12th Sunday after Pent. Gosp. Matt.19: 16-26 “Avarice”
Last week we heard a gospel lesson about the great danger of not practicing forgiveness, today we deal with another great danger, that of avarice/greed/love of money.
Right from the first verse, we see that everything is wrong. The wealthy young man comes up and immediately addresses the wrong person. “Good teacher.” If you follow the Orthodox lectionary – the daily scripture readings – yesterday you would have read about the two blind men asking of “Jesus, Son of David” – a Jewish expression that signified God – for something that only God could possibly grant. It went well for them. “Good teacher” doesn’t cut it, and Christ of course perceived immediately that this man did not recognize Him as God. The young man was asking a question that only God could possible deliver on – only God could grant eternal life. Christ however compassionately answers him as God. He essentially tells him “only God is good,” so since you have addressed Me as good, I will answer as who I am – God.
At the end of the reading, Christ again shows that only God can grant eternal life; to the astonished disciples’ question, “Who then can be saved?” Christ answers, “With men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” Salvation can never be deserved or earned, although we certainly have our part to play. He explains this clearly by saying it would be like a camel going through the eye of a needle for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and receive eternal life. It is difficult to rely completely on God when we have more than we need of everything. Salvation is quite an impossible task by any amount of human effort, but altogether possible for God.
Next the young man asked the wrong question. “what ‘good thing’ must I do to have eternal life?” Our actions, the “good things” we do, are only helpful when they are an expression of our true state of inner being, as they flow out of our hearts, full of God’s love. When they are the result of love and compassion, and in obedience to God’s Holy Spirit working within us, they become the needed works of gold and silver and precious stones that withstand the purifying fire of the blast furnace of God’s love at the final judgement, and place us with the sheep, not the goats.
The same good works done with any other motive; from a spirit of pride, of spiritual prelest, of greed or avarice, of striving to preserve our own reputation or own self righteousness, trying to show God and/or others that we are worthy. These are of a different nature. When we are trying to impress those we hold in esteem or those who can make our lives more comfortable; trying to show Mom and Dad – sometimes even after they have departed from us – that we are the best son or daughter and still trying to win their love and approval, these “good works” will not stand the test of time. They will be shown to of no substance, to be made up of wood and hay and straw and will be burnt to nothing – to non-existence at the end. As St. Paul tells us. (1 Cor. 3:11-13) “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood hay, straw each one’s work will become clear for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work.” So, there is no “good thing” we can possibly do that will earn us eternal life and get our name written in the kingdom of heaven other than Jesus Christ. Wrong question.
So, we see that right from the start this rich young man is off track, yet the desire of his heart, the reality behind his questioning, is the question of questions. “What do I lack, how can I be joined to God, the source of all life?” All humans agonize over this question at some level of awareness. It drives us to seek God and live. We hear Moses say in Deuteronomy (30:19) “I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both you and your seed may live and love the Lord your God, and obey His voice and cling to Him.” God has been calling us to union with Him from the very beginning, and has done everything possible to bring us into His embrace, but we must choose.
Why are we here on this short tour of duty on planet earth. The goal of life, our mission and purpose is to join our Royal family, Christ, the Theotokos, and all the saints, to become true human beings. Here and now, not somehow deciding to come on board when we get there. We don’t have that option, this is it, this is a live one-time performance that determines everything. not a dress rehearsal. If we leave this present life without achieving this one thing, the prime directive, uniting with Christ and our family of saints, our entire mission is a complete failure. Christ says today to the young man seeking eternal life; “If you want to enter life…” Life; here and now, not in some “when I die” future. If we expect to hang with our true Royal family after death, we must get to know them now, so we will recognize them and receive their help when we most need it, at the time of our death. Remember, there are NO dead in Christ, so they are with us here and now, awaiting our decisions to spend time in their company.
The most important thing this young man had to deal with, was to flee from that which had become more important than loving God. Anything more important than this is an idol. He could be keeping perfectly the list of commandments that Jesus gives to him, but if he was not loving the Lord his God before anything else, he would have as much chance of entering the kingdom of God as would a camel have of going through the eye of a needle. This is a troubling statement which should alarm all of us in this very prosperous country. We can’t get there from here. We can’t be good enough. We will never be able to enter the kingdom of heaven by our own efforts. Worldly success or even “spiritual” success will be of no help if it is achieved with greed or pride, or serves any purpose other than loving and serving God. (1 Cor. 13: 1-3) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels…have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge…have faith to move mountains… bestow all my goods to feed the poor… and give my body to be burned, but have not love it profits me nothing.”
We are disturbed when we hear this story for a couple of reasons. It hits us in an area of our lives that most of us struggle with, especially in this very affluent society. Avarice/Greed/ Selfishness. We identify with the young man in today’s gospel. We are trying to be decent people. We don’t murder, we don’t steal, we don’t commit adultery. We try to be good sons and daughters and treat our parents well – at least as well as we determine they deserve to be treated. We try to get along with our neighbours – as much as is reasonable – probably forgiving up to 7 times rather than 7 x 70 perhaps. Like the rich young man, we too have what most of the world, both historically and by present day standards would be considered great riches. But how generous are we? How does love of God and love of neighbor really factor into our everyday lives? How much of what God has given us to use for our salvation, actually get used for helping others, for proclaiming the gospel, for beautifying His churches – building on the foundation of Jesus Christ with gold, silver and precious stones; rather than building our own comfortable lifestyle of wood, hay and straw?
One of the dangers that comes from accumulating wealth is that we can start to become rather self-assured and proud of ourselves. We can plot our own destiny and do not need to depend on others for help. If we are not actively asking God for a spirit of humility and thankfulness, our independence can start to grow into a spirit of pride, which then isolates us from God and our brothers and sisters. Our culture tends to encourage this way of thinking. Donald trump, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and the entire North American celebrity culture occupy so much of our media focus as they have “made it.” We admire the rich and the self-made man Yet, the self-made man has everything to lose. An old folk proverb tells us “In the end we can only take with us that which we have given away.”
Wealth can be a great blessing when it is used for good works, to help the poor and to build up the Church. When we realize that our wealth is not our own but only on loan from God, it can be a great blessing in working out our salvation. But wealth is far more often a great problem as we become greedy and see it only as ours, to use in satisfying all of our passions and desires; basing our security on the size of our bank account. Wealth can be a great blessing or a great curse, it all depends on our attitude and our actions.
The disease of avarice is very common in our society, but this is nothing new. It has always been a problem for every society. St. Maximus the Confessor writing in the 7th century explains the roots of the illness of the love of wealth “There are three things that produce love of material wealth: self-indulgence, self-esteem, and lack of faith. Lack of faith is more dangerous than the other two. The self-indulgent person loves wealth because it allows him to live comfortably; the person of self-esteem loves it because through it he can gain the esteem of others; the person who lacks faith loves it because fearful of starvation, old age, disease, or exile, he can save it and hoard it. He puts his trust in wealth rather than in God, the creator who provides for all creation, down to the least of the living things” Has this 7th century observation not become even more relevant in the 21st century?
The best remedy against this illness of avarice is to intentionally cultivate a spirit of generosity. The Old Testament requirement to tithe, to give the first 10% of your income to God no matter how much or how little income you have, was given to us not to enrich God and the Church, but to protect us from avarice, for our salvation. God has enough, He has created all that exists; both material and immaterial. The New Testament understanding is that everything is God’s and we are simply stewarding whatever we are given by Him. This does not mean tithing is no longer required, it means that it should be the minimum starting place, so we can develop a spirit of generosity and avoid being captured by the spirit of avarice. Kind of like starting with a 5-minute prayer rule just to get us in the habit and allow us to start on the path to Theosis and transformation into becoming a true human being. Kingdom thinking is very counter-culture. Once we learn to give with a trusting and open heart, we will find that God’s blessing provides for us abundantly in every area of our lives. The more we give love, the more we experience love, as we learn and choose to give forgiveness, we are forgiven. The more we give of anything, spiritual or material the more we receive. We can’t out-give God. This is very practical stuff and we learn the truth of it as we do it.
The young man tells Jesus “All these things I have kept from my youth, what do I still lack?” This is the primary question we all need to be asking ourselves. What is it that stands between us and truly following Christ with all our heart, soul and mind? Let us learn from the young rich man and not sorrowfully drift away from Christ, but choose to follow Christ and let nothing be more important.
With the feast!