11/10/2009 - 28th. Sunday in Ordinary
Season - B
Ist. Reading Wid 7,7-11 Psalm 89 IInd. Reading Heb 4,12-13 Gospel Mk 10,17-30
"Do not lead us into temptation". From which temptation we are asking
God to protect us? Is it only one or more? It is certainly the temptation that
Jesus himself had to endure and win. Two of the Evangelists describe it to us
with some particulars. Jesus was tempted in that Jesus, being the Son of God,
would exercise power and dominion on creation and humanity: in this way he would
have shown God as a ruler and not as the Father, and himself as the son of a
ruler, who can does and can do what ever he wants without being accountable
to anyone. But we know how Jesus answered: "Man does not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes out from the mouth of God", as if to
say: I do only what my Father tells me to do; I listen to my Father; I obey
my Father! Saying "do not lead us into temptation" is like asking
the Father to give us a listening heart, obey him, ready to do what he asks
us to do. We ask him to give us light and courage not to follow our plans and
ideas, not to follow the way the world around us think, not even of those who
retain themselves as big and important, but cheat and seduce and hence change
the thoughts and convictions of men; we ask him to make us share in the loving
obedience of Jesus. Temptation makes its way in, in a very refined way. It start
to make us argue giving to ourselves the right and pull us away from God's heart:
it makes us see things and reasoning as the most important things of love. In
this way, even though, as st. John says God is love, we behave as if God is
only an idea to discuss or reason upon. Temptation wants to remind Jesus of
being yes the Messiah, but a Messiah that satisfies the selfish desires of men.
Instead, he was sent by the Father to show a new way, that of love till the
end, even to the point of being rejected and killed. Temptation behaves the
same way even with us: helped by Jesus and holding on to him, we continue to
love.
The Gospel presents to us a rich man who says that he is…poor! The one
runs to Jesus and bend down low at his feet is rich, and is someone who obeys
all the commandments of God. He runs because he is aware of lacking something
very important. He misses that life which he himself calls "eternal",
that is, the fullness of life, the joy to live, the satisfaction of being realized
even at the crucial point of death. He is aware that richness does not fulfill
him and does not make him happy. Richness does not open for him the gates of
heaven, on the contrary richness was blocking his relationship with God and
with the others. He runs to Jesus: who had told him that Jesus could add something
to the life of a rich person? His question is true and reflects commitment:
"What can I do…?" Jesus does not answer him quickly. He wanted
to see that he is serious about this, and whether he really wants to do God's
will. After he was sure of this, in fact he said that he obeys the commandments,
therefore he looks at him with love, because he saw that this man could become
really someone who could give the fullness of God to the world. Jesus answers
him: to have life eternal he needed to renounce to feed on the things that pass
and starts to feed himself with those that remain. Who feeds on him, Jesus,
will live: "you lack one thing: go, sell all you have and give it to the
poor, and you shall have a treasure in heaven; then, come, and follow me!"
This is the secret of life. Jesus came to the world, sent by the Father, so
that the children of God can have life eternal. Who welcomes him, starts a new
life, discovers a new world full of joy that no one and nothing would be able
it to take it away from him, not even tribulations and tortures: in our days
this is being witnessed by men and women who have discovered Jesus and turned
to him from other religions! Those who prefer to continue to accumulate earthly
things, risk to remain without life and overcome with sadness that closes the
heart. This is what happened to the man who ran to Jesus, and to many others
today, closed to the things of heaven, unable to open up to God, they become
careers of infinite sadness. Would you like to have life? Love the true wisdom:
"All the gold is like a handful of sand, and is valued like dirt".
True wisdom comes from God, and it is Jesus. He is the Word of God, the Word
God wants man to listen to, know, receive, and proclaim to others. He is the
Word "alive and effective, like a two edged sword". Jesus is the gift
through which God himself communicates himself, his true and eternal life. Let
us open ourselves for him in a deep and committed way, to be taught by him and
live with him in our hearts. If one does not welcome him, he won't even find
the way to communicate himself to others. Without Jesus one remains alone in
the darkness: perhaps you know it yourself, through your personal experience,
or perhaps because you are unable to be close to your close relatives because
they don't share the same faith with you. Do not look for richness, or to increase
your safe deposits: look for the one who can make you live as a living gift
to all those whom you love and the others you meet on your journey. Make yours
the prayer of the Psalmist: "Teach us how to add our days, so as to be
wise at heart".