28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has written a lot about male spirituality talks about how in the first half of his life, every man needs to build a tower, needs to achieve something, needs to prove himself to the world, make a name for himself. He needs to learn the path of ascent and the important lessons that asceticism, hard work and self-discipline are necessary if one is to get anywhere in life. And then, says Richard Rohr, having built the tower, in the second half of life, a man must learn to jump off his tower, leave everything he has built, his name, his ego, and learn the path of descent – learn nowreadings: first: book: “Wisdom of Solomon” reference: “7:7–11” psalm: book: “Psalm” reference: “90:12–17” response: book: “Psalm” reference: “90:14” second: book: “Hebrews” reference: “4:12–13” acclamation: book: “Matthew” reference: “5:3” gospel: book: “Mark” reference: “10:17–30” to walk blindly on a path that he sees not, into the dark night of the soul, a time of purification and complete trust in the Lord.

In our gospel today, I think we are seeing a young man who has built his tower, and he has built a very good one. This is not some rich young entitled brat living off his father’s wealth. This is a self-made man, he is not indolently enjoying the comforts of his wealth. He has come by his wealth through hard work and self-discipline. In the zeitgeist of his time – his wealth is the symbol that he has arrived – he has been blessed by God. Not only has he built a tower of wealth with his self-discipline and hard work, he has also built a spiritual tower of wealth – he has observed the commandments since his youngest day. He has got to the top of the tower, and having built this tower and got to the top, he realizes there is still something missing. He has not come to Jesus to be congratulated and told – well done – you’ve made it. He knows there is something missing, he knows that this cannot be all that there is to life.

He knows that there is a prize, eternal life, and he feels that he has not yet taken hold of it. He feels he must have got most of the way, everyone tells him how holy he is, how blessed he is by God. There must just be one last thing that he needs to crown his tower with – the cherry on the cake – this is what he comes to Jesus looking for.

Imagine his disappointment when Jesus tells him that instead of taking hold of something, he must let go of something. Jesus doesn’t tell him, ah yes, right so your tower is missing a turret here and a spire there. He tells him to literally jump off his tower. To literally abandon the one single most concrete sign that he can hold onto that he is blessed by God and is on the right track to inheriting eternal life. He asks him instead to do something that has few guarantees – follow me – take a leap in the dark and follow me, take it on trust – walk a path where you can see only one step at a time. He is unprepared to take this leap into the dark. This man is one of the few people in the gospels who comes away from an encounter with Jesus untransformed. In most encounters with Jesus, a transformation and healing occur because two things. Firstly because of Jesus’ love for the person and secondly because of their faith that his love is worth more than anything else they have encountered thus far. This is why Jesus says to several people, “Go your faith has saved you.” In this encounter, the first ingredient is present: we are told that Jesus looked at him and loved him. But the second ingredient is not present, namely his faith in this love, his readiness to trust this big enough to compensate for the loss of everything else that he holds dear.

Jesus’ disciples on the other hand had taken this leap into the dark, but they had taken it, fully expecting to be able to build their own personal towers off the back of Jesus’ popularity and power that was surely at one point or another going to be transformed into political power. When they hear Jesus telling them that if a person doesn’t jump off their tower, they won’t be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they begin to wonder whether there is going to be a reward for them after all. Peter voices this anxiety on behalf of the others and pipes up: “Lord we have left everything to follow you,” leaving the next part of his question unspoken: “what’s in it for us? Was all this for nothing?”

Jesus assures them that they will not lose their reward. They will receive a hundredfold what they have sacrificed both in this life and in the next. The brothers, sisters mothers, fields and houses that Jesus promises them are of course the kith and kin that they will find in the new Christian community where everything is held in common, for the common good. This vision for a new society only works where each person has had the courage to jump off their towers and is freed of the need to derive their self-worth from their possessions and achievements. Jesus invites us today to take that same leap of faith. Each of us has our own towers, the things that we have given our whole lives to building, without which we would feel lost and at sea. While Jesus is not inviting us to simply walk away from everything we have spent our lives building, he might well be inviting us to check how free we really are to give priority to some other aspect of our lives. Being lost and at sea without our towers is not necessarily a bad thing if it gives us the chance to grow in the conviction that Jesus’ love is all we really need in life.

Questions for reflection:

1. If happiness is arrived at, not by adding things to your life, but by subtracting something, what might the thing(s) God is calling you to let go off in order to find eternal life?
2. How would you describe the tower that you have spent your life building? What would jumping off it look like? What might taking a leap of blind faith into the boundless love of God look like?
3. Imagine yourself looking into Jesus’ eyes and seeing him love you. Let Jesus hold you in that loving gaze and let him tell you the one thing that you lack? What does he say to you?