The ruler in today’s Gospel reflects one who’s outwardly kept the commandments of God: he’s kept himself from adultery, he’s not stolen, he’s not cheated his neighbor or born false witness, and, he’s honored his father and mother. In the eyes of the world, this is a ‘good,’ upstanding man. He’s got all these things checked off his list; he’s not outwardly committed any of the ‘big sins.’ He comes to Jesus to reaffirmed in his own thinking that he’s arrived, that his attitude of having done his duty and kept himself from these sins is all that’s expected of him.
Now before we delve into the answer to the ruler’s question, “what still do I lack,” we can acknowledge his outward keeping of the commandments, i.e., he’s not stolen, he’s not committed adultery, he’s not defrauded his neighbor, etc. This is what we’d like to see in other people, that is, to meet someone who is ‘moral’, ‘good,’ someone ‘God-fearing.’ But this is not ultimately what God desires for us; keeping the commandments outwardly, doing our ‘duty’ before God is only the start and not the finish line of our ‘race of faith,’ of our relationship and communion with God; it is meant to be the fruit of a heart that loves and fears God.
This ruler, knowing he’s followed the tenets of the Law, comes confidently, even proudly, before Christ, as if to flatter Him but without acknowledging Who He is as God. He flatters Christ by entrusting to Him the ultimate question but without acknowledging His power to answer that question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He does so to be likewise flattered in return, to be told that he’s good enough. So, he asks Christ, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The reaction he receives startles him: he’s not told, “Oh, you’re already so good, you’re already set. No, instead, Christ shakes him to the core saying, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is God.”
You can almost hear the surprise in the man’s response as if to say: What? You mean I’m not already set for the Kingdom of God; my opportunity to show myself off in my pridefulness isn’t working? It’s not enough just to ‘do my duty’ before God outwardly?
Salvation isn’t a duty; it’s a gift of grace, of God’s goodness towards us and our cooperation with that grace. This is why the correct response and attitude toward God is one of thanksgiving and gratitude, coupled with repentance, a hallmark of the virtue of humility working in us. We cannot save ourselves; we aren’t saved by our deeds, however ‘good.’ Rather, our following of the commandments is meant to be the fruit of a heart, a soul, submitted to God, thirsting for God, desirous of life with God. As Christ points out to us, if goodness—doing one’s ‘duty’ toward God, were the criterion, no one would be saved because One alone is good and that One is God.
The philosophy that one is automatically going to heaven if one is ‘good,’ if one has done one’s ‘duty’ toward God as we subjectively decide for ourselves, continues to be one of the greatest heresies to this day. It isn’t a question of insufficient ‘goodness’ as much as one of trying to put a square peg in a round hole—it just won’t work; it is not what is necessary for us to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven; it is the answer of the Pharisee and not of the Publican.
We remember that King David, an adulterer and a murderer, one who did not keep the ‘outward’ commandments nevertheless found forgiveness and mercy from God because, as he relates to us in Psalm 50, “a contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”
Without acknowledgement of sin and ‘missing the mark,’ without a firm commitment to repentance, and the accompanying contriteness and humility of heart, one cannot draw close to God, one cannot find salvation because it is this repentant, open and humble heart that is God-pleasing, that is compatible with life with God. Why? Because it is such a heart that is hungering and thirsting after more from God, that is building up treasure in heaven, that is seeking a Savior, and not relying on self and through stoniness of heart, indicating no need for the Savior and subsequently closing his heart to the Savior’s healing and salvation.
The problem of the ruler, then, is not what he’s done or not done, but that he neglects the conversion of the soul within because he has another god: it is not as is sometimes thought just his riches, but rather, also his own self-justification, his own erroneous thinking that he is ‘good enough’ to be saved. Christ God sees into his heart and for that reason, addresses the very thing that will keep this man from being able to follow Christ and be with Christ: his self-reliance. To remedy the situation and enable the man to depend on God for His salvation, His needs, His very breath, Christ admonishes him to give away his possessions and, then, to follow Him. Jesus Christ makes it clear to us here and elsewhere in the Gospel, as He does in the first of the Ten Commandments, that we can have “no other gods” but Him for He alone is God. In his heart, the young man has another god: himself, and subsequently, his riches.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot embrace the life in Christ, communion with Him, if our treasure is not in Him but in our own self-reliance, self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. If we follow the ‘externals’ of God’s commandments, and stop at ‘doing our duty’ before God, if our treasure is elsewhere, in our own self-reliance, then we have no room for Christ to be our God and Savior, we have no room to grow to be transformed more and more into His likeness through deification. Such a one cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. This truth is behind the words of Christ when He says, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God” for the problem is not the man’s riches, per say, but his dependence on them and on himself.
God knows how much of a hold our sense of material well-being and our self-righteousness can have on us and how it can insulate us against the need to put our trust and our faith in Him, to possess that contrite and humble heart that we need to be in Christ God’s near presence and to realize Who it is alone that can save us, heal us, and grant us eternal life.
The young man goes away sorrowful from his encounter with Christ because he realizes that the very thing that grips him, that moves him, and motivates him: his material well-being and self-reliance, is precisely that which he’s asked to give up to inherit eternal life.
And so, we too are cautioned and given the opportunity this Sunday to ask ourselves: Do I have anything in my life that I love more than God, that I rely on in my self-reliance and control instead of trusting in God? Have I put any other gods before him: My time? My priorities? My reliance on self? My earthly possessions? My passions?
Whatever that something may be that seems impossible for us to give up because of the false sense of ‘control’ it gives us, we remember Christ’s other words today, “The things which are impossible for men are possible with God.” May we repent of all such prideful self-reliance. May we beseech God this day to relinquish to the Savior of our souls, to Him who is eternal life, those attitudes of heart, vices, false controls, that may keep us from putting Him and His Church first in our lives, and may we learn to possess to a greater extent that “contrite and humble heart” so pleasing to God and so necessary for us to follow our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ now and in the age to come.
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 18 January 2015
Epistle: I Timothy 1:15-17
Gospel: Luke 18:18-27
