Taking it Home: Being inquisitive and questioning are signs usually associated with intelligence. It is the way we seek after wisdom, like the wisdom of our first reading. Questioning is the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. It is the inquisitive mind wanting to know what is right or wrong. what makes us tick, and what we should do to live rightly and justly. 
  But sometimes as adults the mind isn't so much being inquisitive and seeking after new knowledge as it is self-seeking. In ths situation the mind is not seeking wisdom as it is a desire to confirm what it thinks it already knows. It wants to confirm whether a previously determined action is good or bad. This is the mindset of people who live in a world of action and reward. "If I do such and such that I think is good, I should be rewarded for my behavior." This is self-justification. 
   Perhaps this is the situation in our gospel. In the gospel a man runs up to Jesus with a question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Perhaps he honestly asks this question, seeking to know from Jesus what is the path to eternal life; this is seeking after true wisdom. But as the story unfolds, we see that this man approached Jesus from the mindset that was seeking self-justification; in the man's mind he thought he already knew the answer to the question because he lives in a world of action and reward. So as Jesus tells the man to follow the commandments, the man feels a little self-satisfction because he has done all these things since his youth. The question was posed not from the standpoint of gaining new insight, as it was from the standpoint of feeling justified; of getting the answer the young man wanted and what he wanted was for Jesus to confirm the correctness of his behavior.
  But imagine the man's surprise, as well as disappointment, when Jesus continues and says that there is still one more thing for him to do. He already was a faithful Jew, having kept the commandments as he had been taught, so what more is there to do? He believed he did all that was necessary and so he should be rewarded. But Jesus is not operating in the mode of action and reward. Jesus wants the man to gain eternal life and eternal life, the treasure in heaven, is gained by having a realtionship with the good and gracious God. And this relationship comes about by attuning oneself completely to God therefore the treasure in heaven comes by dispossessing oneself of all that distracts from God, like many possessions. But because his possessions are what he has attached himself to he went away sad.
   Wouldn't you know it that the demands of faith are like that, requiring more than we anticipate. But faith if it is to be real and true is to be a continual process, a lifetime journey, a never-ending series of challenges, changes and struggles that is part of our movement through life as well as our parallel movement toward God. It asks us to grow, to be willing to bear the costs and to accept that following Jesus will require us to move beyond our own sense of self-satisfaction. To think that we could could get it once and for all without our willingness to do the one thing more required of us is a bit self-centered. But does Jesus really require us to sell all we own in order to follow him? Is our relationship with God to be so complete that we must dispossess ourselves of everything - yes our focus should be on God and God alone, but is this what it means? Well there are some who have heard this call and have done just that - St. Francis of Assisi comes to mind. But I think what Jesus is really asking from us is a spirit of detachment. Detachment is an attitude that means not allowing world values, goods or self-centeredness to distract us from what is most essential in life, our relationship with God and with one another. Detachment means that we we do not cling to what we possess - we are not determined by our possessions. They are gifts from God. Indeed, our very life is a gift from God. Once we recognize the graciousness of this gift, that it comes without having been earned or as entitlement, we can move beyond the sense of hoarding and possessing to a sense of gratitude and sharing. And isn't this the real wisdom we seek and the real reason why we ask the question?                                 

                                                  Deacon John