With its stories and symbols, the Bible helps us make sense of our lives. It’s given by God to light up our path. And so it is with these Gospel readings from St Mark we’re hearing these Sundays, today too. We can picture the Lord on his way to Jerusalem where humans will put him to death and God the Father will raise him to life. With a limited understanding of what’s going on, the disciples are trailing loyally behind him. Well, this is fair picture of us surely. Together, in the Church that is, we journey together to “Jerusalem”, that is to the fulfilment God has in store for us, a full sharing in the Lord’s death and resurrection, the working out of what began with our baptism. We are on the way to eternal life in the heavenly Jerusalem, the glorified Body of the resurrected Christ. This is life as our faith sees it.
Today, just as the Lord sets out on the next leg of his journey, up runs this well-heeled young man with his question, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus gives him the classical answer, keep the commandments, and even lists some of them: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery etc. I’ve always done that, says the young man. Then their encounter changes gear. First, Jesus just looks at him and, it says, “loves him”. And out of this love comes a call to something more: to give up his wealth, to give it to the poor and to come and follow Christ. Christ is asking him to let go of what he holds so dear and to enlist in the journey to Jerusalem. Now, to keep the commandments is good. It’s imperative. I cannot claim to follow Christ but spend my Thursdays shoplifting! But the Lord is asking this young man to leave something behind and follow him – not just the Law, but him, Wisdom in person (cf. the 1st reading), the Word in person (cf. the 2nd reading), the Law in person (cf. the Gospel), not a book like the Law of Moses or the Koran of Islam, but a living, breathing, moving, talking, looking, loving person: the Way, the Truth and the Life. He’s the One who takes us through his suffering and death into glory and life.
What does this Gospel mean for us? Perhaps there is a budding St Francis here who will go out, give his credit card and pin number to the first homeless person he meets and head for a monastery. The power of God’s word! But most of us will not be doing that. What we can all take away, though, is a renewed awareness: that following Christ means giving something up; it entails renunciations.
For the early Christians, say, the first listeners to St Mark’s Gospel, becoming Christian may well have meant ejection from their family, disinheritance, even delation to civil authority.
For Scottish, English, Irish Catholics in the 17th and 18th centuries, being Catholic meant things like exclusion from public office, the inability to own land or enter professions like the law, the military, teaching; it could mean being fined or imprisoned for attending Catholic worship and so on. If you were to be a faithful Catholic, it entailed a very restricted life. Many apostatised, but not all.
In northern Nigeria now, going to Mass can mean being exposed to the possibility of terrorism – and yet they still go.
In Pakistan now, churches are kept locked outside services as they can easily be trashed, and the threat of denunciation for blasphemy hangs over every Christian – and yet the faith is alive.
Even here, I know, people can miss out on career opportunities just for following a Christian conscience. This proves we’re real.
So, yes, if we follow Christ some renunciation will come our way. But not just that, not even mainly that. St Peter blurts out, “Lord we have given up everything to follow you, what will we get?” Eternal life, says the Lord, a share in my resurrection, but now, even now a hundredfold, even amid ongoing trouble: brothers and sisters, mothers and children, houses and land. What was the Lord meaning by this great promise? Surely, he was looking ahead beyond his own death and glorification. He was looking to Pentecost, to the birth of the Church, the life and growth of the Church, to life in the family of God, friendship, fellowship, fraternity. These are real things. Forgive me mentioning myself, but 50 years ago I came to Scotland and became a monk. God be praised, I’m not short of brothers and sisters, of spiritual mothers and spiritual children. (I even have quite a nice house). And the hope of life eternal. God is good, God is generous. Give him an egg, say the French, and he’ll give you beef.
So, brothers and sisters, let’s go on. Let the Gospel guide our lives. We’re on the good way. We’ve backed the right horse. We’re supporting the winning team. Yes, he looks at us too, and loves us. And he says, “Come. follow me!”
St Mary’s Cathedral, 13 October 2024
