What must I do to Inherit Eternal Life?

Some years ago I came across a series of CD recordings from a conference by Franciscan Monk, Richard Rohr and a lay-woman writer, Paula D’Arcy.

The theme of the conference, to which they spoke, was “A Spirituality for the two halves of life” and I have listened to those talks over and over again because they speak into a very deep part of my life and experience.  In some ways they gave me a vocabulary for things I knew without having the words to express or even understand them.

Many of us understand the image of life as a journey and perhaps even more so when we give some consideration of our spiritual life as a journey – and I think it is fair to say that this could be a theme common to the readings we have had today and which I would like to explore with you.

Richard Rohr and Paula D’Arcy explore the idea that when we are young, or young in the faith, we need a structure for our spirituality that is very much based or rules and good order.  It is about developing the confidence that we know we are in the right place with God.

So it is that when we were young, what we needed for our faith to flourish, was good teaching, strong community and a set structure for our spiritual life such as regular times daily for prayer and devotion, strong obligations to be along at everything happening at church and the like.

All of this gave us a great foundation to build our life of faith on – Rohr would call it a strong container.

The interesting thing is that it is almost universally the case that after a while something will happen on our journey of faith that will break the container.  We will find ourselves in places where the old rules don’t work any more.  There are now too many inconsistencies in life or contradictions that we were once blind to but which are screaming in our face for attention – the rules and structure of the old container can’t cope with them any more.

Paul D’Arcy is the speaker who tells very graphically how her container was broken.  She had grown up in a devout Catholic family where their life in Christ was the rich seedbed of their family life. 

When she was just 27 years old and expecting her second child, she was involved in a traffic accident that killed her husband and daughter.

In her grief, the container broke.

This was not supposed to happen.  She had been a good person of faith.  She had done all the right things.   This was not supposed to happen.

It took her a long time, but she gradually discovered that there were some new ways in which she could be with God, in which her spiritual life was nurtured that didn't rely on everything fitting in according to the rules.

It is into this kind of faith that Job is being called through the most incredible suffering.

It was into this kind of faith that David was called as he struggled with his sense of failure and abandonment.

And if you study the lives of the great saints of God you will generally find that there has been a transformative moment for them that is born out of suffering but in which their container was broken but they went on to discover new dimensions of life in God.  St John of the Cross is a great example – he joined a monastery at a young age and was really very good and obedient.  But something went wrong and his Abbott put him in the monastery dungeon for two years – that really broke his container.

The Hebrews reading and the Gospel tell us something about Jesus that lines up with this.

One of the themes that Hebrews emphasizes is that Jesus was fully human and experienced all the highs and lows that we count as the human journey.

In this context, I can’t help wondering what might have happened to Jesus before he took on his public life and ministry as a thirty year old.

I am sure Mary & Joseph brought him us a good Jewish boy – he would have learned the Torah by heart and known the law as well as anyone, but it is very clear from his teaching that he has moved beyond that kind of “goody-two-shoes” kind of faith that is so full of confidence because he has kept all the rules. In fact a large part of his teaching ministry seemed to be railing against those who were using the rule-keeping as a means of maintaining their own self-righteousness and burdening others for whom it no longer worked.

I don’t think Jesus could have arrived at that kind of wisdom without some kind of transformative moment born out of great trouble or grief – but we will never know what it was.

So, a man runs up to Jesus and asks:

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Most of us resonate positively with that question, don’t we?  I am not sure that we all understand it in the same terms, but I think we get the idea – “How can I be sure?”  He wanted some reassurance that he was getting it all right.

It is interesting that Jesus starts with the rules – the Ten Commandments – and the man is able to say that he has kept all of these from his youth – he really was a “goodie-two-shoes” wasn’t he?

And then he gets to the heart of the matter – keeping the rules doesn't matter if your heart is set on things less important than God.  This man was rich and Jesus said “Let it all go – give it away to the poor.” 

This is the pathway to life in God – driving through the rules to the things that are most important.

For some people the distraction is money, but for others it is their job, or their social standing or their power.  All sorts of things can get in the way – things that we think will make us happy, but which invariably do not.

So, Jesus’ suggestion here that the man give away his money to help the poor is much more about the man than it is about the poor – not that Jesus doesn't always seem to have his eye out for the poor.

If you listen to the teaching of Jesus you do not find him often siding with the priestly style that emphasizes the law and the rules – most often he sides with the prophetic tradition that invariably involves a challenge to the establishment and the rules.

In Micah 6:8 we have three very simple filters through which to decide what is expected of us:

            Do Justice

            Love Compassion

            Walk Humbly

Jesus was inviting this man into that space and was saying in effect that if he did that, he would find peace with God – a much better peace than he gets from keeping the rules.

If I could remind you of last week’s Gospel story where Jesus seems to have a very legalistic response to the question about divorce and remarriage.  If you look carefully at the story you will discover that Jesus’ concern was not that the Pharisees wanted to be able to divorce – with him responding that you cannot do that.  Jesus’ concern was the sense of self-righteousness that the Pharisees wanted to maintain while they were doing what was clearly unjust and unkind – condemning a woman to a life of destitution because they wanted a new wife.  Jesus ran those filters over the situation and came up with what seemed like an unexpected answer.  I don’t think he would give the same answer to a woman of today who has been beaten and abused asking if it is right for her to divorce and remarry; or to a couple who have just lost it for so long now that they really are bad for each other and need to be free to start again with someone else.  They need grace and forgiveness – and Jesus offers a freedom to receive that and move on.

But I digress.

I really like the work that Richard Rohr and Paula D’Arcy have done, although there are times when I feel like they are simply describing two different kinds of spirituality, rather than one into which we are best suited to grow into.  So long as the structure of rules and the like is not having a negative impact on a person’s life, so long as they are not just papering over the things that don’t work in order to keep the rules-framework, then they are okay and they are in the right place for the moment.

But I wanted to use these readings today to introduce you to the idea, if you didn't know it already, that there is another way of living our life in God, that generally comes out of the tragedies and struggles we have in life and that is grounded in grace and freedom. 

More than once Jesus made it clear that no amount of rule-keeping is going to get us over the line – even the best rule-keeper will have failed to satisfy the demands of the law just as much as little old you and me – and we both know we aren't very good at the rules.

And the good news is that this new way, this way of freedom and grace, enables us to respond with compassion and inclusion to all the people we meet in our journey and be willing to travel with them for a while.

The Lord be with you.