Ephesians 4:1-7; Luke 18:18-27
As we continue to prepare to welcome Christ at His Nativity, we must keep our focus on becoming like those who first received Him with joy. That includes the Theotokos, whose Entrance into the Temple, where she prepared to become His Living Temple, we celebrated last week. That includes unlikely characters like the Persian astrologers or wise men, certainly Gentiles, who traveled such a long distance to worship Him. What better news could there have been than that the Prince of Peace was coming “to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”? (Lk. 4:18-19) As we sing during these weeks of Advent, “Dance for joy, O earth, on hearing the gladsome tidings; with the Angels and the shepherds now glorify Him Who is willing to be gazed on as a young Child Who before the ages is God.”
We must remember, however, that there were those who did not welcome the birth of the Savior at all, such as the corrupt King Herod who slaughtered many young boys when his plot to kill the young Christ unraveled. He was interested only in his own power as a vassal of the Romans and saw the Savior simply as a threat to be destroyed. In today’s gospel reading, we encounter a figure not nearly as bloodthirsty as Herod, but who also did not welcome the Messiah, at least once he caught a glimpse of how different He was from what he had expected.
The rich man expected to find a teacher who would praise him for his record of good behavior. In response to his question about how to find eternal life, the Lord challenged the man to confront his spiritual weakness. This fellow claimed to have kept all of God’s commandments from his youth, for he thought that he had already mastered everything that God required. He assumed that he needed no repentance or divine mercy, presumably having already achieved perfection. That is when the Lord said to him, “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” This was a command that he lacked the spiritual strength to obey, for he was enslaved to the love of money and the comfort and power that it brings. Upon hearing this command, the rich man did not receive Christ joyfully, but “was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” (Mk. 10:22)
The Savior then shocked
everyone by saying, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the
kingdom of God! For it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God.” The common assumption
then was that wealth was God’s reward for those who were righteous. Since the
man was one of very few rich people in that time and place, he and his
neighbors surely assumed that his possessions were due to his exemplary
behavior. Their true spiritual
significance was very different, of course, for they showed that he had come to
love his wealth more than God and neighbor and, thus, obviously had failed to fulfill
the greatest of the commandments. As St. Basil the Great wrote of the rich
young ruler, “Those who love their neighbors as themselves possess nothing more
than their neighbor; yet surely, you seem to have great possessions! How else can this be, but that you have
preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many…For the more you abound
in wealth, the more you lack in love.”[1] Even
though this fellow departed in sadness, the Lord did not condemn the man, but
concluded with the statement: “What is impossible with men is possible with
God.” In other words, there remains hope
for those who come to see clearly where they stand before the Lord and humbly
offer themselves to Him for healing.
Paul had received Christ rather traumatically when the risen Lord appeared to him on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus. After being blind for three days, he was baptized, received his sight again, and took up his long and difficult ministry, which ultimately led to martyrdom. Paul described himself in ways that remind us of the rich young ruler: “My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews know...that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.” (Acts 26: 4-5) Despite the many sufferings he endured, Paul never walked away in sadness from the Lord, but proclaimed that “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (1. Tim. 1:15)
Paul is the complete opposite of those who think that they have somehow put God in their debt by their good behavior or that wealth and power are necessary, or even likely, signs of a person’s righteousness. Instead of proudly celebrating ourselves, he calls us to humility, patience, and mutual love that manifests Christ’s peace. There is, of course, no true peace in those whose sense of wellbeing is dependent upon showing themselves to be better than their neighbors, defending themselves from criticism that reveals their imperfection, or hoarding wealth. That lack of peace is precisely what led the rich man to walk away in sadness, for he could not bear to open his soul in humility to see how desperately he needed the mercy of Christ. To do so would have required acknowledging that he was by no means perfect, for he needed healing far beyond what he could ever give himself.
There remains,
nonetheless, hope for the rich young rulers of this world, for all is “possible
with God.” Likewise, there remains hope
for us all, for as Paul wrote, “grace was given to each of us according to the
measure of Christ’s gift.” The only way
to prepare to receive the Savior with joy at His Nativity is to cultivate the
humility of those who know that they lack the spiritual strength to master the
greatest of the commandments to love God with every ounce of our being and our
neighbors as ourselves. We pray, fast,
give, confess, repent, and forgive during these blessed weeks in order to prepare
our hearts to welcome the Savior, the God-Man Who comes to restore and fulfill us
as His living icons, making us nothing less than “partakers of the divine
nature.” The point is not simply to enrich our private spirituality, of course,
put to enter into the blessed peace of Christ, providing the world a sign of its
salvation as we learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, to pursue reconciliation
with our enemies, and to share with the needy in whom He is present. Let us continue to prepare to receive Him
with the joy of the Theotokos, the wisemen, the shepherds, and angels as the
Prince of Peace. His Nativity is good
news for the entire world from which we must never walk away in sadness.
[1]
Basil the Great, “To the Rich,” as quoted in Andrew Geleris, Money and
Salvation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2022), 54.
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