explained to me what she was doing or why. But I knew even then that in the stillness, there was source that gave her courage and hope and meaning. She could not wait to meet her friend. She wanted to spend as much time in his company as possible to learn from him the feel of love and the way of living by his commandments to love."
- "The best little salesman in the world," Connections, October 15, 2000.
- Rea McDonnell, "The healing word," Homily Service, 33 (7): 36 (Homily Service, The Liturgical Conference 415 Michigan Ave. NE, Suite 65, Washington D.C. 20017-1518) October 2000.
- Kathleen Spears Hopkins, "Prosper the work of our hands," Markings (The Thomas More Association, 205 West Monroe St. -- Sixth Floor, Chicago IL 60606-5097) October 15, 2000.
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.
- Fr. Joseph Nolan, "The Commandments - long and short," Good News, 27 (10): 378 (Good News, Liturgical Publications Inc., 2875 South James Drive, New Berlin, WI 53151), October 2000.