Rich Young Man
The story of the Rich Young Man in the scriptures (Mark10:17-31) was the subject of much discussion at our recent men’s fellowship meeting. Like the disciples in the story it seemed to many of us that Jesus was setting the bar too high. The formula for attaining safe passage to eternal life, based upon obeying the commandments was ruled out – the Lord said that it was not enough. He upped the ante on the Rich Young Man by requiring that he sell all his possessions and follow him, meaning that salvation depended upon utter dependence on God.
Let’s read the words of Jesus in Mark’s gospel (10:17-31). The young man said, “good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Keep the commandments.” He replied, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him said, “You are lacking in one thing. Go sell what you have and give to the poor and come follow me.” At that his face fell and he went away sad. The disciples were amazed at his words. Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”. They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible,but not for God. All things are possible for God.”
Reward and Punishment
Most of us are like the Rich Young Man. As early as the nursery, we are told that if we do something to please the grown up, good things will happen. Later on in grade school, we are rewarded for completing assignments and punished for failure to do what is required. It is clearly established that the world had a dual focus of good and bad, reward and punishment, success and failure. It is the way things work and expectations are build upon it. It is based upon the idea that the world is rational, that effort is rewarded and crime is punished. It is a world of quid pro quo yet there is something else – the unexpected, the unexplainable that interferes with projected outcome.
This natural balance between good and evil was very much in play in the Catholic world of pre-Vatican II. The reward and punishment scheme of the secular world was also the expectation of the spiritual life – in the end the good were rewarded in Heaven while the those who flouted the commandments went to Hell. There was no divergence between the assumptions of the two worlds. Those who were found to be in mortal sin on the day of judgement would be damned, while the just would attain eternal life. The proper spiritual incentives to believe were clearly in place. The fear of hell or a life in paradise were the two inducements offered to remain faithful to the Church with the emphasis on the former. It was the stick of punishment and the carrot of reward.
Vatican II was an enormously consequential event in the life of the Catholic Church, especially for the laity. The beliefs of the laity were redirected toward God’s love and mercy and away from His judgmental and punishing nature. Hell fire, damnation and sin were words that quickly disappeared from pulpit sermons to be replaced by homilies based upon God’s love. The balance between punishment and reward was upset. It appeared that spiritual effort was no longer required to remain in God’s favor. No matter what one did in violation of the commandments, God’s mercy is always at hand. The effect on the practice of the faith was dramatic and surely unintended. Participation in the live of the Church has fallen off dramatically and the virtues of self sacrifice and sexual continence that were hallmarks of the American Catholic have significantly declined. The Church itself has lost much of its influence in the course of civic affairs and its evangelizing mission is barely on the radar screen. No matter how you look at it, Vatican II has been a disaster for the Church by most human measures. The expected outcome of spiritual renewal did not take place. The carrot of God’s love did not replace the stick of God’s wrath. Indeed, for many God has become entirely irrelevant.
The great saint John Paul II in his New Evangelization encyclical Redemptoris Missio, declared that renewal of the Church cannot take place without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. How this personal conversion takes place is a mystery. It is to experience God’s love in an intimate,unique way. It was an experience that escaped the Rich Young Man and cannot be felt by spiritual or temporal effort alone. It is hard to convey the measure of God’s love from the pulpit, and has largely failed, but can be conveyed by personal witness. I experienced God’s love in practical terms in October 1985 at a definitive time and place and I give witness to it in my book The Evangelizing Catholic. As JPII has said, the evangelizing mission of the Church depends upon peer-to-peer story telling of individual experiences of God’s love and mercy. In the next blog I will speak to how this can become the ordinary practice of the faithful.
Who then can be Saved? Nobody only by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ!
The Evangelizing Catholic 