18 August 2014 - follow

Jesus wants to give us the grace to follow him, this morning.  He wants to help us get beyond everything that holds us back.  He invites us to take it to the next level, to be perfect.  Earlier in Matthew he tells us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  Now he helps us to see what that means for a particular person.  He wants to help this man to have the "holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (cf. Heb. 12:14).  His face is hidden from this man but he wants to reveal it.

Jesus wants to help this guy see beyond his religious complacency.  The young man is like us when we have a hard time thinking of things to tell the priest at confession, "All of these I have observed."  But he still senses something is amiss.  Just being in the presence of Jesus, the "One who is good", invites him to come higher.  So he asks, "What do I still lack?"

I will now desecrate my sanctuary, the stronghold of your pride,
the delight of your eyes, the desire of your soul.

If the LORD's sanctuary becomes a point of pride for us he has no choice but to allow it to be desecrated.  He reveals the insufficiency of our own observance of the law.  He desecrates it with the sense of something which we still lack.  This desecration prevents us from being content with too little.  He is willing to take away the delight of our eyes because we have been delighted with too little.  The desires of our souls are too small.  He even says, "I will hide my face from them" if he must.  He does not want to be distant and yet he cannot put a tacit approval on a life that has ceased to grow toward him.

Yet even if his face is hidden he does not abandon us.  He still comes near to us to invite us to follow him more closely.  In the presence of the "One who is good" we realize that there is something we all still lack.  There is something in all of us which we need to give away so that our treasure can really be in heaven.  There are still "many possessions" of earthly treasures of which we need to divest ourselves.  We need to sell them so we can receive the pearl of great price and the treasure hidden in the field.  We need to store our treasure in heaven "where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal."  Then our treasure will be secure, and so will our hearts, because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."


It is possible to keep the letter of the law but to forget "God who gave you birth."  It is possible to check off all the boxes.  We all experience struggling to examine our conscience all the while having the sense that something is lacking.  Are we still trying to find a formula?  A system? There is no formula or system.  Those are things that we can hold and grasp.  Those are under our control.  We are called to let go of these vestiges of control and to just heed the call of Jesus, "come, follow me."  There are no guarantees about what such a call might entail.  It can be scary, but it is meant to be exhilarating.   Ultimately, it is more than we can ask or imagine.