HOMILY WEEK 20 01 – Year II
Trusting Surrender and the Rich Young Man
(Ezk 24:15-24; Dt 32; Mt 19:16-22)
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“Made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God as we understood God.”
That simple statement (Step 3 of the 12 Step program), I submit, captures the message God wants us to receive – more – to truly “get” and integrate into our lives, from today’s readings.
The prophet Ezekiel is given a puzzling, paradoxical instruction in the first reading – God would take away the delight of his eyes and he would not be allowed to mourn. The shocking loss was the death of his wife.
Israel was to take away a message concerning them from this strange behavior – because of their sin, infidelity and idolatry, their whole way of life and religious system would be taken away from them, and they will not mourn either, but rather “pine away in their iniquity and groan to one another.”
What are we to make of this strange prophetic behavior?
Two sayings from the 12 Step program can enlighten us: “Self-will run riot” and “We are not punished for our defects of character, we are punished by them.”
Some people are afflicted with such stubborn self-will they will continue to engage in risky or irrational behavior that is harmful to them, ignoring all attempts to help or warn them, until it is too late and they crash and burn. Joe Walsh in One Day at a Time sings that his addiction to vodka was for him, “Like a runaway train headed to the end of the line.”
The second saying then kicks in – we hit bottom and are faced with the consequences of our stubborn self-will – illness, loss of job, marriage, clinical depression, etc. I suspect we can all identify with this to some extent.
Someone who comes to mind again is Joan who was raised in a very rigid family with a very controlling, manipulative mother and very submissive father. Any love present in her family was conditional and had to be earned. Not allowed to follow a career of her own choosing, she shut down emotionally, slid into depression and became passive-aggressive. She married not out of love but to get out of the house. After she had children she realized her husband was serious about a simple lifestyle not focused on amassing possessions, prestige or power. Unable to stand up to her parents, who were well off, and unwilling to face her own dysfunctional reality, she began to project all her dysfunction on her husband so she could remain a victim instead of dealing with her inner child and family of origin issues. Her hurtful behavior threatened to destroy the family, yet she refused to accept any help for her depression. Nor was she able to grieve or mourn the losses in her life – so she is stuck in victimhood that is affecting everyone around her. I think Ezekiel’s prophecy fits her situation quite closely.
The psalm response (from Deuteronomy) underlines these two statements: In Israel’s stubborn self-will, she “forgot the God who gave her birth” and all the blessings she had, so God will hide God’s face from her and let her experience the consequences of her infidelity and idolatry.
In the gospel, Jesus provides the solution – total and complete faith in him. The rich young man had a noble desire, but the wrong way of carrying it out. He wanted to “possess” eternal life, or earn it by doing all the right things that Jesus pointed out. He was going to get to heaven his way. When Jesus pointed out one does not “possess or earn” heaven, but enters into eternal life as a free gift to those who trust in his love completely and are able to “give away” and “let go of” any possessions and merit they have earned, this wealthy young man was unable to trust to that degree, allow himself to receive instead of earn eternal life, and went away sad.
In my early years of ministry, I was doing my will in God’s name, carrying out a ministry of trying to change, fix and save others. In August of 1976, I came away from a charismatic conference in Calgary inexplicably sad, when everyone else was dancing with joy. The next morning, I presided at the Eucharist for the Grey Nuns in Edmonton, and this was the gospel that day. It suddenly stuck me – I was the rich young man, going away from a faith-filled conference sad. But why? It took me some months and the help of others to realize I was the same as that young man – trying to earn my way to heaven by my ministry, instead of trusting in the love of Jesus, that he was the savior and not me, and surrendering my will to his. That was a major transition in my spiritual walk with the Lord.
The Eucharist is a great act of faith in the presence of Jesus among us, offering us freely and fully, through word and sacrament, God’s unconditional, unearned love for us.
May our celebration help us let go, let God, and surrender our lives and our wills to God as we understand God.
