We listen to a lengthy selection from the gospel of Mark, and it comes with a young man coming up to Jesus and basically asking, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus then gives him the commandments as we have come to know them. And the young man responds and says, well, I have done all of those things.
And Jesus looks at him and says, well, then there’s only one thing left for you. Give what you have away to the poor and come follow me. Perhaps the most important part of the Jesus response is the invitation. Come follow me. For what? Jesus is basically offering him is that he become a companion of Jesus and becoming a companion of Jesus.
He then shares in the good work of Jesus, and certainly the good work of Jesus is again to care for those who are least in our midst. That is the invitation that the young man receives. It is something that he finds very difficult to accept because, as the Scripture says, he had many possessions. In a sense, the whole struggle that is presented in this particular episode in the gospel of Mark is the struggle for each of us in our lives.
We might not be wealthy. We might not have fortunes. We might not be listed in that category of who’s the millionaire or the billionaires this year. But the reality is, we all have things that consume us. Maybe it’s our family. Maybe it’s our work. Maybe it’s where we want to go to travel or any of those things, multiple things that draw our attention or consume our attention.
And what Jesus is basically saying to this young man above all else, there should be one factor that consumes your life, and that is Jesus and this sense. If you have Jesus as the center, then everything will fall into its proper place. But having Jesus at the center is not the easiest thing any one of us, because it requires that we spend time with him.
It requires that we have prayer, not merely the recitation of the hour Father or the Hail Mary or any of those things, but that we are actually engaged in an ongoing conversation with Jesus. And in the first, in the second reading, in the letter to Hebrews, you see the reference. The Word of God is living and effective. In a sense.
Our prayer should grow out of. Our familiarity with Scripture for being familiar with Scripture is being familiar with Jesus, and it is in the Scripture that Jesus provides us with the opportunity to be engaged with him. And that engagement then leads us, leads us to a more prayerful life. And it also leads us to imitate Jesus in the way we deal with one another and the world in which we live.
It makes us charitable. Just as Jesus says to the young man.
Yeah.
It’s great that you follow all the rules.
But do you follow Jesus? Do you align yourself with Jesus? Do you? Are you at one with him? Do you become, by his invitation Jesus his companion, and have Jesus as the companion in your life? It is a challenge. It is a challenge that is always faced with difficulty. But that difficulty can be overcome. As we grow more familiar with Jesus, and as we become more deeply embedded in the gift of his life.